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

IMPORT DUTIES AND TERMS OF TRADE 145 tax. The consideration of such possibilities is not germane to the matter in hand. A tax of this kind, or any particular tax, has in itself no tendency to promote misapplication of the public funds. It is the general state of a country’s government that determines whether its tax revenue shall be well or ill used. So far as concerns the effects of international trade, it matters not what the government does with the proceeds of the tax; we may assume they are as well applied as the proceeds of other taxes. Proceed now to a further set of possible consequences. So far it has been tacitly assumed that the duty is imposed for revenue purposes only. Suppose now that the duty is not merely for revenue, but is for protection. Its object then is to promote the production within the country of a part or the whole of the goods previously imported. In so far as it achieves this object, the results just indicated still ensue, and will be accentuated. Im- ports are cut down, not only because price rises and consumption becomes less, but because articles which before had been imported are made within the country. Specie flows into the country to a greater degree than under a revenue duty. Prices and money incomes rise more within its borders, and the barter terms of trade come to be altered even more to its advantage. Such imports as continue to come in — and, as will presently be explained, by no means all are likely to be shut out — will be procured at better terms. In the case of protective duties, however, something more happens. There arises a real offset to the gain from better terms of trade. In so far as the taxed goods are produced within the country, there is loss, not gain. The price of these goods also is raised to consumers by the amount of the duty; that is, they are higher in price within the country than without. The enhance- ment of price, tho a tax in precisely the same sense as in the case of articles which continue to be imported, brings no revenue to the government. It goes to the domestic producers. And to them it represents no gain — that is, no special gain. It is in the nature of a bonus which makes it possible for them to conduct an industry in which the country has no sufficient ad-

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