A Rational Reconstruction of Adam Smith’s Observation of Comparative Advantage

Farhad Rassekh

History of Economics Review, 2024, vol. 89, issue 1, 18-30

Abstract: In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith describes a trade relation between the rich and poor countries that – in the post-Ricardian economics – we recognise as the operation of comparative advantage. The present paper develops a model that expresses Smith’s description of the trade relation in mathematical terms. The model lays out an approach to comparative advantage that is different from the approach David Ricardo adopted to formulate his famous model. Incidentally, the model in this paper reveals that comparative advantage is a more sophisticated concept than gleaned from the Ricardian model.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10370196.2024.2432060 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rherxx:v:89:y:2024:i:1:p:18-30

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rher20

DOI: 10.1080/10370196.2024.2432060

Access Statistics for this article

History of Economics Review is currently edited by John Harry Bloch and John Hawkins

More articles in History of Economics Review from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().