The paper offers the first interpretation of David Ricardo’s famous numerical example fully compatible with the primary source. It claims that the sole purpose of the four numbers was to illustrate that the relative value of commodities made in different countries is not determined by the respective quantities of labor devoted to their production. This exception results from unequal ordinary profit rates between countries because capital does not move across national borders as easily as it does within the same country. Likewise, the paper also debunks some entrenched myths about the numerical example. It shows that Ricardo did not leave the terms of trade indeterminate, that the purpose of the four numbers was not about measuring the gains from trade, and that Portugal had no productivity advantage over England. All of this contradicts the way scholars have interpreted Ricardo’s numerical example since the mid-nineteenth century.

该论文首次对大卫·李嘉图著名的数值例子进行了解释，与原始资料完全兼容。它声称，这四个数字的唯一目的是说明不同国家制造的商品的相对价值并不取决于各自生产中投入的劳动量。这种例外是由于国家之间的普通利润率不平等造成的，因为资本不像在同一国家内那样容易跨国界流动。同样，本文还揭穿了一些关于数值示例的根深蒂固的神话。它表明李嘉图并没有让贸易条件变得不确定，这四个数字的目的不是为了衡量贸易收益，而且葡萄牙相对于英国没有生产力优势。