IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jhisec/v43y2021i2p193-218_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Graham’S Theory Of International Values Revisited: A Ricardian Trade Model With Link Commodities

Author

Listed:
  • Sato, Hideo

Abstract

Frank D. Graham (1890–1949) presented an innovative multi-country, multi-commodity trade model that attached great importance to link commodities and quantity adjustments, not perfect specializations and price adjustments as emphasized by John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall. However, due to some shortcomings, this model was not sufficiently understood and has been forgotten. This study reconstructs Graham’s theory of international values by rectifying the shortcomings. Through this reconstruction, the following is clarified. First, in multi-country, multi-commodity trade models, the existence of link commodities is general and perfect specializations seldom appear; therefore, quantity adjustments are normally performed in the face of demand shifts. Second, notwithstanding unchanging sectoral productivity at a national level, national wage rates can vary greatly according to the patterns of the international division of labor. Third, while the domestic relative wage rate increases with an increase in a home country’s productivity of link commodities, it does not increase with an increase in the productivity of commodities produced only in the home country.

Suggested Citation

  • Sato, Hideo, 2021. "Graham’S Theory Of International Values Revisited: A Ricardian Trade Model With Link Commodities," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 193-218, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:43:y:2021:i:2:p:193-218_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1053837220000127/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hideo Sato, 2022. "A multi‐country, multi‐commodity Ricardian trade model with link commodities and Keynesian unemployment," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(2), pages 441-465, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:43:y:2021:i:2:p:193-218_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/het .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.