The Ford thesis argued that there was a short-term causal relationship between British overseas investment and British merchandise exports in the late nineteenth century. However, economic historians since Ford have found little empirical evidence in support of this argument. Using data on bilateral British lending, this article finds that such a relationship did exist, with British ex ante lending preceding merchandise exports by 2 years. A case study of New Zealand, which had an extraordinarily high share of Britain in its imports, reveals that the relationship was conditional upon the lending being allocated to social overhead capital.

中文翻译：

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1870-1913 年英国资本和商品出口：新西兰的双边案例

福特论文认为，19 世纪后期英国海外投资与英国商品出口之间存在短期因果关系。然而，自福特以来的经济历史学家几乎没有发现支持这一论点的经验证据。使用英国双边贷款的数据，本文发现这种关系确实存在，英国事前贷款比商品出口早 2 年。新西兰的一个案例研究表明，英国在进口中所占的比例非常高，这表明这种关系以贷款分配给社会间接资本为条件。