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 I. Theory

Collection:: Economics Books

WAGES AND PRICES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES 41 it is, will appear more fully as we proceed. It has been singularly neglected in the exposition of the theory of international trade and of its application. Most writers have dealt with the subject as if wages and prices not only moved together, but were necessarily at similar levels: as if high prices all around must go with high wages, and low prices all around with low wages. Commonly they speak as if advantageous terms of international trade must mean that the value of money is low all around, and prices high all around; not only that there are high money wages, but that all domestic goods, all services, all lands, houses, and lodgings are correspondingly high. Not so; the negative may be insisted on once more. And since the domestic trade of every country quite outweighs its international trade, and the portion of its national dividend that comes from its purely domestic trade is the greater, it follows that the negative is no less important in its practical applications than in its theoretical significance. Altho the present chapter, like all in Part I, is concerned mainly with a theoretical formulation, most matters of verification and illustration being postponed to Part II, a word may be said here on the extent to which practical application can be made of the distinction between domestic and international prices. The needed statistical information too often is sadly lacking. In but few cases have we price records which separate the goods that enter into foreign commerce from those that come on the domestic market only. Most price data are prepared indiscriminately for any and all commodities, and most index numbers refer to one general (and for our purposes often confusing) price level. Some of the most interesting and significant points in the theory of foreign trade are difficult to verify — cannot readily be subjected to the test of conformity to the facts of the case — because we do not possess the data in suitable arrangement and classification. [t is to be observed, however, that in one important respect we are not entirely bare of the information we need; namely, on the rates of money wages. Here there are, at least for some countries and for recent times, instructive figures. They are more than instructive; they bear on the heart of the matter. The funda-

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