Western economic theory has also changed in recent years to reflect the fact that, since the early 1970s, world trade has grown much faster than overall economic growth. In 1973, the share of exports to GDP in the United States was 4.9%, up from more than double in 2005 to 10.2%. Globally, the rate was 10.5% in 1973 and 20.5% in 2005. It should be noted that Asia was largely devoid of regional trade agreements. China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan – five of the world`s largest distributors — are the only major economic powers not to have participated in a regional agreement (before the creation of APEC, which of course includes non-Asian countries). The only sub-regional agreements, including Asian countries, are the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), which only became a serious commercial enterprise in the mid-1990s (to some extent to avoid being eroded by APEC itself) and the Agreement between Australia and New Zealand. Asian countries, led by Japan and Korea, have therefore placed more emphasis on the global trading system than almost every other WTOs member. In analyzing the impact of a surplus or deficit, economists often consider „trade“ very far in the definition. In general, economists do not consider simply the balance of trade in goods, such as the „current account balance,“ which includes the trade balance of goods and services, as well as net income from international income (profits transferred from foreign investments, royalties, interest and dividends) and unilateral transfers (foreign aid and transfers of individuals to be relevant). With the exception of unilateral transfers, all of these elements are included in our trade agreements.
In Britain, free trade became a central principle practiced by the repeal of the maize laws in 1846. The League of The Anti-Corn Law was sponsored by the Anti-Corn League. Under the Nanjing Treaty, China opened five contract ports for world trade in 1843. The first free trade agreement, the Cobden-Chevalier Treaty, was put into force in 1860 between Great Britain and France, resulting in successive agreements between other European countries. [36] The Heckscher-Ohlin model, which is likely to project likely business models between countries with different production factors, has really not explained this business model. Krugman`s theory is based on product differentiation and economies of scale. A jeep and a Volkswagen, for example, are both automobiles, but they are very different from the consumer era. And both benefit from economies of scale; In other words, the larger the production, the lower the costs can be reduced in a wide range of volumes. Unlike wheat, where costs increase with volume expansion, the cost of each additional automobile produced decreases with increased production, but for very high production costs. Products such as automotive require large mechanized production processes and significant investment, and it can be extremely difficult for a new entrant to compete with a well-established company. 25. At their annual summits in 1994 and 1995, APEC leaders expressly supported the search for global free trade (italics added).
[20] Viner notes that the rule that global well-being is reduced when trade diversion is more important than trade creation is reduced, and that is when unit costs decrease in a sector, when production is expanding. In such a case, a small country may not have been able to develop an industry because its market size was too small, but it is able to develop the industry through a customs union or a free trade agreement.