Échange international et distorsions internes. Comment gouverner la globalisation ?

Changes in the pattern of international trade inevitably create distortions that perturb the functioning of the economy. These distortions may not be reduced to malfunctioning goods or labour markets, and hence cannot be eliminated by simply choosing the optimal institutions. Domestic distortions call for domestic solutions. To explore these solutions it is useless to analyze the properties of equilibria before and after the opening to trade. Rather, we need to build an analytical framework suited to investigate the characteristics of a transition process whose success is not guaranteed ex ante. it appears that wage rigidity and an easy access to external financial resources are necessary in presence of fast pace of change, while if change is sufficiently slow the standard recipe of wage flexibility may be appropriate. These results may help in the institutional and organizational choices to be implemented in economies willing to profit from international trade and globalization. JEL Classification: F16, F41.