Long-run Tendencies in Foreign Trade: With a Statistical Study of French Trade Structure 1871–1939

• Published in: The Journal of economic history Vol. 31; no. 4; pp. 804 - 821
• Main Author: Weiller, Jean Sylvain
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01-12-1971; The Graduate School of Business Administration of New York University
• Subjects: Commerce; Commerce, Foreign; Developed countries; Economic fluctuations; Farm exports; France; Imports; International trade; International trade policy; Raw materials; Trade development; War economics; World wars
• ISSN: 0022-0507; 1471-6372
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700074635

Economists who have studied the evolution of trade transactions between the two world wars have often stressed the existence of an obvious paradox: despite the disturbances brought about by the war period, the territorial changes, the monetary difficulties and the crises, international trade as a whole and particularly from a structural point of view, had a tendency, after a few years of complete disruption, to return to a pre-war pattern of evolution. Trade flows were returning to a distribution very similar to the one prevailing in 1913, and changes were occurring in the same direction as those of the 1896–1913 period. Certain countries endured great difficulties in the readaptation process, especially the United Kingdom, whose “structural crises” have often been cited. But the very changes that were sources of anxiety for English rulers were less a result of the transformation or the acceleration of pre-war tendencies than of their continuity.