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 II. Problems of verification

Collection:: Economics Books

DIFFERENCES IN LABOR COSTS 165 German brick, however, is larger than the American in the pro- portion of 3 to 2; making allowance for this difference, the German output, for comparison with the American, may be reckoned at 60,000. The discrepancy in favor of the United States remains very great. The effectiveness of American labor in brickmaking, for the country at large, is over twice as great; and for the State of New York alone it is thrice that of German labor. Coal and brick belong in the class of domestic commodities. So great is their cost of transportation that in the main they do not come within the domain of international trade. True, this is less unreservedly the case with coal than with brick. Coal moves over greater distances than brick, and sometimes moves from country to country. England exports much coal, partly because the mines are near tidewater, and partly because freight rates are specially low on outward-bound shipping. German coal moves across the border to nearby regions of the Continent. Neverthe- less, in the main both commodities belong in the domestic class. The advantage which the United States has in producing them hence shows its consequences rather within the country than in its exchange with other countries. Tho the money rates of wages in the United States were double those in Germany (I speak of the pre-war period), the effectiveness of American labor in brick-making was more than double; bricks might therefore be expected to be cheaper, at the works or near by, than in Germany. So as regards coal. Money wages were higher in the United States than in England and in Germany ; they were a little higher in England than in Germany, but the difference was not great enough to affect materially a comparison between the United States and the other two. The effectiveness of labor in coal- mining was greater in the United States than in either of them, and LI cite a further bit of evidence on this same commodity. ‘‘I was in a brickyard at Singapore, where I calculated the product of the men. Their rate of pay was 35 cents per day in our money. I happened to have in my pocket a very accurate cost statement of a brickmaking company in one of our Eastern cities, signed by its president, and when the superintendent of the Singapore yard and I figured his labor (i.e. wages expense) together, they were precisely the same.” Redfield, The New Industrial Dav. op. 121.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: International trade

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation