Extending the research agenda

Most studies of the geography of international trade provide little more than descriptions of the pattern of commodity movements at the international scale. For their theoretical base, they draw on the theory of comparative advantage, to which they add the "geographical concepts' of frictions of distance and preferred trading partners. This largely ahistorical approach takes no account of how comparative advantages are created as part of the process of combined and uneven development, and hence can provide no explanation for the patterns. To stimulate a more theoretically-informed approach, this essay sketches an outline of the links among trade, the process of uneven development, the state, and the major economic actors. -from Author