International trade

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1758394757

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136209

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Taussig, Frank William http://d-nb.info/gnd/120199459

Title:: International trade

Place of publication:: New York, NY

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XXI, 425 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Theory

Collection:: Economics Books

LOANS AND INTEREST PAYMENTS 131 by that analysis, so far from being completely obliterated by the irregularities, rather become accentuated and more conspicuous. The unmistakable fact of experience is that a country which is in the early stages of lending to others has an excess of merchandise exports; it has a “favorable” balance of trade. On the other hand, a country in the early stages of borrowing has an excess of imports — an “unfavorable” balance. At the further end of the international credit cycle, a country which for decades and genera- tions has been making foreign investments, and to which, therefore, interest payments have been steadily accumulating, has an excess of merchandise imports, an “unfavorable” balance. Conversely, a country which is in the early stages of borrowing does in fact have an excess of imports; but when it has been a borrower over a long period, it has an excess of exports. If the borrowing process has ceased, or has greatly declined, this stage is the more pronounced. It is reached, if its borrowing operations have already gone on for decades and generations, even in the face of continuing large loans. With all the irregularities in the steps by which the successive stages are traversed, the stages themselves are In almost every case to be discerned; and they follow one upon another in the order which general reasoning leads us to expect. Reverting now to that part of the theoretical analysis which relates to the barter terms of trade, the reader will observe that while these terms tend to be made more favorable to the borrowing country during the earlier phase of the cycle, they become in the later phase less favorable to the borrowing country and more favor- able to the lending. What the borrowers as a people lose at the start, they are likely to regain at the end. Obviously, the balanc- ing of loss and gain is not likely to be precise; least of all is any such offsetting to be clearly discerned or measurable. Whether there proves to be in the end a final surplus of gain one way or the other will depend on the demand for the commodities of each country by the people of the other. Both as regards the commodi- ties exchanged and their demand schedules, there may easily be changes during the long period — a generation, a half-century —

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