As part of my continuing professional development this summer I will be completing 3 online graduate classes - one of which is BU 631 International Economics and Trade. My first assignment in this class is a summary of Ricardo's Comparative Advantage.
David Ricardo in the preface to On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation to writes:
"The real price of every thing," says Adam Smith, "what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it, or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people." (http://www.econlib.org/library/Ricardo/ricP.html)
Ricardo goes on to develop one of the more profound contributions to social thought in his explication of value and the basis of exchange or the “toil and trouble which he can save to himself,” which is the famous comparative advantage. In chapter 7, Ricardo asserts the advantages of free trade in both the international and domestic arenas and them provides his numerical example, frequently included in introductory textbooks.
Analysis of comparative advantage over at 26econ
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