The Club for Growth has organized a petition of 1028 economists that are united in their belief that new barriers to trade must not be enacted by this congress. They warn that new proposed tariffs imposed on our second largest trading partner China would have a ruinous effect on the economy not only of this country but of the entire world.

Why 1028 economists? Well that is the exact same number that signed a petition way back in 1930 to encourage President Hoover and congress not to enact the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. We all know how well that last petition worked out, let’s hope this country’s leaders have learned something in the last 77 years.

As an aside that is mostly relevant to Alex, Langley and myself two professors from Georgia Tech signed the petition: Li Haizheng and Christine Ries neither of whom I have heard of before, but will keep my eye out for from now on. As for the other alama maters of Save the GOP:

Drexel University: Bang Jeon and Joseph R. Mason
George Washington University: John Berthoud, Donald O. Parsons, Joseph Pelzman, Michael Wiseman, and Yang Jiawen

Some of the more prominent names to sign the petition include: Dick Armey, Daniel Drezner, Bryan Caplan & Arnold Kling, Mark Perry, Grover Norquist, Donald Luskin, John L. Barry, Eric Rasmusen, Don Boudreaux, Bill Conerly, Roy Cordato, Michael Cosgrove, Stephen Entin, David Gitlitz, John Goodman, Monty Graham, Wendy and Sen. Phil Gramm and their son Marshall Gramm, Robert Hall, Glenn Hubbard, Andrei Illarionov, Tim Kane, Raymond Keating, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer, John Landon, Thomas Lenard, Philip Levy, Greg Mankiw, Lawrence McQuillan, Marc Miles, James Miller III, Adrian Moore, Ramon Myers, Richard Rahn, David Ranson, Michael Rizzo, Harvey Rosen, Paul Rubin, John Rutledge, Gary Shilling, George Shultz, Vlad Signorelli, John Silvia, David Tuerck, Richard Vedder, Alan Viard, Elizabeth Webbink, David Weiskopf, Brian Wesbury (PDF), Walter Williams, Richard Zecher, Benjamin Zycher, not to mention Nobel Laureates Finn Kydland, Edward Prescott, Thomas Schelling and Vernon Smith.

You may recognize some but not all of these names, but they are a mix of accomplished academics, think tank analysts, research consultants, investors, bloggers, free market advocates, businessmen, and former government officials who understand that when you artificially raise the price of the flow of goods between two countries you stifle economic growth in both lands.

Some interesting trivia emerged has I scanned over the list of economists who lent their names to the petition. Firstly, like I said before this was an eclectic mix of people, not merely economists at elite universities who are applying theory to a real world issue. This gives the petition more weight than if only professors had signed it, though their contribution was equally necessary.

Secondly, I was slightly surprised at the large number of economists with a Chinese or other East Asian background who had signed onto the free market statement. I wasn’t surprised that they existed, because Chinese and East Asian nationals, immigrants and Americans of such ancestry represent a large proportion of the modern academy both here and abroad. Nor was I surprised that they were willing to sign a petition supporting free trade, but the numbers were higher than I had expected.

The Chinese community in America generally leans left, though this is a difficult statement to support at times because Chinese-Americans have very diverse histories and therefore have divergent interests. In a casual count, out of the 1028 economists listed, 75 had a Chinese surname or first name (usually just married women in this case) which I counted as having some cultural affinity at some level to China and the Chinese world abroad. This does not of course include women who had a western first name before they were married so there might be a bit of an undercount but I feel it is better to lean to the side of caution in this case. This only represents 7% of the petitioners but for an academically slanted group to begin with that is surprising amount of free market support on this issue.

When all East Asians are considered, with some Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai names thrown in, the numbers are even higher, though the Chinese names represent the greatest among them. Out of the 1028 economists, a rough total of 101 were of East Asian origin or 9.8%. I don’t know if these numbers are in or out of the norm, but they are food for thought.

So why am I even talking about this? Because this issue has brought non-traditional conservatives to the “right” side of a free market issue. Now I don’t think a single one of these economists with an East Asian background signed the petition because China (and other parts of East Asia) loomed large as places that would be devastated by stiff tariffs. I think they signed it because they believed in what was written down and nothing more. But I do think that this petition is a microcosm of what is happening in the country as whole in terms of attitude adjustments that are made based on self-interest but end up helping the general good as Adam Smith explained in 1776. When a group of economists who are Chinese/Korean/Vietnamese nationals look at this issue, even if they do lean slightly left, they are strongly compelled to respect reality and not support a policy that shoots their other interests (in this case economic growth back home) in the foot. This is more an issue with the general population than a tiny slice of an even tinier slice of economists, but it is nice to see nonetheless.