Exporting raw materials can make a country poorer, relative to its trading partners

Raúl Prebisch and Hans Singer independently argued in 1950 that the price of raw commodities tends to fall over time relative to manufactured goods, so commodity-exporting countries lose ground even as they sell more. The idea reshaped development economics, pushing many poorer nations toward industrialization instead of raw-material exports.

— Raúl Prebisch, The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems — United Nations, 1950; developed jointly with Hans Singer's 1950 paper on investing and borrowing countries