Week 13 Discussion — Open the Border or Shield the Mill? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

In this week's illustrative two-country model, specializing and trading lifts world output from 68 wheat and 20 cloth to 72 wheat and 24 cloth, with no extra workers. Yet the same model admits that inside each country some workers must switch jobs, and those costs can land on one town all at once. Economists who share the same before-and-after table still disagree about trade policy, because the argument is about who bears the cost, not about the arithmetic.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: An illustrative country's last furniture factory is losing sales to cheaper imported furniture, and the town around it depends on those jobs. Should the government put a tariff on imported furniture to protect the factory, or keep that trade open and help the town in some other way, or not at all? Take a position, support it with this week's ideas (comparative advantage, specialization, gains from trade, tariffs, and adjustment costs), and label which part of your claim is positive (testable against evidence) and which part is normative (a judgment about what ought to happen).

Option B: A headline about an illustrative country says it is "losing at trade" because its imports exceeded its exports by 50 billion dollars last year. Is a trade deficit by itself a reason for concern, and should the country use tariffs to shrink it? Take a position, explain what the trade balance does and does not measure, say what a tariff would change in the two-country model, and present the strongest case for the other side.

There is no single right answer. The case for freer trade and the case for protection can each be argued well. Your job is to take a position, support it with this week's tools, and keep what the model predicts (positive) separate from what you think ought to be done (normative). Pick the option you actually care about, and tell us your reasoning.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, state in one clear sentence whether the government should put a tariff on imported furniture, keep trade open and help the town another way, or do neither; for Option B, state whether the deficit is a reason for concern and whether a tariff is the right tool.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (absolute advantage, comparative advantage, specialization, terms of trade, gains from trade, trade balance, trade deficit, tariff, trade barrier, adjustment cost) correctly.
• Give your reason, tie it to what the trade model predicts about output, prices, or who bears the cost, and label which sentences are positive and which are normative.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: make the strongest case for the side the poster set aside, check whether the poster read a trade deficit as a loss or assigned specialization by who makes more, or point out a normative claim presented as if it were positive. "Nice point!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option A, and I lean toward keeping trade open while helping the town retrain. Positive claim: in this week's model, specialization by comparative advantage raises total output, and a tariff would raise the price of furniture for every household. Normative claim: I think a gain shared by many should not be given up to protect one plant, but I also think the town deserves help with its adjustment cost. The strongest objection is that retraining is slow and the town may never recover its main employer. I partly agree, so I would support help that starts before the plant closes.

Notice how it names the choice, uses comparative advantage and the adjustment cost, labels the positive and the normative claims, and answers an objection. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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