Goolsbee Appointment Good News for Global Trade

Bryan Riley / September 10, 2010

President Obama reportedly plans to name Austan Goolsbee to head his Council of Economic Advisers. This appointment is good news for advocates of expanded international trade. One of the world’s leading trade economists, Jagdish Bhagwati, described Goolsbee as a valuable source of free-trade advice over almost a decade. During the presidential campaign, Goolsbee described his views on trade in the following way:

I do believe there’s no one more in favor of open markets than me and that said, if you look at a free trade agreement—if you have never read a free trade agreement I encourage you to go read it—because it is as close to the economists’ case for free trade as our tax code is to the economists’ case for the ideal tax system. If you look at these 900-page agreements, they’re two pages of what every economist says “yeah, that’s great”—opening tariffs—and then 898 pages of loopholes. (more…)