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

134 INTERNATIONAL TRADE ABF a al whatever further items there may be — the additional sum due to Great Britain will be provided in the same way as in other cases of unsettled balance of payments. The theoretical solution is familiar. If payment had balanced before this item was present — if we suppose this to appear as a new item — specie flows to Great Britain; a double set of price changes sets in, upward in Great Britain, downward in the United States; imports and ex- ports are modified ; finally Great Britain has an excess of merchan- dise imports, the United States an excess of merchandise exports. And this series of changes brings the familiar consequences for the barter terms of trade; they become less favorable to the United States, more so to Great Britain. The people of the United States get their imported goods on less favorable terms than before ; those of Great Britain get theirs on more favorable terms. Shipping charges and shipping earnings thus have a place in inter- national trade precisely like that of tourist expenditures. They take their place in the balance of payments, and they affect the net barter terms of trade — these only, not the gross terms. The Americans (say) pay the freight charges to the British, and get the freight service; they get their quid pro quo at once. They pay others for doing the work of carriage, rather than do it them- selves; and the reason why they make the payment, in the last analysis, is that the others can do the work of carriage cheaply, while they themselves can apply their labor more effectively in other ways. It is quite superfluous to explain, to those who follow the general reasoning of the theory of international trade, that there is no net loss to the Americans from their payment of shipping charges. The case is similar to that of tourist expenditures and dissimilar to some of the other transactions considered in the pre- ceding pages, in that there is an immediate service, for which pay- ment is made at once. At once, that is, in the sense in which it can be said that the entire balance of international payments is settled at once; it is a balance settled very promptly, within a few months or a year. Of the temporary extensions and adjust- ments of “unfunded” balances more will be said elsewhere; they cause no modification of the general principles here under con-

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