Trade, Distribution, and Economic Growth in Colonial America

James F. Shepherd and Gary M. Walton

The Journal of Economic History, 1972, vol. 32, issue 1, 128-145

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present some of the findings and contentions of our forthcoming study of shipping, distribution, and overseas trade in colonial America from the middle of the seventeenth century to the American Revolution, with emphasis upon the later years. In order to provide an explanation of the contribution of overseas trade to colonial growth, we begin the study by proposing a simple theoretical framework for viewing economic development in the colonies. Then, to provide some perspective for the study, we examine the long-term trends in output, population, and overseas trade (subject to fairly severe data limitations, which allow us to make only tentative statements about these long-term trends, and which largely limit us to the eighteenth century). Next we examine the costs of shipping and distributing commodities in overseas trade and show that these costs declined over the long run. The increased productivity in shipping is explicitly measured, and the sources of these advances analyzed. Finally, a balance-of-payments study is presented for 1768 through 1772, the only years in the colonial period for which we have statistics of all legal overseas trade.

Date: 1972
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