One reason why it has been so difficult to apply the principle of insurance to trade risks is that if the government offers the coverage against risks to livelihoods from free trade, it just looks like redistribution. This is especially so because the risks of maintaining free trade with low tariffs may be long-term. Losing one’s job in the US steel industry as mills shut down in the face of foreign competition may look awfully permanent. But it is hard to imagine governments subsidizing displaced workers for decades.1
The problem today is that, with increased globalization an apparently permanent new condition, and with inequality within countries widening, people tend to feel that their long-term economic situation is getting riskier. We need to find a way to insure people against the risks of the global market without in any way demeaning them.
Fortunately, there is abundant precedent for in-kind government redistribution that does not seem like charity for society’s losers. When the government spends tax money on universal public education and health care, it does not strike many as redistribution, because the services are offered to everyone, and accepting them appears more patriotic than abject. As long as most people use the government schools and doctors, redistribution does not look like charity.
Another solution is to have the government encourage private livelihood insurance by subsidizing it to help cover the cost of jobs lost because of foreign trade. Private insurance companies, competing against each other and subject to appropriate regulations, may show much more entrepreneurial creativity in successfully managing the risks that free trade imposes on individuals.1
Trump’s trade war is an international tragedy. But it could have a happy ending if it eventually reminds us of the risks that free trade imposes on people, and if we improve our insurance mechanisms to help them.
Robert J. Shiller, a 2013 Nobel laureate in economics, is professor of economics at Yale University and the co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index of US house prices. He is the author of "Irrational Exuberance," the third edition of which was published in January 2015, and, most recently, "Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception," co-authored with George Akerlof.