Trade Policies for Development

The division of the world into rich and poor nations is a disturbing phenomenon, which is frequently traced back to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution undoubtedly initiated a period of rapid income growth, based largely on the continual accretion of technological innovation (which has now come to be regarded as the primary component of substained economic growth) in a number of countries, spreading out from England in the late 18th century but bypassing a number of countries on the ‘periphery’. But it is an historical fact that such disparities in economic standards of living obtained, between different regions of the world, at a number of different periods of modern history stemming from what Cipolla describes as the Agricultural Revolution of 10,000 years ago when the Mesolithic Age passed away.2