International trade

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1758394757

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136209

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Taussig, Frank William http://d-nb.info/gnd/120199459

Title:: International trade

Place of publication:: New York, NY

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XXI, 425 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Theory

Collection:: Economics Books

30 ff INTERNATIONAL TRADE paths; and then once more it became a question what were the long sustained currents in the movement of goods from country to country. Mining industries present a peculiar case,! in international trade as well as in domestic. It is not easy to say whether they are to be regarded as analogous to agriculture or to manufactures. They are extractive industries, and therein like agriculture; but they are not subject to any “law” of diminishing return; at all events, to none of the same kind that bears on agriculture. It is true that in mining we find at any given period of time varying costs quite as sharply as in agriculture, and more sharply than in manufactures. But mining operations are not subject to the kind of pressure which appears when men cultivate the soil — when they use land as a means for yielding crops perennially. In mining there is a fixed store, not an instrument for transmuting matter. And the mines which are known and are in use at any one time, while they vary in richness, show no certain trend toward greater or less richness. All that we are sure of is that each and every single mine will sooner or later be exhausted; but it may continue to be unvarying in richness until it gives out. Still more uncertain is it whether new mines will be discovered, and whether they will prove worse or better than those previously worked. We have further to consider that while the variations between the costs at the several sources of supply are due to physical causes such as differences in richness and accessibility, their availability depends markedly on the same human factors which are outstanding in manufactures, the ability and venturesomeness of business leaders. All in all, it is doubt- ful whether we can speak in strictness of any tendency to con- stant returns or diminishing returns or increasing returns in mining. For the theory of international trade we must be satisfied with some general empirical results. The tangled forces that act in the mineral industries — the mysteries of the earth’s crust, unpredict- able new finds, the progress of science, the progress of business management and industrial organization — bring it about that at 1 Ag was long ago pointed out by Ricardo (Principles, Ch. 3).

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