Vent for surplus reconsidered with Ghanaian evidence

Adam Smith's vent for surplus theory of international trade was revived by Myint in the 1950s and subsequently generated a number of new contributions on the nature of the trade‐growth relationship in traditional peasant economies under colonialism. The theme of this paper, which uses some empirical material from Ghana (Gold Coast) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, is to suggest that economists have been too ready in their acceptance of these newer versions of vent for surplus, which now set the approach firmly within neoclassical microeconomics and a framework of comparative statics, as valid representations of the historical experience

Adam smith · Colonialism · Comparative statics · Economics · Empirical evidence · International trade · Microeconomics · Neoclassical economics · Peasant · Political science · Terms of trade · Theme (computing) · Economic Theory and Policy · Global trade and economics · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

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