Populist trade policies won’t protect jobs anywhere in the world | Kenneth Rogoff

Countries that close themselves off to foreign competition eventually lose their edge, with innovation, jobs and growth suffering

As US and European political leaders fret about the future of quality jobs, they would do well to look at the far bigger problems faced by developing Asia - problems that threaten to place massive downward pressure on global wages. In India, where per capita income is roughly a tenth that of the US, more than 10 million people a year are leaving the countryside and pouring into urban areas, and they often cannot find work even as chaiwalas, much less as computer programmers. The same angst that Americans and Europeans have about the future of jobs is an order of magnitude higher in Asia.

Should India aim to follow the traditional manufacturing export model that Japan pioneered and that so many others, including China, have followed? Where would that lead if, over the next couple of decades, automation is going to make most such jobs obsolete?