Trade and Poverty

Trade and Poverty is undoubtedly an important and authoritative work, one that should take the current discourse on globalization and divergence to a new level.

EH.net

Our leading economic historian has chosen just the right moment to distill his life's work. Other economists have been spreading awareness that history matters far more than we thought in today's development outcomes, but we are amateurs compared with Williamson. He carefully analyzes the seductive correlation between the first great globalization boom in the nineteenth century and the great divergence at the same time that played a huge role in giving us today's wealth and poverty of nations. Did this first wave of globalization benefit both rich and poor nations, but the former more than the latter? Or did it actually hurt the periphery? The answers could not be more relevant for today's globalization and development debates, and they are here for the taking in Williamson's magnum opus.

William Easterly, Professor of Economics, New York University, author of The Elusive Quest for Growth and The White Man's Burden

The definitive neoclassical account of the emergence of modern world inequality. Jeff Williamson throws down the gauntlet to the institutionalists and other doubters. Impossible to ignore.

James Robinson, David Florence Professor of Government, Harvard University

Williamson is the most distinguished historian of globalization. In this book he uses powerful theoretical arguments and massive quantitative evidence to argue that the divergence between rich countries in the core and poor countries in the periphery, as well as the large income gaps between rich and poor households in the developing world, were caused by the first wave of globalization. This is a fascinating book, which should appeal particularly to economic historians and scholars of globalization, political economy, and economic growth.

Elhanan Helpman, Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade, Harvard University