The work of the Stock Exchange

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1831284952

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-225876

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Meeker, James Edward http://d-nb.info/gnd/126597340

Title:: The work of the Stock Exchange

Edition:: Revised edition

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Ronald Press Company

Year of publication:: [1930]

Scope:: XVI, 720 Seiten; Illustrationen, Diagramme

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XVIII. The stock exchange as an international market

Collection:: Economics Books

510 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE significance to currencies and credits, however, the yellow metal is not included in the ordinary tale of visible imports or exports along with such less romantic goods as soft coal, ma- chinery, or wheat, but separate statistics are kept of its “ar- rivals” and “departures” to and from our ports. The same practice is also followed in the case of silver—the other financial metal. And so this list might be enumerated, to include the thou- sand-and-one different cases where an international bargain of some kind has been struck. Two other classes of services, however, are of sufficient importance to deserve consideration here—bank credit and securities.’ Just as securities can be shifted from one country to another through stock exchanges, so bank credit can be exported and imported by steamer or even by cable. Both must therefore be included as a final but important item in the total exports and imports of any nation. Thus, when a German sells his bonds or stocks to an American, America may in consequence be said to export its capital to Germany, and we in turn import the receipt for this exported capital of ours in the form of German stock or bond certifi- cates. So, too, bank credit can be shifted between nations by international banking operations. The Actual Balance of Trade.—But one feature of all this bewildering purchase and sale of goods and services carried on by every modern nation should be clearly noted. In the long run the total exports of every nation must balance its total imports. No nation can regularly and indefinitely buy more than it sells, or sell more than it buys, from or to the rest of the world. This fact may seem in direct contradiction to the facts presented by our past pre-war foreign trade reports. Even 14 In enumerating the various items which constitute a nation’s invisible trade, an initial question of definition exists. Contrary to the prevailing custom, securities and bank capital in the last analysis should probably not be included in the so-called “inter- national trade balances’ at all, since they do not represent consumable goods or services, but rather income-bearing loans tendered as long- or short-term payments for past or future goods and services. Certainly, a nation is a_ debtor or creditor nation according to whether it imports or exports a balance of securities and bank credit. Yet, for the sake of simplicity and clarity, the author has deemed it advisable in the ensuing account of international trade and finance conventionally to include securities and bank credit as services in the invisible trade.

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