Concludes that protection is necessary until the industry has reached its optimum size

The second argument is that countries or firms which create new industries or products first may

Establish a competitive advantage that makes it hard or impossible for other countries to follow in the

Same area. The advantage is most likely to prevail in sectors of large economies of scale, and especially

In cases where the most efficient scale represents a high proportion of the global market. It would certainly

Be difficult for, say, China or Japan to enter wide-bodied aircraft manufacture in competition with

Boeing and Airbus. The frequency with which airframe manufacture is quoted as an example of potential

First-mover advantage, suggests it may be one of very few special cases requiring a large supplier

Chain and technological depth. It is not difficult to think of examples of other first movers — for example,

Motor-cycles industry in the UK — which have failed to sustain an early advantage. The argument

Is not new; it is a variant of the infant-industry argument for protection against imports. But it reemeiged

in the late 1980s, under the guise of strategic trade theory associated with Paul Krugman. He

Suggested that the traditional arguments for nations to allow free trade were undermined. In practice,