Policy Seed Grant | 2007
Foreign Economic Policy Preferences in the United States: The Impact of Economics, Security, and Democratic Practices
by Timothy Frye (Political Science) and Pablo Pinto (Political Science)
Among economists, a broad consensus holds that the free movement of goods and capital across borders is beneficial for society. Yet political leaders have often resorted to anti-foreign rhetoric to justify the adoption of policies restricting foreign imports and the free flow of capital and people, allegedly in defense of the national interest. In addition, support for economic integration among the mass public in the United States is rather mixed. Given the strong economic arguments in support of openness to trade and investment, the mass public's resistance to free trade policies and economic integration presents a puzzle for social science. This project aims to explore this puzzle by identifying the determinants of mass support for free trade and foreign investment in the United States. The investigators aim to make three contributions. First, because academic studies that directly measure mass preferences toward foreign economic policy are relatively rare, the investigators expect that their original survey will enrich the empirical basis for the literature. Moreover, the adoption of the experimental survey methodology will allow them to identify how preferences are affected by the identity of the foreign economic partners. Second, while most studies have implicitly assumed that the mass public views foreign economic policy primarily through its effect on their personal economic conditions, this project proposes to broaden the debate by exploring how concerns over national security, human rights, and other non-economic facts influence preferences over trade policy. Third, most studies to date have examined preferences toward trade, but the investigators hope to broaden the literature by also focusing on foreign direct investment.
