As tariffs and trade deals make headlines, here’s a perfect puzzle: Why, as tariffs fell and supply chains expanded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, did many economies fail to see the lasting surge in productivity expected by advocates of liberalization?

Shanker A. Singham’s new book, “International Trade, Regulation, and the Global Economy,” addresses this conundrum. He contends that trade deficits did not arise from open trade itself but rather from the persistence of rules that blunt competition.

Mr. Singham, CEO of the think tank Competere and former adviser to British and American government trade officials, calls these rules anti-competitive market distortions. They tilt the system by providing incentives that shape which companies choose to enter markets, which choose to expand and how prices are set. If border policy invites trade while domestic policy favors incumbents and weak property rights, the gains of globalization are curtailed before they reach the factory floor or the household ledger.

The decision to treat anti-competitive market distortions as measurable rather than rhetorical is the book’s real strength. By isolating the problem into three parts—domestic competition, international competition and property rights—Mr. Singham’s economic models allow policymakers to attribute income effects and sequence policy reform where constraints actually bind.

>>> U.S.-Japan Trade Deal Is a Masterpiece

The probabilistic model is ambitious. While its implementation will turn on transparent methods with workable inputs, the administrative practice will require timely detection of evolving distortions to keep models sound.

Mr. Singham builds the book on a clear architecture. Markets work best when domestic competition, international competition and property rights protection all advance together. He traces how cross-border trade liberalization without reforms to property rights protection domestically since the 1990s has resulted in a mismatch that leaves behind distortions, causing slower growth.

Mr. Singham defines anti-competitive market distortions as departures from open trade, competition on the merits and property rights protection, and argues that they have lived in an ungoverned space between trade rules and competition theory. From here, the book turns to measurement and policy.

Mr. Singham first sets out how anti-competitive market distortions undermine cross-border exchange and domestic rivalry and, ultimately, gross domestic product per capita. He then develops a suite of models to quantify their effects. The original Singham-Rangan-Bradley econometric model measures the extent of distortion; subsequent model variants refine the approach and sharpen detrimental effects. The model correlates domestic competition, international competition and property rights with income per person and attributes changes in income to changes in each component. A practical, agency-based perspective complements the econometrics and demonstrates how real-world decision processes can either create or mitigate distortions within jurisdictions.

With these tools in hand, Mr. Singham considers what an integrated reform path might have delivered if domestic competition, international competition and property rights protection all advanced together. Case material supports a thought experiment that asks how the global economy could have evolved from 1990 to 2016 if trade opening had been matched by improvements in domestic competition and property rights. He then connects today’s persistent distortions to the types of risks that arise in times of weak growth.

>>> A Critical Mineral in a Critical Moment: The Antimony Crisis

The final chapter reviews past efforts to curb anti-competitive market distortions, explains why they fell short and offers concrete proposals. These draw on work associated with the British Trade and Agriculture Commission on advanced computing to quantify distortions in real time and on a recent U.S. policy reciprocity approach that weighs regulatory barriers alongside tariffs.

The policy discussion complements the analytics by situating anti-competitive market distortions within a definable agenda that extends beyond border measures to the rules governing rivalry and ownership. The focus on general, predictable, enforceable rules is the ground on which investment and innovation grow.

Mr. Singham offers a clear account of why partial liberalization disappointed and provides tools for linking reform to real-world results. The combination of narrative, econometrics, agency perspectives and a dynamic modeling path supplies a common method for diagnosing distortions and a method for verifying progress.

Readers looking for an evidence-based path from openness to higher living standards will find a disciplined framework that amply rewards their efforts.