Adair Turner navaja dejstva, zakaj bodo učinki bodočih liberalizacij trgovine nujno manjši kot v preteklosti. Ključni razlogi so, da je trgovina s proizvodi že zelo liberalizirana, medtem ko se vzorci potrošnje v razvitih državah spreminjajo. Največji delež porabe odpade na storitve, s katerimi ni mogoče trgovati ali v zelo omejenem obsegu. Spreminja se tudi način proizvodnje – povečana robotizacija proizvodnje bo zahtevala vse manj prenosa proizvodnje v tujino. Hkrati pa imajo razvite države trenutno večje probleme, kot so spodbujanje rasti in zmanjševanje zadolženosti, v primerjavi s katerimi so učinki trgovinske liberalizacije zelo majhni.

But further trade liberalization is bound to be of declining importance to economic growth. […] With industrial tariffs already dramatically reduced most potential benefits of trade liberalization have already been grasped. Estimates of the benefits of further trade liberalization are often surprisingly low – no more than a few percentage points of global GDP.

That is small compared to the cost of the 2008 financial crisis, which has left output in several advanced economies 10-15% below pre-crisis trend levels. It is small, too, compared to the difference in economic performance between successful catch-up countries – such as China – and other countries that have enjoyed the same access to global markets but have performed less well for other reasons.

The main reason for slow progress in trade negotiations is not increasing protectionism; it is the fact that further liberalization entails complex trade-offs no longer offset by very large potential benefits. The Doha Round’s failure has been decried as a setback for developing countries. And some liberalization – say, of advanced economies’ cotton imports – would undoubtedly benefit some low-income economies. But full trade liberalization would have a complex impact on the least developed economies, some of which would benefit only if compensated for the loss of the preferential access to advanced-economy markets that they currently enjoy.

This implies that further progress in trade liberalization will be slow. But slow progress is a far less important challenge to growth prospects than the debt overhang in developed economies, or infrastructure and educational deficiencies in many developing economies. That reality often goes unacknowledged. The importance of past trade liberalization has left the global policy establishment with a bias toward assuming that further liberalization would bring similar benefits.

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Meanwhile, for some low-income countries, increased manufacturing and service-sector automation of the sort described by Brynjolfsson and McAfee, whether within advanced economies or within China’s established industrial clusters, will make the path to middle- and high-income status more difficult to achieve. That poses important challenges for development policy, which further trade liberalization can alleviate only marginally.

Vir: Adair Turner, The Trade Delusion