Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Economic Growth and Structural Change in the Long Nineteenth Century
- 2 The Economy of Canada in the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Inequality in the Nineteenth Century
- 4 The Population of the United States, 1790–1920
- 5 The Labor Force in the Nineteenth Century
- 6 The Farm, The Farmer, and The Market
- 7 Northern Agriculture and the Westward Movement
- 8 Slavery and its Consequences for the South in the Nineteenth Century
- 9 Technology and Industrialization, 1790–1914
- 10 Entrepreneurship, Business Organization, and Economic Concentration
- 11 Business Law and American Economic History
- 12 Experimental Federalism: the Economics of American Government, 1789–1914
- 13 Internal Transportation in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 14 Banking and Finance, 1789–1914
- 15 U.S. Foreign Trade and the Balance of Payments, 1800–1913
- 16 International Capital Movements, Domestic Capital Markets, and American Economic Growth, 1820–1914
- 17 The Social Implications of U.S. Economic Development
- Bibliographic Essays
- Index
- References
15 - U.S. Foreign Trade and the Balance of Payments, 1800–1913
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Economic Growth and Structural Change in the Long Nineteenth Century
- 2 The Economy of Canada in the Nineteenth Century
- 3 Inequality in the Nineteenth Century
- 4 The Population of the United States, 1790–1920
- 5 The Labor Force in the Nineteenth Century
- 6 The Farm, The Farmer, and The Market
- 7 Northern Agriculture and the Westward Movement
- 8 Slavery and its Consequences for the South in the Nineteenth Century
- 9 Technology and Industrialization, 1790–1914
- 10 Entrepreneurship, Business Organization, and Economic Concentration
- 11 Business Law and American Economic History
- 12 Experimental Federalism: the Economics of American Government, 1789–1914
- 13 Internal Transportation in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
- 14 Banking and Finance, 1789–1914
- 15 U.S. Foreign Trade and the Balance of Payments, 1800–1913
- 16 International Capital Movements, Domestic Capital Markets, and American Economic Growth, 1820–1914
- 17 The Social Implications of U.S. Economic Development
- Bibliographic Essays
- Index
- References
Summary
U.S. TRADE AROUND 1800
Trade was on the minds of the entrepreneurs who financed the first settlements in the Americas. They dreamed of riches – the kind that could come only from exploiting the natural resources of areas newly opened to European settlement and exporting the products. They did not envisage financing subsistence farmers or artisans or manufacturing settlements serving local markets.
As it turned out, the American colonies were, in their early days, heavily involved in exporting. They probably exported something like a quarter of their production in the early years of the eighteenth century (Gallman, and Lipsey, both in Davis, Easterlin, Parker, et al., 1972). By the end of the eighteenth century that export propensity had been cut in half. Thus, around 1800, something like 10 to 15 percent of U.S. output was exported (ibid., and Shepherd and Walton 1972, 44). To some extent, that decline in the export propensity could be attributed simply to population growth – larger countries tend to trade less in proportion to their output than smaller countries – but the decline in exporting was too large for much of it to be attributed to that cause.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Economic History of the United States , pp. 685 - 732Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
References
and , eds., “American Economic Growth before the Civil War: The Testimony of the Capital Stock Estimates,” American Economic Growth and Standards of Living Before The Civil War (Chicago, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . “Tariff Policy and Comparative Advantage in the Iron and Steel Industry: 1870–1929,” Explorations in Economic History, 11 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. “European Foreign Trade in the XIX Century: The Development of the Value and Volume of Exports (Preliminary Results).” Journal of European Economic History, 2 (1973).Google Scholar
, and . “The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product,” Journal of Political Economy, 97 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Revised Annual Estimates of American Gross National Product: Preliminary Annual Estimates of Four Major Components of Demand, 1789–1889 (Richmond, VA 1978).Google Scholar
. “Tariff Protection and Production in the Early U.S. Cotton Textile Industry,” Journal of Economic History, 44 (1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. Selections from the Economic History of the United States, 1765–1860, with introductory essays (Boston, 1909).Google Scholar
. “The Growth of Real Product in the United States before 1840: New Evidence, Controlled Conjectures,” Journal of Economic History, 27 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, , , et al., American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States (New York, 1972).Google Scholar
. Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism: The United Kingdom, 1850–1914 (New York, 1982).Google Scholar
“Commodity Output, 1839–1899,” in (ed.), Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 24 (Princeton, 1960).Google Scholar
, and . “The Role of Exports in American Economic Growth during the Napoleonic Wars, 1793 to 1807,” Explorations in Economic History, 17 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.), “Gross National Product in the United States: 1834–1909,” Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 30 (New York, 1966).Google Scholar
. “International Competitiveness of the Antebellum American Cotton Textile Industry,” Journal of Economic History, 52 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. “Infant Industry Protection in the Steel Rail Industry,” Journal of International Economics, 37 (1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Trade as a Handmaiden of Growth: Similarities Between the 19th and 20th Centuries,” Economic Journal, 80 (1970).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
. “Labor Force and Employment, 1800–1960,” in (ed.), Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800 (1966).Google Scholar
Price and Quantity Trends in the Foreign Trade of the United States (Princeton, 1963).Google Scholar
. “Growth and Fluctuations in the World Economy, 1870–1960,” Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, 61 (1962).Google Scholar
. A Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States (New York, 1816; reprinted New York, 1967).Google Scholar
. “The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869–1908,” Journal of Political Economy, 97 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and . Shipping, Maritime Trade, and the Economic Development of Colonial North America (Cambridge, 1972).Google Scholar
. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (New York, 1937, first printed 1776).Google Scholar
. “Productivity Growth in Manufacturing During Early Industrialization: Evidence From the American Northeast: 1820–1860,” in and , eds., Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 51 (Chicago, 1986).Google Scholar
. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington, DC, 1975).
. Domestic Exports, 1789–1883, House Miscellaneous Document No. 2236, 48th Congress, 1st Session (1883–84), compiled by (Washington, DC, 1884).Google Scholar
. The Natural Resource Content of United States Foreign Trade, 1870–1955 (Cambridge, MA, 1963).Google Scholar
. “Estimates of Gross Domestic Output for the United States, 1800 to 1860,” Mimeo (University of Kansas, 1993).Google Scholar
. The History of Foreign Investment in the United States to 1914 (Cambridge, MA, 1989).Google Scholar
“Greasing the Wheels of Sputtering Export Engines: Midwestern Grain and American Economic Growth,” Explorations in Economic History, 17 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 10
- Cited by