Comparative Advantage and American Jobs
Matthew J. Slaughter
1/26/2011
Slaughter welcomes the news that President Obama has created a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. This is a positive development, as America has much to do to address its jobs crisis. To succeed in helping create good jobs, the administration’s new council should recognize that excessive government backing of particular companies and industries often squanders taxpayer resources and stifles sustainable growth. Three principles can guide the council away from repeating past errors: the focus should be on American jobs, imports do not represent failure, and a globally competitive America must invest abroad as well as export there. Slaughter argues that US workers win when industries are free to invest where they are the most productive.
Slaughter, associate dean at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, was a member on the Council of Economic Advisers from 2005 to 2007.
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