Industry and Trade Reconsidered

Abstract

This paper aims to bring to light the explanatory model that is hidden beneath the wealth of detail of Industry and Trade. Based on the pair innovation-routine, which is itself a variation of the Darwinian pair variation-selection, the model acts as a guide to Marshall’s investigation of firm boundaries and size, industrial organization and economic policy, providing a coherent, yet flexible, explanatory scheme. Since the model is never openly presented, it is too easy for readers to miss its purport. The paper begins with a brief survey of the reception of the book and the disappointment consequent upon the high expectations that its long haul had generated. Section 2 highlights the key role of Marshall’s model in his interpretation of industrial development. It also emphasizes that the model has no pretension to predetermine the outcome of the process. Section 3 is devoted to the related but separate issue of the contingent reasons for Marshall’s choice of nation-States as the main units of analysis. His policy proposals, less heterogeneous and fragmentary than appears at first sight, are the subject of section 4, which is followed by a few summarizing conclusions.