Globalization and Growth: Lessons from British Trade Statistics

这个项目将调查1700至1899年间英国贸易流动的组成和演变。为此，它将建立一个新的、高度详细的数据库，根据英国海关记录的十年抽样，在两个世纪内每隔十年按商品和贸易伙伴分列进出口情况。然后，它将使用这些数据来研究比较优势的演变及其与英国及其贸易伙伴长期经济增长的关系。该项目将汇编一个原始数据集。到目前为止，海关记录的使用总体水平很高(部门组)，而且只用于选定的(不频繁的)抽样年份。它们从来没有被电子编码过。数据将更加详细和频繁，这将是未来研究人员对贸易和增长模型进行系统的实证分析的关键。该项目将面临关于18世纪重商主义的公开问题。《大英百科全书》之前的世界贸易时期仍然笼罩在神秘之中，尤其是考虑到数据的缺乏。这个项目将使研究人员能够更详细地看到贸易流动的方向、水平和构成的变化，并看看现代贸易理论在一个军事力量和帝国抱负与商业捆绑在一起的时代有多适用。该项目将面临关于19世纪现代经济增长起源的公开问题。工业革命仍然是经济史上的关键事件，但我们的理解仍然不完整。一个重要且反复出现的争议集中在这次活动是局限于几个部门还是广泛推进。其他争议围绕以下问题：其他国家最终如何赶超英国，技术和天赋在这一过程中的作用，以及在过渡期间行业内和行业内贸易如何演变，最终塑造了今天的世界经济。1700年，英国是重商主义时代的一个严重的农业大国。到1899年，英国成为全球化时代世界上第一个工业经济体。要收集的数据和要进行的分析将帮助研究人员更好地了解现代经济增长的出现以及贸易和全球化在这一过程中的作用。对这一历史过程的研究有其自身的学术价值，但调查人员也希望从过去吸取教训，以应对全球化新时代经济政策制定的当代挑战。解决这些长期的发展问题也是该项目的一个重要目标。从一个一致的来源收集和编码跨越200年的数据，将使研究人员(和未来的研究人员)能够直面富国和穷国之间大分化的关键原因和后果，以及贸易和比较优势在这一过程中的作用。

This project will investigate the composition and evolution of British trade flows over the years 1700 to 1899. It will do so by constructing a new and highly detailed database of disaggregated imports and exports by commodity and trading partner at ten-year intervals over two centuries, based on a decadal sampling of British customs records. It will then use the data to study theevolution of comparative advantage and its relationship to the long-run economic growth of Britain and its trading partners.INTELLECTUAL MERITThe project will assemble an original data set. The customs records have hitherto been used at a highly aggregate level (sectoral groups) and only for selected (infrequent) sample years. They have never been coded electronically. The data will be more detailed and higher frequency, and this will be vital for systematic empirical analysis of trade and growth models by future researchers.The project will confront open questions about mercantilism in the 18th century. The period of world trade before the Pax Britannica remains shrouded in mystery, especially given the dearth of data. This project will enable researchers to see in more detail shifts in the direction, level, and composition of trade flows, and to see how well modern trade theories apply in an age when military power and imperial aspirations were bound up with commerce. The project will confront open questions about the origins of modern economic growth in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution remains the key event in economic history, yet our understanding is still incomplete. One important and recurring dispute centers on whether the event was localized in a few sectors or a broad advance. Other controversies surround questionsof how other countries eventually caught up and surpassed Britain, the role of technology and endowments in that process, and how inter- and intra-industry trade evolved during that transition to eventually shape the world economy of today.BROADER IMPACTSIn 1700 Britain was a heavily agrarian power in a mercantilist era. By 1899 Britain was the world's first industrial economy in an age of globalization. The data to be gathered and the analyses to be undertaken will help researchers better understand the emergence of modern economic growth and the role of trade and globalization in that process. The study of that historical process has an intellectual merit of its own, but the investigators also expect to draw lessons from the past for contemporary challenges for economic policymaking in a new era of globalization. Attacking these long-run development questions is also an important goal for the project. Assembling and coding a 200 year span of data from a consistent source will allow the investigators (and future researchers) to confront key causes and consequences of the Great Divergence between rich and poor nations, and the role of trade and comparative advantage in that process.