No drain, no gain? The problems with unequal exchange

Recent empirical work (Hickel et al. 2021, 2022) appears to show that the Global South is being ``drained" of resources and value on a vast scale through unequal exchange (UE) and/or ecologically unequal exchange (EUE). Headline estimates of the aggregate value of this extraction have been widely taken to substantiate two politico-normative issues: that the South is systematically exploited through international price formation, and that this drain constitutes a binding constraint on Southern development and a precondition for Northern prosperity. This paper argues that neither claim is supported by the new measurement agenda. It shows that new drain estimates rely on untenable premises -- in particular, claims of North-South parity in productivity and export composition. Stipped of these assumptions, Hickel et al's method can't yield a counterfactual ``fair price" vector, meaning that their estimates are ungrounded and indeterminate. Moreover, even granting the estimates, they do not sustain an underdevelopment thesis. In standard growth regressions and long-run club-convergence tests, higher measured drain is non-negative and often positively associated with Southern growth once conventional fundamentals are controlled for. The paper suggests ways that research in ecological economics can be placed on a firmer conceptual footing.