Rethinking Trade and Commercial Policy Theories

Mainstream trade and commercial policy theories with lineage traced back to Smith, Ricardo, Torrens, and Mill have often trivialised the process of development as static resource allocation. Peter Sai-wing Ho re-interprets the works of these classical economists and those of the so-called 'protectionists' Hamilton, List, Manoïlesco, Prebisch, Myrdal, and Singer to offer an alternative framework that considers the role of trade, foreign investment, and technology in engendering uneven development. The author reveals that these protectionists actually offered sophisticated prescriptions involving non-trade instruments, interweaving import-substitution with export-promotion, and emphasising indigenous technological-capability cultivation.

This controversial book offers a unique approach to rethinking the trade and development literature and will therefore strongly appeal to researchers, academics, and students of trade and development as well as those involved in the history of economic thought.