TY - JOUR
T1 - Lewis revisited
T2 - tropical polities competing on the world market, 1830–1938
AU - Federico, Giovanni
AU - Tena-Junguito, Antonio
N1 - Funding Information:
Early versions of this article benefited from the discussions at African Economic History Workshop (London School of Economics, 24–5 Oct. 2014), IV Asian Historical Economics Conference (Istanbul, 19–20 Sept. 2014), III Center for Economic Policy Research Workshop (Oslo, 19–20 June 2015), and Seminario Internacional ‘La era de las exportaciones’ (El Colegio de México, 17 Feb. 2015). Giovanni Federico's research was funded by a European Research Council Advanced Research grant: ‘Market integration and the welfare of Europeans’ (n.230484, years 2009–13) and Antonio Tena-Junguito was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation ECO2011-25713 and ECO2014-58784-P.
Publisher Copyright:
© Economic History Society 2017
PY - 2017/11
Y1 - 2017/11
N2 - Since the seminal work by W. A. Lewis, exports of primary products have been deemed the main or sole source of growth in tropical countries before the Great Depression. However, this conventional wisdom relies on very limited evidence. This article analyses the growth of exports with a constant market share analysis for 84 tropical polities. Exports grew a lot, but less than total trade, while relative prices of tropical products remained roughly constant. We thus tentatively infer that the decline in the tropical shares of world trade reflects an insufficient demand for tropical products. Asia dealt well with these headwinds throughout the whole period, while African polities blossomed after the First World War. The loser was (South) America, and most notably the Caribbean former slave colonies, especially before 1870.
AB - Since the seminal work by W. A. Lewis, exports of primary products have been deemed the main or sole source of growth in tropical countries before the Great Depression. However, this conventional wisdom relies on very limited evidence. This article analyses the growth of exports with a constant market share analysis for 84 tropical polities. Exports grew a lot, but less than total trade, while relative prices of tropical products remained roughly constant. We thus tentatively infer that the decline in the tropical shares of world trade reflects an insufficient demand for tropical products. Asia dealt well with these headwinds throughout the whole period, while African polities blossomed after the First World War. The loser was (South) America, and most notably the Caribbean former slave colonies, especially before 1870.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85017340421&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85017340421&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/ehr.12467
DO - 10.1111/ehr.12467
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85017340421
SN - 0013-0117
VL - 70
SP - 1244
EP - 1267
JO - Economic History Review
JF - Economic History Review
IS - 4
ER -