Reading Category 1
Douglas Irwin argues that these policies transfer wealth “from the many to the few.”
What are protectionist policies?
These post-1970s innovations drastically reduced transport costs and fueled globalization.
What are container shipping and digital logistics?
According to Irwin, trade raises a nation’s overall standard of living by allowing countries to do this with their resources.
What is specialize based on comparative advantage?
This British leader, along with Ronald Reagan, symbolized the neoliberal turn away from state intervention in the 1980s.
Who is Margaret Thatcher?
In 2025, this issue continues to dominate U.S. economic debate, as policymakers weigh the trade-offs between stimulating growth and controlling prices.
What is inflation?
The “Battle of Seattle” protests in 1999 targeted this global trade organization for promoting deregulation and corporate power.
What is the World Trade Organization (WTO)?
The 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, was launched on the same day this trade agreement took effect.
What is NAFTA?
This president famously declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
Who is Ronald Reagan?
Irwin uses this 1930 U.S. law to show how protectionism can deepen recessions and reduce global welfare.
What is the Smoot–Hawley Tariff?
The 2024–25 U.S. budget negotiations reignited debate over entitlement spending — what two major programs are typically at the center of this debate?
What are Social Security and Medicare?
This classical economist argued for free trade and comparative advantage as natural laws of efficiency.
Who is David Ricardo?
In Irwin’s analysis, this theory explains why small, well-organized groups can dominate policymaking.
What is the Logic of Collective Action?
Policymakers increasingly justify industrial policy with this twofold rationale combining economic and security concerns.
What is national security and resilience?
The 1997–98 Asian Financial Crisis, which followed IMF austerity measures, revealed the risks of this set of neoliberal policy prescriptions.
What is the Washington Consensus?
Some critics argue that policies like the Inflation Reduction Act may create unequal regional benefits — raising which classic policy dilemma?
What is efficiency versus equity?
Public anger during the 2008 financial crisis fueled this protest movement, which challenged the efficiency-first focus of both parties.
What is Occupy Wall Street?
The Mont Pelerin Society, founded by this economist in 1947, sought to revive classical liberalism and oppose collectivism.
Who is Friedrich Hayek?
Alan Greenspan admitted after the 2008 crash that this core belief of neoliberalism—markets self-regulate—had a “flaw.”
What is faith in deregulation or market efficiency?
The U.S. exports these high-value goods that demonstrate its comparative advantage.
What are aircraft, agricultural products, and software services?
In 2025, bipartisan concern about TikTok and AI data flows reflects a new kind of public policy challenge combining technology and what?
What is national security or privacy regulation?
The “economic style” in policymaking treats this value as the central measure of a good policy.
What is efficiency?
Clinton’s Executive Order 12866 continued Reagan’s legacy by maintaining this form of regulatory analysis.
What is cost-benefit analysis?
By the 1990s, this set of institutions—IMF, World Bank, and WTO—spread neoliberal reforms worldwide through “structural adjustment” policies.
What are the Bretton Woods institutions?
In 2024, this U.S. federal law significantly increased subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
What is the CHIPS and Science Act?
The ongoing “friend-shoring” strategy with allies like Mexico and Vietnam is part of a larger U.S. effort to reduce dependence on what?
What is the Chinese supply chain or geopolitical rivals?
Keynesianism reached its peak under this president’s “New Economics” agenda before losing authority in the 1970s.
Who is John F. Kennedy?
The Employment Act of 1946 embodied Keynesian ideas by formally committing the U.S. government to pursue this macroeconomic goal.
What is full employment?
The CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act represent a blending of trade and domestic strategy known as what?
What is strategic industrial policy or economic nationalism?
This concept from trade theory says tariffs on imports act like taxes on exports, since both distort domestic costs.
What is the Lerner Symmetry Theorem?
In October 2025, the European Central Bank warned that recent U.S. tariffs under Donald Trump might yet inflict major damage on global trade. What longstanding assumption about liberalized trade does this call into question?
What is that a stable, rules-based trade order can be taken for granted?