OPINION

Anti-trade policies would make the poor poorer

News, Michael Schuman, Published on 25/01/2017

» Without question, the most exciting economic story of the past half century has been the dramatic, and probably unprecedented, decline in global poverty. In a recent study, the World Bank estimated that in 2015, just over 700 million people remained trapped in desperate poverty, or 9.6% of the world's population. Those sound like big numbers until you compare them to 1990, when nearly two billion people languished in poverty -- a staggering 37% of the global populace. Such progress has raised the real possibility that extreme poverty can be eradicated in the not-too-distant future.