International Trade and United States Economic Development: 1827–1843

The decades of the 1820's, 1830's and early 1840's form a fascinating period i n the process of American nineteenth-century development. In many ways that era represents a classic case of interdependence between developed and underdeveloped economies through the movements of factors, goods and specie. During these formative years in American development, the United States was predominantly a single primary product exporter, her rate of economic expansion very much a function of the state of the external market for cotton. The flow of capital moves in the classic fashion, from capital-rich Great Britain to capital-scarce America, but varying with relative degrees of expected returns; that is, varying with the relative rate of development between the two countries. But the period from the 1820's to 1840's exhibits another interesting aspect as well: it reveals the first substantial evidence of a long swing in the rate of American economic development.