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

CHAPTER 21 GREAT Britain, II. THE TERMs oF TraDE, 1880-1914 I TURN now to a series of movements for which the data are more precise, and for which something in the nature of a specific test of theory is more nearly possible. The period covered is that from about 1880 to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. As already observed, the excess of imports over exports by this time was definitely established. Once established, we might have expected that it would grow; and grow, if not at a constant rate, at least with a continuing upward movement from year to year. But what we find in fact is a very irregular movement, by no means a steady maintenance of an upward trend. The pay- ments from other countries to Great Britain on account of the “invisible items,” as reflected in the excess of her imports over exports, showed for a number of years in the early part of the 20th century a decrease, not an increase. Between 1904 and 1914 the annual excess of imports declined heavily — from £177 million a year in the quinquennium 1900-1904, to £145 million in 1905 909, and to £137 million in 1909-1914. The explanation of this unexpected turn is to be found in a sudden burst of capital exports. This is the one item among the total of the invisible items that commonly shows, in a country that has reached the stage in which Great Britain found herself during the period in question, the greatest irregularity. It hap- pened then to exhibit quite extraordinary changes. A great and sudden enlargement of loans to foreign countries marked the years of expansion that preceded the Great War. The accompanying chart indicates how extraordinary was the outflow.! On that chart are indicated, on the three lower curves, the main items which ! I have taken the figures on which the chart is based from Mr. C. K. Hobson's Export of Capital, pp. 197, 204; adding, however, those showing the excess of merchandise imports.

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