The Secular deterioration in terms of trade of developing countries confine them to be imitators and never innovators. Discuss.

Secular deterioration the deterioration in the (commodity) terms of trade. Raul Prebisch and Hans Singer launched a hypothesis, secular decline in the terms of trade of primary products and primary producing region vis-a-vis manufactures and the industrial North (respectively). During the days of industrial revolution in the West, colonisation of the South led to the colonial pattern of North-South trade. Raw materials and food moved from the colonies and semi-colonies in the South to the industrial centre in the North. Artisan activities declined in the South due to competition from the machine-made goods as a part of the design of the colonial rulers.
Economic historians described this phenomenon as de-industrialisation. Mainstream economists hail this phenomenon as international division of labour according to comparative advantages. It was expected that the fruits of technical progress taking place in the industrial centre of the North would be transmitted to the peripheral agra...