Advocates of the Theory of Reciprocal Demand Before J. S. Mill
Robert Torrens, Mountifort Longfield, and James Pennington
1997 Volume 35 Issue 35 Pages 59-71
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1997 Volume 35 Issue 35 Pages 59-71
The Theory of Reciprocal Demand is best known in the context of the work of John Stuart Mill. Mill's ‘First Elementary Principle of International Value’ first appeared in Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (1844). Before Mill, however, according to Jacob Viner and others, a number of classical economists, including Robert Torrens, Mountifort Longfield, and James Pennington pointed out that terms of trade are determined by reciprocal demand.
No graphical approaches are provided in the suggestions of Viner and others. Accordingly, in this paper, we deal with their Theory of Reciprocal Demand using a graphical model based on the first elementary principle of Mill. We then confirm Mill's status as the founder of this theory.
