Nature and Importance of Trade in Invisibles

Abstract

One of the earliest contributions to the study of non-tariff barriers to visible trade was a book entitled The Invisible Tariff.¹ The term “non-tariff barriers”, now in common usage, refers to policies and practices which either by design or accident protect or favour domestic producers vis-à-vis foreign suppliers — at the expense of domestic consumers and taxpayers. Some of them are not barriers, but serve instead to encourage exports, which is why economic purists prefer the term “non-tariff distortions” or “non-tariff interventions”.² But this is by the way. The barriers to, or constraints on, international trade in what are called “invisibles” are of a non-tariff character. The temptation to call this volume Invisible Barriers to Invisible Trade was thus too great.