First globalization: Why did France miss the boat?

Stéphane Becuwe, Bertrand Blancheton and Léo Charles

Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) from Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA)

Abstract: Starting from Bairoch’s observation of declining French foreign trade, especially in emerging markets during the first globalization (1880-1914), this article endeavours to identify the sources for the failure to exploit the opportunities afforded by global economic growth after 1870. For this purpose a comprehensive dataset of French imports and exports of unparalleled size was assembled to investigate the changes these underwent both in geographical and product distribution over a period of 64 years. Applying standard tests of trade flow concentration, we find that France’s trade structure reflected its early intra-industry specialization which implied increasing reliance on ‘proximity’ markets.

Keywords: International trade; Intra-Industry trade; 1st globalization; Specialization; France (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-int
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Working Paper: First globalization: why did France missed the boat? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2013-17

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