Patterns of Trade and Development (1959)

Abstract

Contrasting Trends in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century World Trade In the Western world today some widely accepted doctrines of trade and development are still to a large extent influenced by the experience of the nineteenth century. It is inevitable that economic thought should lag behind the facts of economic history. Even economists are human; our mental activity is, and indeed should be, shaped in some measure by limits set by experience. When conditions change, however, conceptions and preconceptions derived from earlier experience can become a shell that inhibits the development of thought as well as action. Thus the nineteenth-century model of world trade is one which many of us still tend to carry in our minds as something like the normal or ideal. As it recedes in time, it appears more and more clearly to have been the product of very peculiar circumstances. We economists should always be ready to adapt the framework of our thinking if our work is to have relevance to the changing real world. It is in this spirit, and with these preoccupations as a motive force, that I venture to attempt a comparative sketch of long-term trends in international trade. Trade Expansion and the Transmission of Economic Growth The volume of world trade reached an all-time record level in 1957, but this is not surprising since nearly everything is bigger now than ever before.

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