Introduction to regional economic analysis

The tone and content of the Northwest Environment Watch’s review are exceptional: it is factually wrong, and deeply misrepresentative and misleading about not only the contents and conclusions of Regions and Resources specifically, but also of the nature of the economies of the Pacific Northwest, and of regional economic analysis generally. [...] Conversely, the smaller the range of goods and services produced locally, the greater the need to import and hence to export in order to have the same range of goods and services available to the region’s residents. [...] This is the reason that the value of a country’s currency is affected by the relationship between its imports and exports.2 Boundaries and Trade The primary importance of trade to a region is that it allows it to import what it does not produce locally, and the extent to what it can produce locally is largely determined by the region’s boundaries, in terms of the resources (human, capital, and nat [...] Having said this, the discussion of aggregate global trade and its costs and benefits, like the discussion of extraterrestrial trade, is fascinating but irrelevant to the discussion of the role of trade in the economy of a relatively small and unique portion of the globe. [...] This is specifically evidenced by the treatment it accords to those who are on the receiving end of its trade restrictions, be they the tra and basa farmers of Viet Nam, the prawn farmers of Thailand and China, the sugar producers of the Third World, or the softwood lumber producers of British Columbia.