Commodity Exports, Invisible Exports and Terms of Trade for the Middle Colonies, 1720 to 1775

Peter Mancall, Joshua Rosenbloom () and Thomas Weiss

No 14334, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Economic historians of the eighteenth-century British mainland North American colonies have given considerable weight to the role of exports as a stimulus for economic growth. Yet their analyses have been handicapped by reliance on one or two time series to serve as indicators of broader changes rather than considering the export sector as a whole. Here we present new comprehensive export measures for the middle colonies. We find that aggregate exports in constant prices grew very quickly, but barely faster than population during the period under consideration. Furthermore, improvements in the terms of trade increased the colonists' ability to buy imports over time, especially after 1740. Although the export sector performed well, it constituted a relatively small part of the region's economy. It is uncertain if this export success was sufficient to propel the entire economy at a rate that exceeded the growth of population.

JEL-codes: N11 N21 N7 N71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-int
Note: DAE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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