It is here that government has no comparative advantage.

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While the government has not provided comparative figures for the April-December period of the previous financial year, it has estimated that for the full year ended March 31, 2012, Iran supplied 18.11 million tons of crude to India.

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But another more liberal school of thought, popularized by Obama's budget chief Peter Orszag, health advisor Ezekiel Emanuel and the new Medicare administrator Donald Berwick, says that the government should play a role in studying the "comparative effectiveness" of different treatment options.

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Many conservatives reacted by arguing that comparative effectiveness research is bad, because it is a pretext for government interference in clinical practice, and for price controls.

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The New York government is counting on Niagara Falls to provide the area with a comparative advantage in competing with foreign producers.

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The aim of comparative effectiveness is to reduce health care costs, an especially compelling goal for our government, the number one purchaser of medical treatments in America.

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