Quotation of the Day…

Tweet

… is from page 4 of James Ingram’s 1966 book, International Economic Problems [original emphasis]:

Nations trade with each other because they benefit from it. Other motives may be involved, of course, but the basic economic motivation for international trade is that of gain. The gain from international trade, like the gain from all trade, exists because specialization increases productivity. We are familiar with fruits of specialization and the division of labor in trade between regions of a single country, or between persons in a town, but we may not perceive that the same benefits exist in international trade. The political boundaries that divide geographic areas into nations do not change the fundamental nature of trade and the benefits it confers on the trading partners.