EL COMERCIO INTERNACIONAL EN LA HISTORIA DEL PENSAMIENTO ECONÓMICO Pedro Schwartz IUDEM Documento de Trabajo 2001-3 Año 2001 ABSTRACT The theory of International Trade should have been treated as a part of the Theory of Inter-individual Trade and the Market but economists have studied it separately because the assumption of factor immobility eases modelling and mathematical treatment. By rescuing Adam Smith’s theory of international trade from obloquy this paper tries to emphasise the connection between trade and growth ignored by generations of theorists obsessed with static questions, such as the sharing of benefits from trade, the scientific tariff, and movements of the terms of trade. The paper starts with the discovery of the mutually beneficial effects of trade by the Classical Greek philosophers and Spanish Schoolmen, proceeds with remarks on Mercantilism and the Physiocrats, and then focuses on the Classical School, with special attention to Hume and Smith. The real import of Ricardo’s theory is taken to be possibility of less productive countries to trade despite their high costs and John Stuart Mill is criticised for accepting the infant industries argument. The rebirth of protectionism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is then analysed, with special attention to Keynes’s forsaking of free trade in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties and his defence of regulated trade at Bretton Woods. Finally the paper relates the ingenious theoretical and empirical contributions of neo-classical economists, lamenting their obsession with comparative statics and hence their talking at cross purposes with protectionists, who at least see that questions of International Trade are connected with growth.
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