ABSTRACT

In this article, I offer a methodological analysis of the empirical research on the causal effects of trade liberalisation, and assess whether such studies can be of any use for guiding policy prescriptions in real-world economies. The analysis focuses on the mainstream economic research that has been used to support arguments in favour of trade liberalisation during the last decades. Even though there are empirical results that could be taken as valid evidence for a causal connection between free trade and economic gains, none of the existing evidence licences trustworthy inferences about the policy effectiveness of trade liberalisation reforms in real-world cases. There are three aspects of the empirical literature that make it highly problematic for making reliable policy inferences: (a) the criteria used to define the notion of ‘free trade’, (b) the background assumptions embedded in the econometric techniques used for estimating causal effects, and (c) the widespread desire among academic economists to attain scientific results in terms of universally valid generalisations. The analysis exposes a worrisome mismatch between, on the one hand, the research aims and outcomes of scientific economics and, on the other, the kind of evidence that would be useful for guiding actual policy deliberations.

摘要

在本文中，我对贸易自由化的因果影响的实证研究进行了方法论分析，并评估这些研究是否可以用于指导现实世界经济中的政策处方。该分析侧重于过去几十年中被用来支持支持贸易自由化的论点的主流经济研究。尽管有实证结果可以作为自由贸易和经济收益之间因果关系的有效证据，但现有的证据都没有许可在现实世界案例中就贸易自由化改革的政策有效性做出值得信赖的推论。实证文献的三个方面使得做出可靠的政策推论存在很大问题：（a）用于定义“自由贸易”概念的标准，(b) 用于估计因果效应的计量经济学技术中的背景假设，以及 (c) 学院派经济学家普遍希望根据普遍有效的概括获得科学结果。该分析一方面揭示了科学经济学的研究目标和结果之间存在令人担忧的不匹配，另一方面也揭示了有助于指导实际政策审议的证据类型之间存在令人担忧的不匹配。