IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/u6esg.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Overcoming Absolute And Comparative Advantage: A Reappraisal Of The Relative Cheapness Of Foreign Commodities As The Basis Of International Trade

Author

Listed:
  • Morales Meoqui, Jorge
  • Assistant, JHET

Abstract

David Ricardo indicated in his famous numerical example in the Principles that it would be advantageous to Portugal to import English cloth made by 100 men, although it could have been produced locally with the labor of only 90 Portuguese men. As the production of the cloth required less quantity of labor in Portugal, it has been commonly inferred that this country had a production cost advantage over England in cloth making. This inference will be proven wrong here by showing that the English cloth had a lower cost of production than the Portuguese cloth. This finding refutes the widespread belief that Ricardo had formulated a new law, principle or rule for international specialization, known as comparative advantage. He used the same rule for specialization as Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Thus, the popular contraposition of Smith’s absolute versus Ricardo’s comparative cost advantage has to be dismissed.

Suggested Citation

  • Morales Meoqui, Jorge & Assistant, JHET, 2020. "Overcoming Absolute And Comparative Advantage: A Reappraisal Of The Relative Cheapness Of Foreign Commodities As The Basis Of International Trade," OSF Preprints u6esg, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:u6esg
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/u6esg
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5f68ce0746080900b11ac4a0/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/u6esg?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jorge Morales Meoqui, 2017. "Ricardo's Numerical Example Versus Ricardian Trade Model: a Comparison of Two Distinct Notions of Comparative Advantage," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 6(1), pages 35-55, March.
    2. Farhad Rassekh, 2015. "Comparative Advantage in Smith's "Wealth of Nations" and Ricardo's "Principles": a Brief History of its Early Development," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 23(1), pages 59-76.
    3. Smith, Adam, 1776. "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number smith1776.
    4. Shaikh, Anwar, 2016. "Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199390632.
    5. Mill, John Stuart, 1874. "Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, edition 2, number mill1874.
    6. Maneschi, Andrea, 2004. "The true meaning of David Ricardo's four magic numbers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 433-443, March.
    7. Gilbert Faccarello, 2015. "A calm investigation into Mr Ricardo's principles of international trade," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(5), pages 754-790, October.
    8. Roy J. Ruffin, 2002. "David Ricardo's Discovery of Comparative Advantage," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 727-748, Winter.
    9. Reinhard Schumacher, 2013. "Deconstructing the Theory of Comparative Advantage," World Economic Review, World Economics Association, vol. 2013(2), pages 1-83, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Morales Meoqui, Jorge, 2012. "On the distribution of authorship-merits for the comparative-advantage proposition," MPRA Paper 35905, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Morales Meoqui, Jorge, 2023. "The Demystification Of David Ricardo’S Famous Four Numbers," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 447-466, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Morales Meoqui, Jorge, 2023. "The Demystification Of David Ricardo’S Famous Four Numbers," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(3), pages 447-466, September.
    2. Morales Meoqui, Jorge, 2012. "On the distribution of authorship-merits for the comparative-advantage proposition," MPRA Paper 35905, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jorge Morales Meoqui, 2011. "Comparative Advantage and the Labor Theory of Value," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 743-763, Winter.
    4. Parrinello, Sergio, 2022. "On Some “New” Interpretations of Ricardo’s Principle of Comparative Advantages," Centro Sraffa Working Papers CSWP60, Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa".
    5. Jorge Morales Meoqui, 2017. "Ricardo's Numerical Example Versus Ricardian Trade Model: a Comparison of Two Distinct Notions of Comparative Advantage," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 6(1), pages 35-55, March.
    6. Taro Hisamatsu, 2016. "Constructing a Myth that Ricardo Was the Father of the Ricardian Model of International Trade: A Reconsideration of Torrens f Principles of Comparative Advantage and Gain-from-trade," Discussion Papers 1630, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    7. Machado, Pedro S. & Trigg, Andrew B., 2021. "On absolute and comparative advantage in international trade: A Pasinetti pure labour approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 375-383.
    8. Madarász, Aladár, 2024. "Posztót borért. Töredékek egy "nem triviális, de igaz" közgazdasági doktrína történetéből [Cloth for wine. Fragments from the history of a non-trivial but true" economic doctrine]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 379-407.
    9. Oscar Molina Tejerina & Luis Castro Peñarrieta, 2020. "Unexplained Wage Gaps in the Tradable and Nontradable Sectors: Cross-Sectional Evidence by Gender in Bolivia," Investigación & Desarrollo, Universidad Privada Boliviana, vol. 20(1), pages 5-23.
    10. Boundi-Chraki, Fahd & Perrotini-Hernández, Ignacio, 2021. "Absolute cost advantage and sectoral competitiveness: Empirical evidence from NAFTA and the European Union," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 162-173.
    11. Henry Thompson, 2023. "Multilateral Comparative Advantage," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2023-07, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    12. Andrea Maneschi, 2008. "How Would David Ricardo Have Taught the Principle of Comparative Advantage?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(4), pages 1167-1176, April.
    13. Daniel M. Bernhofen, 2007. "On the Magic Behind David Ricardo's Four Mystical Numbers," Discussion Papers 07/02, University of Nottingham, GEP.
    14. repec:kob:wpaper:1630 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. M. Shahid Alam, 2016. "Commodities in Economics: Loving or Hating Complexity," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 5(1), pages 1-1, March.
    16. Martin Grančay & Nóra Szikorová, 2012. "David Ricardo, Robert Torrens a autorstvo princípu komparatívnych výhod [David Ricardo, Robert Torrens and the Origins of the Principle of Comparative Advantage]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(3), pages 380-394.
    17. Jorge Morales Meoqui, 2014. "Reconciling Ricardo's Comparative Advantage with Smith's Productivity Theory," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-21, September.
    18. Henry Thompson, 2024. "Multilateral comparative advantage: complex trade with many countries and goods," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 285-296, February.
    19. repec:grz:wpaper:2014-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Charles M. A. Clark, 2021. "Editor’s Introduction: Economics and the Option for the Poor," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 80(4), pages 1051-1059, September.
    21. Bellemare, Marc F. & Barrett, Christopher B., 2003. "An Asset Risk Theory of Share Tenancy," Working Papers 127203, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    22. Carbonnier Cl´ement, 2014. "The incidence of non-linear consumption taxes," Научный результат. Серия «Экономические исследования», CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Белгородский государственный национальный исследовательский университет», issue 1, pages 5-18.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:osf:osfxxx:u6esg. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.