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2nd December 2017, 08:47 PM
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https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2017/10/24/dallas-fed-chief-to-texas-business-leaders-dont.html
Blaming job losses on immigration and trade, particularly trade with Mexico, is not supported by the findings of research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
That was among the key points made by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan, who spoke last week to the Texas Business Leadership Council while its members met in San Antonio at the St. Anthony Hotel downtown.
"A lot of the job dislocations are being publicly blamed on trade and immigration," he said.
The Dallas Fed, which does a lot of research on trade and immigration, concludes that such blame might have been warranted 15 years ago, but not today.
"More than likely, if your job is being disrupted, it's because of technology and other disruption likely going on within the United States," Kaplan said. "But we're attributing it to trade and immigration."
And he cautioned his audience that doing so imperils the U.S. economy.
"If we get that diagnosis wrong, for obvious reasons, we're going to make very poor policy decisions, which will cause us to grow less quickly than we would otherwise," he said.
Kaplan said that wherever he goes, he tries to explain the Dallas Fed's research findings in an apolitical way due to the subject's sensitive nature. His audience on Oct. 19 in San Antonio was generally receptive of such conclusions, given that the Texas Business Leadership Council is part of the Texas Mexico Trade Coalition, a group created this year to defend the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Kaplan also stressed to reporters after his talk with the Texas Business Leadership Council that he's said publicly that it makes sense to modernize NAFTA, and that the current negotiations to improve it are appropriate.
"I actually think people on both sides of the border would agree with that," he told reporters, adding that he didn't want to get into the specifics of the trade agreement. "The only thing that I want to emphasize is that trade and this trading relationship is very critical."
Texas is the largest exporting state in the U.S., and Mexico is our largest trading partner. The Dallas Fed has found that on average 70 percent of the imports to the U.S. from Mexico over the last several years are so-called intermediate goods, whereas the U.S.'s trade deficit with China is in final goods.
To the Texas Business Leadership Council, Kaplan described this country's trading relationship with Mexico as "strategic to the United States" and said it improves U.S. competitiveness.
"Those relationships would have taken many years to build, have allowed U.S. companies to stay here, be competitive, add jobs," he said. "If we didn't have that trade relationship with Mexico, it's our best judgment at the Dallas Fed that we would lose some of those businesses and some of those jobs — most likely to Asia."
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2017/10/24/dallas-fed-chief-to-texas-business-leaders-dont.html
Blaming job losses on immigration and trade, particularly trade with Mexico, is not supported by the findings of research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
That was among the key points made by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan, who spoke last week to the Texas Business Leadership Council while its members met in San Antonio at the St. Anthony Hotel downtown.
"A lot of the job dislocations are being publicly blamed on trade and immigration," he said.
The Dallas Fed, which does a lot of research on trade and immigration, concludes that such blame might have been warranted 15 years ago, but not today.
"More than likely, if your job is being disrupted, it's because of technology and other disruption likely going on within the United States," Kaplan said. "But we're attributing it to trade and immigration."
And he cautioned his audience that doing so imperils the U.S. economy.
"If we get that diagnosis wrong, for obvious reasons, we're going to make very poor policy decisions, which will cause us to grow less quickly than we would otherwise," he said.
Kaplan said that wherever he goes, he tries to explain the Dallas Fed's research findings in an apolitical way due to the subject's sensitive nature. His audience on Oct. 19 in San Antonio was generally receptive of such conclusions, given that the Texas Business Leadership Council is part of the Texas Mexico Trade Coalition, a group created this year to defend the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Kaplan also stressed to reporters after his talk with the Texas Business Leadership Council that he's said publicly that it makes sense to modernize NAFTA, and that the current negotiations to improve it are appropriate.
"I actually think people on both sides of the border would agree with that," he told reporters, adding that he didn't want to get into the specifics of the trade agreement. "The only thing that I want to emphasize is that trade and this trading relationship is very critical."
Texas is the largest exporting state in the U.S., and Mexico is our largest trading partner. The Dallas Fed has found that on average 70 percent of the imports to the U.S. from Mexico over the last several years are so-called intermediate goods, whereas the U.S.'s trade deficit with China is in final goods.
To the Texas Business Leadership Council, Kaplan described this country's trading relationship with Mexico as "strategic to the United States" and said it improves U.S. competitiveness.
"Those relationships would have taken many years to build, have allowed U.S. companies to stay here, be competitive, add jobs," he said. "If we didn't have that trade relationship with Mexico, it's our best judgment at the Dallas Fed that we would lose some of those businesses and some of those jobs — most likely to Asia."