P. J. Thomas’s Scholarship on Mercantilism and the Political Economy of Trade: A Centennial Appreciation and Assessment

Abstract

This article addresses the contribution of the Indian economist P. J. Thomas to the scholarship of mercantilism and the political economy of trade. It considers Thomas’s 1926 book, Mercantilism and the East India Trade, and interprets Thomas’s account of trade issues in the late seventeenth century in terms of the graphical analysis of the imperfect substitutes model. It contrasts Thomas’s work with that of Jacob Viner and sets his work in a larger context of culture and technology. The article concludes that Thomas’s scholarship deserves to be rediscovered within the fields of international economics and global political economy.