The Decline of Rural Industry Under Export Expansion: A Comparison among Burma, Philippines, and Thailand, 1870–1938 and Economic Forms in Pre-Colonial Ghana: Comments

Extract

The Resnick paper is a report on the working out of comparative advantage in the three countries over nearly seventy years. It starts out with a model based on production possibilities curve analysis, terms of trade shifts, and income and substitution effects. An offer curve results that implies that, at least within a range, labor and other resources shift from cottage and craft production (Z goods) to farm production (F) in which there is comparative advantage and which is exported in exchange for increased imports (M). In each of the three countries statistics and descriptive material are interpreted in terms of the model.