Michael Reddell: Once were a trading nation

I’ve used here before the snippet from older books that in the decades before the Second World War it was generally accepted that New Zealand had the highest value of foreign trade per capita of any country.  Estimates of historical GDP per capita suggest we also had among the very highest levels of real GDP per capita.

That was then. Yesterday I noticed this tweet from a Herald journalist. I presume the chart was taken from The Treasury’s Briefing to the Incoming Minister.