Export Promotion, the Fallacy of Composition and Declining Terms of Trade (or the Moors’ Last Sigh)

Main author: McCartney, Matthew
Format: Monographs and Working Papers           
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id eprints-112
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description This paper examines various schools of trade policy reform and finds little difference between them in regards their essential export optimism. This optimism is based on an unwarranted assumption in cross-country empirical studies. In practise the increasing number of large LDC’s shifting towards export promotion since the 1980s is found to coincide with declining terms of trade for labour-intensive manufactures. So far this decline has been offset by growth in volume. The positive relation is actually dependent on market growth in developed countries rather than domestic policy reform. Marx (the Moor) provides a useful framework in which to analyse this process. His analysis of competition and accumulation within a national economy is transposed to that of international trade. Finally, the increasing integration of capital into ‘value chains’ and the formation of regional trading blocs can be related to the crisis tendencies of competition and the erosion of profit margins.
format Monographs and Working Papers
author McCartney, Matthew
author_facet McCartney, Matthew
authorStr McCartney, Matthew
author_letter McCartney, Matthew
title Export Promotion, the Fallacy of Composition and Declining Terms of Trade (or the Moors’ Last Sigh)
publisher SOAS Department of Economics Working Paper No. 133
publishDate 2004
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/112/