TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mancall,Peter
AU  - Rosenbloom,Joshua
AU  - Weiss,Thomas J.
TI  - Commodity Exports, Invisible Exports and Terms of Trade for the Middle Colonies, 1720 to 1775
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14334
PY  - 2008
Y2  - September 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14334
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14334.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Peter Mancall
Department of History
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089
E-Mail: mancall@usc.edu

Joshua Rosenbloom
Department of Economics
University of Kansas
Snow Hall 436
1460 Jayhawk Blvd
Lawrence, KS  66045-2113
Tel: 785/864-2839
Fax: 785/864-5270
E-Mail: jrosenbloom@ku.edu

Thomas J. Weiss
3128 Campfire Ct
Lawrence,  KS  66049
Tel: 785/840-6878
Fax: 785/864-5270
E-Mail: t-weiss@ku.edu
AB  - Economic historians of the eighteenth-century British mainland North American colonies have given considerable weight to the role of exports as a stimulus for economic growth. Yet their analyses have been handicapped by reliance on one or two time series to serve as indicators of broader changes rather than considering the export sector as a whole.  Here we present new comprehensive export measures for the middle colonies.  We find that aggregate exports in constant prices grew very quickly, but barely faster than population during the period under consideration.   Furthermore, improvements in the terms of trade increased the colonists’ ability to buy imports over time, especially after 1740.  Although the export sector performed well, it constituted a relatively small part of the region’s economy.  It is uncertain if this export success was sufficient to propel the entire economy at a rate that exceeded the growth of population.
ER  -