This article surveys empirical studies of the static gains from a movement toward free trade and studies of the dynamic effects of growth in exports on per capita income. It also summarizes comparative studies of the trade regimes of developing countries undertaken in the 1960s to 1970s, which show fairly conclusively that “outwardorientation” is associated with better economic performance. The conclusions of these studies are then tested for the more volatile global environment of the 1970s and 1980s. Various arguments are weighed about the dynamic income effects of the growth in world income and trade on a free-trading country's economic growth rate the “trade as an engine of growth” view. The closing section introduces insights of the classical writers that have reemerged in the neo-Austrian and the more recent neoclassical “new political economy” schools, which might explain the links between trade and growth performance. These emphasize the importance of the nonquantifiable aspects of a free trade (as compared with a protectionist) regime in creating a general economic framework conducive to individual entrepreneurship, productivity, and thrift. In this context we argue that free trade is the “handmaiden of growth,” as it indirectly constrains the state from going beyond the bounds of necessary public action for the provision of those domestic public goods that are essential for development.