taxes

What's Wrong with Tariffs?

I'm reading another of the recent rash of books which concern development policies in the third world over the past 50, or so, years. This one, "Bad Samaritans" by Ha-Joon Chang supports protective tariffs for countries trying to establish their own domestic industries without having to worry about the competition from already dominant foreign firms.

This is part of a small, but increasingly vocal, heterodox movement which disagrees with the conventional wisdom that "free trade" is the correct solution to all international economic issues. I'm not interested in rehashing the arguments, other than to point out that the "protectionists" can point to some rather successful examples that illustrate their thesis. In this book, it is the author's home country of South Korea.

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