Editing Balance of trade (section)

===Classical theory===

====Adam Smith on the balance of trade====
{{See also|Friedrich List}}
{{Blockquote|In the foregoing part of this chapter I have endeavoured to show, even upon the principles of the commercial system, how unnecessary it is to lay extraordinary restraints upon the importation of goods from those countries with which the balance of trade is supposed to be disadvantageous.

Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade, upon which, not only these restraints, but almost all the other regulations of commerce are founded. When two places trade with one another, this [absurd] doctrine supposes that, if the balance be even, neither of them either loses or gains; but if it leans in any degree to one side, that one of them loses and the other gains in proportion to its declension from the exact equilibrium.|Smith, 1776, book IV, ch. iii, part ii<ref>Smith, Adam. (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981, 2 vols., (1776) (reprint of the Clarendon Press edition, Oxford 1976, with Edward Cannan's original index from 1922)</ref>}}