Historic View on the Protectionism in Bulgaria and Romania. Protectionism Theories of Mihail Manoilesku (1891-1950) and Konstantin Bobchev (1894-1976)

The paper makes a comparative analysis of two original theories for international trade and protectionism in Bulgaria and Romania between the two World Wars, as a product of the specific economic environment, as well as the distribution of the economic ideas coming from economically developed countries. The paper discusses the theory of the general protectionism based on the ideas of national productivity of Mihail Manoilesku (1891-1950) and the theory of international trade and production power of Konstantin Bobchev (1894-1976). Studying both theories allows formulating interesting scientific and purely practical statements and ideas, which can help understand the ways and limits of an individual development of the peripheral European economies. In the past, as well as today, both Bulgaria and Romania have somewhat similar problems – catching up development, lack of own capital, hard limitation on the payment balance, dependency on the leading powers in the European Union, etc. In this line of thoughts a view on the “protectionism past” of the Balkan countries leads to new opportunities for lightening of the so-called Bairoch paradox, which shows the positive influence of the protectionism for the economic growth. To a certain extent it contradicts to the main postulates of the free international trade.