Category Archives: Trade Policy

Some Thoughts on the Art of (Trade) War

夫未戰而庙算胜者,得算多也;未戰而庙算不勝者,得算少也。

The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand. — Sun Tzu

Guess which sentence applies to which side in the incipient struggle?

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Springtime for Social Scientists, Winter for Markets and Exporters

I’ve got new event study examples for my finance course! Trade policy measures that are evaluated to hurt profitability of major US listed firms have definitive effects on the Dow Jones index.


Figure 1: Dow Jones Industrial Average index. Red bold lines at announcement of impending Section 232 national security based trade restrictions on steel, and Section 301 trade sanctions aimed at China. Source: TradingEconomics.
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Nearly Two Decades of US-Canada Trade Balance Data

There seems to be some confusion regarding the distinction between trade balance in goods and services (a typical macro variable of interest) and trade balance in goods (more commonly reported, but less and less relevant on its own as countries become more service intenstive). In order help remedy this confusion, I plot below freely and easily accessible data, for those willing to expend a few calories to click.

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