Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

International trade is perhaps the oldest sub-field of economics, dating back to Ricardo's demonstration of the law of comparative advantage. The beauty and surprise of Ricardo's model set a standard for theoretical elegance which continues to this day, through Viner, Samuelson, Meade, Bhagwati, Jones, Krugman, Helpman, Grossman, and many others. The achievements of the theorists make the absence of a long and deep tradition of empirical work all the more striking. Until recently, trade theory was virtually the whole of the economic analysis of international trade, a few counterexamples to the contrary (Leontief, Baldwin, and others) notwithstanding. Indeed, before its revision in 1990, the Journal of Economic Literature heading for international trade was “410 International Trade Theory,” leaving no obvious place for theory-connected empirical research. However, times have changed, and the prevailing intellectual winds have moved in an empirical direction. While great theory is still done (and remains to be done), international trade is more and more an empirical field, and this shift is reflected in this Handbook . Nine of the thirteen chapters are critical surveys of empirical research, while the chapters by E. Kwan Choi and Henry Thompson are theoretical essays motivated at least partly by developments in the empirical literature. The remaining two chapters are an elegant ... log in or subscribe to read full text