These expeditions apparently had only limited economic impact, however. Ultimately, internal political struggles led to a curtailment of further Chinese exploration (Findlay, 1992). Evidently, in this case, different choices by political leaders might have led to very different historical outcomes. A third observation is that social dislocation, and consequently often social resistance, may result when economies become more open.
An important source of dislocation is that - as the principle of comparative advantage suggests - the expansion of trade opportunities tends to change the mix of goods that each country produces and the relative returns to capital and labor.