This briefing on international trade by CSU-Northridge’s Robert Krol looks like a good introduction to estimates of trade’s costs and benefits for political science classes discussing the global economy. It briefly summarizes in plain language the results of Baier & Bergstrand (2001), Bernhofen & Brown (2005), Frankel & Romer (1999), Wacziarg & Welch (2008), Broda & Weinstein (2006), and Robert Lawerence’s Blue-Collar Blues.
For an economics class, I’d recommend that students actually read (some) of those papers.
Professor Krohl points out that international trade has “directly” effected 15% US workers. Is there a way to measure the “indirect” effect? Recently US auto industry executives have claimed that the loss of one auto worker job will effect as many as 10 more supporting jobs? What is the professor’s view of those claims? Will the professor adjust his list of benefits after adding 2008 statistics?