Why Buying Local, Frontier House, and the Trade Deficit are All Silly

Russ Roberts’ EconTalk is consistently interesting and engaging podcast covering economics as a perspective and a practice.

I spent the first half of this week listening to his hour long conversation with colleague Don Boudreaux on the economics of buying local for the sake of buying local.

Boudreaux and Roberts expand on many of the same points as Roberts’ conversation with Mike Munger on the division of labor and boil it all down to: the division of labor creates wealth. Trade is simply an extended division of labor and a trade deficit with another country is as silly a notion as having a trade deficit with another state, town, or the local grocery store.