ABSTRACT
The classical version of the development problematique emphasized chiefly the freeing up of trade. Through removal of the many regulatory and promotional statutes that had been spawned by mercantilism—the Statute of Apprentices, sundry usury laws, the Assize of Bread, the Com Laws, the Navigation Acts, and so on—resource allocation would be made more efficient, individual initiative encouraged, and growth assured. With a few notable exceptions, serious analytical interest in the institutional forms taken by factor flows, particularly in the guise of foreign direct investment, had mainly to await the aftermath of World War II. The “new criticism” links back into the more orthodox line of inquiry that began to take shape in the 1950s, albeit with a view of larger social implications that differed quite drastically from that contained in the scholarship of mainstream analysts. For a variety of reasons, then, multinational companies have clearly become the dominant institutions in transferring technologies across national borders.
