International trade

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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

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Problems of verification

Collection:: Economics Books

152 pI INTERNATIONAL TRADE harmonious and self-adjusting scheme? In the actual conduct of international trade do commodities thus move now one way, now the other? In answer to questions of this kind it must be admitted at once that all abstract economic theory, and especially economic theory of the type illustrated in the preceding chapters, provides nothing more than working hypotheses. The process is no more than a preliminary approach toward principles and established conclu- sions. I would not belittle the importance of these first steps. Procedure such as they typify is indispensable in all scientific investigation. But they are no more than first steps. What we are concerned with at the end is the understanding of the phenomena of the actual world. Until we test and verify the hypotheses, we have no theory of international trade; we have no more than prolegomena to a theory. The task of verification has been too much neglected, not only as regards international trade, but as regards all the problems of exchange and distribu- tion. The neglect is explicable on various grounds; partly the intellectual neatness and apparent conclusiveness of the deduced conclusions, largely the lack of descriptive and statistical material of a kind serviceable for the purposes of verification. The avail- able material, however, is becoming steadily more abundant and more serviceable. Tho far from fully adequate, it is certain to be greatly enriched with the progress of descriptive economics and of statistical science. Even as it stands, not a little can be done; enough to clothe the dry bones with some flesh and blood, to give some indication of the degree of validity which appears when the deduced formulae are compared with the concrete phenomena of trade between nations. The present Book will be devoted to such comparisons — to problems of verification. Some sort of verification is supplied by attentive observation of familiar phenomena. Most patent of all is that derived from the relation of imports and exports; the tendency to an equality of money values between them; the mechanism of the foreign ex- changes, the comparatively small flow of specie which in fact takes

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