Back to agriculture? Malthus, Torrens, and Ricardo on International Trade and Structural Change

2019

In this article, we have analyzed the relationships among international trade, structural change, and economic growth in Malthus 1817 and 1826, Torrens 1815, and Ricardo 1822. In his Essay and in the 1815 pamphlet Grounds of an Opinion Malthus addressed international trade policy issues and elaborated quite a few arguments, ranging from economics to geopolitics, to support food protectionism. In this article, we have focused on Malthus’s views concerning international trade-induced structural change and the long-run growth prospects of an industrial country that heavily depends on foreign corn imports to feed its own population. To put it briefly, Malthus claimed that, in the long run, agri…