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

322 INTERNATIONAL TRADE Partly permanent, partly of a temporary character, were the heavy remittances made from the United States to Europe for charity. The steady immigrants’ remittances of the pre-war type continued, apparently unabated in volume. Large sums were also sent out to Central and Eastern Europe for momentary relief. The amounts of these payments were quite as difficult to ascertain with accuracy as they had been for the year before the war. They served, like the shipments of currency and the panic transfers of capital, to becloud the situation and make it more difficult to per- ceive the more permanent and more important developments. The changes of a more enduring sort, which particularly deserve attention as regards general problems of interpretation and veri- fication, were of three kinds: first, some approach to equality between merchandise imports and exports; next, a new situation in the international loan account; and finally, a new situation as regards the movement of gold in and out of the country. For the purpose of considering these, it will be convenient to consider in some detail the international balance sheet of the United States for the years 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925. 1 give the figures as they have been compiled by the Department of Commerce. It appears at once that exports and imports no longer showed such extraordinary discrepancies as in 1916-21. While exports continued to be the greater, the excess was not such as to rouse astonishment. In 1922 the “favorable” balance of trade was 1 The figures of exports and imports in this table are not the same as those given for the corresponding items in the table on p. 319. The present figures are derived from the special compilation made by the Department of Commerce relating to the entire international balance (Trade Information Bulletin No. 399, April, 1926) ; whereas the earlier are from the routine statistics of the Department on the Foreign Commerce of the United States. The discrepancies arise because of certain adjust- ments (for smuggled goods, illicit liquor, and the like) designed to make the inter- national balance sheet accurate. The amounts by which the two sets of figures differ are small, and quite negligible as regards the comments which follow in the text. On all phases of this subject we are immensely better informed for the post-war than for the pre-war period. Inquiry concerning the amount of the invisible items was begun by Professor J. H. Williams almost immediately after the war, the results being published in the Review of Economic Statistics. The importance and interest of his pioneer work caused the task to be taken over by the Department of Commerce. Beginning with 1922 the Department has presented, and presumably will continue to present, annual systematic statements on the balance of inter- national payments which are as accurate as the nature of the case permits and quite accurate enough for the main purposes of economic analvsis.

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