International Trade and Economic Development

Abstract

In marked contrast to the state of trade-related research on the Southern Low Countries, the breadth of academic literature concerning the role of international trade in economic development is immense. More recently, historians have again emphasized the importance of (overseas) commerce, and this in its turn has triggered renewed disputation amongst supporters of so-called endogenous growth factors. Partially influenced by Marxist theories, the adherents of external explanations are convinced that foreign trade not merely had beneficial effects, but was a primary cause of the Industrial Revolution. Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century mercantilists believed that international trade was in the first place a constant struggle, in which one's own market had to be protected rigorously against foreign imports. The two most important elements in this heterogeneous line of thought were the formation of monopolies and the complementarity of economic functions.Keywords: economic development; endogenous growth factors; industrial revolution; international trade; Marxist theories