ABSTRACT
Economies have gone on developing—the large continental areas of the United States and Russia being the chief examples—without necessarily having external trade booms. Consider the values and objectives of people who live in old settled parts of the world in comparison with those who have grown up in new settled areas. Whether or not trade can be a stimulant to development depends on what Kindleberger calls the ability of the economy to transform. One of the interesting factors that links England and Japan as similar cases and contrasts them with France and China deals with this factor of social mobility. The careful formulation of good hypotheses is an essential part of the process of theory creation. Economic development is having society geared in a manner that there are people always searching for and anticipating a technological breakthrough and having the investment to make it.
