ABSTRACT

Although I first met Bo Södersten in Sweden in the mid-1970s, our intellectual paths first crossed at MIT in the late 1950s and early 1960s, where both of us worked on the hot topic in the field at that time, which was trade and growth. Hicks’ famous inaugural lecture on the long-run dollar problem had inspired Harry Johnson, and his work in turn inspired several of the newcomers entering the field at that time, including Bo and myself. It was an exciting time. Bo’s subsequent dissertation, published as Södersten (1964), is the most thorough and detailed treatment of that stage of the literature available in print. Not only did he pull together the results based on the two-sector neoclassical model but also he related this work to the ‘development’ theories of Arthur Lewis, Raul Prebisch and others. He also linked the modern discussion to classical doctrine. This work can still be read profitably today by any student of international trade.