International Trade as a Means to Diverse Ends : Development, Workers, the Environment, and Global Public Goods

Diverse goals which are widely agreed to be important in world society. Nevertheless, discussions on trade policy often refer only to economic objectives, usually still more narrowly conceived in terms of gains in aggregate income through trade. Where other objectives are not simply ignored, it is often assumed either that they can be met through the independent exercise of non-trade policy instruments or that they will be met automatically if only the stated economic objectives are furthered. In contrast, we argue that many such aims will not be promoted automatically by increasing the volume of trade or of global income nor is it generally sufficient to suppose that these other objectives can be promoted satisfactorily by separately applying suitable non-trade policy instruments. As a result, it is necessary to take diverse objectives into account in the design of the world trading system. We sketch the underlying theory and possible practical mechanisms