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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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Problems of verification

Collection:: Economics Books

THE UNITED STATES, I. UNTIL 1900 285 situation is not quite so beclouded. After the Californian gold discoveries, that metal was produced in abundance from the domestic mines. Most of it flowed abroad. It was an article of export, and had to be paid for in some way or other; it contributed its share to the then persisting excess of merchandise imports. Yet the gold was virtually an article of export, and the immediate cause of its movement from time to time was in the balance of in- ernational payments; and this balance on occasions was such as to bring about an actual inflow, and at other occasions caused the outflow to be less than usual. Monetary and banking conditions ere then less chaotic than in preceding years; and the whole inter- lacing system of money, credit, prices, was clearly of the sensitive type. An attempt to trace the influence of the international move- ment of gold, or more accurately of the greater or less outflow of gold, might therefore seem not entirely hopeless. But these years of comparative clarity were few; and they were dominated by the great expansion which preceded the crisis of 1857, and by the de- pression following it. It is possible that an elaborate study of this one decade would yield results of significance toward testing the Ricardian theory of the relation between gold movements and prices. But the information on the pertinent matters is frag mentary, and at best the period is short. Even after painstaking sifting of the evidence, the direct effects of gold movements on credit and prices would probably remain obscure, and the long- run trends in the relations between domestic and foreign prices still more So. After the Civil War, the national banking system brought about greater uniformity in the banking and credit situation. True, great banks were active outside the system, were unaffected by the fed- eral legislation, and went their own way. As regards those within the system as well as those without, the structure of credit and money remained a sensitive one, as it had been before. But during the period from the close of the war to the resumption of specie payments — that is, from 1865 to 1879 — it was sensitive in other ways, and under the influence of other forces than is contemplated in the familiar theories of gold movements. The ordinary circu-

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