The Dallas Fed has short article highlighting the contributions of Jean Baptiste Say to free trade in their publication Economic Insights. Robert Formaini is the main contributor. Below is a small excerpt.
Given France’s current attitude toward free trade, some might find it surprising that the nation was home to an influential group of pro-free trade political economists from the early 18th to early 19th centuries. Jean-Baptiste Say, a writer who popularized Adam Smith in France, is squarely in that tradition. He is also responsible for one of the great, ongoing macroeconomic controversies--his famous Law of Markets. Say was much more than a Smith follower, and his ideas have always prompted scholarly investigation. We offer readers this issue of Economic Insights as an introduction to one of France’s great free trade advocates.(Say’s Treatise is still in print!)
