Free Trade Poll

Mankiw links to a poll in his defense of Free Trade in which a selected group of economists responded to two questions:

Question A: By lowering bargaining costs, fast-track negotiating authority for the president makes it more likely that the U.S. can conclude major trade deals

Question B: Past major trade deals have benefited most Americans

Not exactly whether they believe Free Trade based on comparative advantage holds as a theory. Note that one my think that trade is determined by absolute advantage, which would imply that some degree of trade management is required if a country is not to be out-competed by low cost countries, and still agree with both propositions.

So here a poll to see how many readers of this blog think the theoretical proposition is correct (and how many of these are economists).

Poll disabled; results above. So in contrast to Mankiw's results, most readers of this blog, including economists, think that comparative advantage does not always determine trade patterns. Free Trade might not be the best policy in that case. Maybe that means that there is a strong consensus among heterodox economists that free trade is not good for all countries involved. Likely, but this is hardly a reliable poll.