For fear of empowering the “protectionist barbarians,” trade economists are prone to exaggerate the benefits of trade and downplay its distributional and other costs. In practice, this often leads to their arguments being captured by interest groups on the other side – global corporations that seek to manipulate trade rules to their own advantage.
我们来看遮遮掩掩已成常规做法的国际贸易领域。贸易经济学家由于担心“保护主义野蛮人”有机可乘而更愿意夸大贸易的好处，并淡化其分配和其他费用。这种做法在实践中往往导致他们的观点被对立面利益群体，也就是企图操纵贸易规则为自己牟利的全球企业所利用。公众因此很少把经济学家视为全球化公众辩论中诚实的中间人。