Are We Underestimating the Gains from Globalization for the United States?

Book excerpt: Over the last three decades, trade has more than tripled the variety of international goods available to U.S. consumers. Although an increased choice of goods clearly enhances consumer well-being, standard national measures of welfare and prices do not assign a value to variety growth. This analysis - the first effort to measure such gains - finds that the value to consumers of global variety growth in the 1972-2001 period was roughly $260 billion.