Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial North America - Hardcover

Originally published in 1972, this study is of the North American colonial economy from the middle of the seventeenth century to the American Revolution, with emphasis on the later years. The authors use quantitative analysis to prove that productivity was increasing not so much because of technological change, but rather because of improvements in market organization and reduced risks of business enterprise within markets. In the first part of the book the authors present a theoretical framework for examining the general aspects of long-term economic development in the colonies. In the second part they discuss shipping and overseas trade in detail. They examine costs of shipping and distribution; sources of productivity change; commodity trade with overseas markets; and finally a number of other influences on the colonial balance of frameworks. Several statistical appendices supporting the authors' argument follow the text.

Gary M. Walton became the Founding Dean of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Davis in 1981 and is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Davis. In addition, he is President of the Foundation for Teaching Economics, where he has designed and administered highly acclaimed economics and leadership programs (domestically and internationally) for high school seniors selected for their leadership potential, as well as for high school teachers. He credits much of his personal success to his coach at the University of California, Berkeley, the legendary Brutus Hamilton (U.S. Head Coach of Track and Field in the 1952 Olympics), and his success as an economist to his doctoral dissertation advisor, Douglass C. North (1993 Nobel Laureate in Economics).