Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T01:17:04.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Unilateral Free Trade Versus Reciprocity in The Wealth of Nations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Edwin G. West
Edwin G. West
Affiliation:
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In Chapter 2, Book IV, of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith assesses the appropriateness of the policy of tariff retaliation or reciprocity. His deliberations are prefaced by a discussion of two rather innocuous cases that turn out to have very little to do with the main topic. In the first case it is advantageous “to lay some burden upon foreign, for the encouragement of domestic industry” (WN, p. 463) when that particular industry is necessary for the defence of the country. Smith's second case refers to the situation when some domestic tax is being imposed on a good produced at home. In this situation Smith believed it reasonable that an equal tax should be imposed on the same good when it was imported (WN, p. 465).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 29 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaug, Mark. 1996. Economic Theory in Retrospect, 5th edn.London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James and Yoon, Yong J.. 1994. The Return to Increasing Returns. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griswold, Charles L. Jr. 1999. Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Irwin, Douglas A. 1996. Against the Tide. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, Alfred. 1919. Industry and Trade. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Musgrave, Richard A. 1969. Fiscal Systems. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
O'Brien, D.P. 1978. The Classical Economists. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Powell, Jim. 1990. “Why Trade Retaliation Closes Markets and Impoverishes People.” Policy Analysis No. 143. Washington, DC: Cato Institute.Google Scholar
Reid, Gavin C. 1987. “Disequilibrium and increasing returns in Adam Smith's analysis of growth and accumulation.” History of Political Economy 19 (Spring): 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols., edited by Campbell, R., Skinner, A. S., and Todd, W. B.. London: Clarendon, 1976.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1776. Lectures on Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Viner, Jacob. 1965. Guide to John Rae's Life of Adam Smith. In John Rae, Life of Adam Smith. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1965.Google Scholar
West, Edwin G. 1996. “Adam Smith on the Cultural Effects of Specialization.” History of Political Economy 28 (2): 83–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
West, Edwin G. 1997. “Adam Smith's Support for Money & Banking Regulation: A Case of Inconsistency?” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 29 (02): 127–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winch, Donald. 1978. Adam Smith's Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winch, Donald. 1983. “Science and the Legislator: Adam Smith and After.” Economic Journal 93 (09): 499–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Allyn. 1928. “Increasing Returns and Economic Progress.” Economic Journal 38 (12): 527–42. Reprinted in Buchanan and Yoon, The Return to Increasing Returns. Ann Arbar: University of Michigan Press, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar