International Trade and Economic Growth in Open Economies

In this enlightening book, John Berdell addresses the widely-held belief that classical economics distanced itself from policy issues and public debates regarding the effects of international trade on economic growth in advanced economies. He argues, through a detailed consideration of the evolution and structure of Hume's, Smith's, Ricardo's and Malthus' analyses, that it is not only contemporary international economic theory which takes account of these issues. Berdell uses a series of non-linear dynamic models to illustrate and analyze important aspects of each author's discussion to the interactions between trade and growth. The findings are then extended to create a comparison of the classical models with recent empirical research in this area. Berdell suggests that John Sutart Mill's plan to synthesize and extend Hume's, Smith's and Ricardo's analysis of commercial society was rendered intractable by the limitations of Hume's associationalist psychology.