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A comment on The Metal Age of Thailand and Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage.

Re:The Metal Age of Thailand and Ricardo's Law of Comparativ... by robocat on Thursday August 12, 2021 @04:06PM (#28160818)
> Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Hours of work necessary to produce one unit:

              Cloth  Wine
    England   100    120
    Portugal  90     80
In the absence of trade, England requires 220 hours of work to both produce and consume one unit each of cloth and wine while Portugal requires 170 hours of work to produce and consume the same quantities.

If each country specializes in the good for which it has a comparative advantage, then the global production of both goods increases. Countries can trade surpluses for shortfalls and be better off overall.

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Re:The Metal Age of Thailand and Ricardo's Law of Comparativ... by CyanBird on Thursday August 12, 2021 @04:13PM (#28160878)
Yeah, it works very, very well, the basis of modern international trade networks

It sadly has externalities such as compounding benefits of manufacturing, or the inherent nature of anarchism on international relations which as the model of Joan Robinson showcases it leads to lopsided effects on economic development such as was the relationship of Portugal - England, or the de industrialization of India for the benefit of having a hostage market to British early phases of manufacturing

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