Philippine E-Journals

The Growth of the International Economy: 1820-1990 AG. Kenwood & A L. Lougheed. Routledge, New York & London, 1993.

Gerardo Largoza

Discipline: Economics

 

Abstract:

It must be clear after 300 years of economic analysis in the field of international trade that part of the difficulty in formulating commercial policy owes itself to two factors: (1) the annoying incompatibility of the more well established theories with empirical findings and (2) the lack of a general framework outside econometric modeling to explain trade phenomena over the long term. The former is a rather persistent characteristic of the science so much so that people like Sargent and Wallace have built an entire theory postulating the inherent unpredictability of economic events. The latter, however, is a problem which the proponent thinks can be remedied rather well with a little open-mindedness on the part of economists who wish to continue the Walrasian tradition of imagining economics to be a pure science.