Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Ragnar Nurkse: Trade and Development
- 1 Causes and Effects of Capital Movements (1934)
- 2 The Schematic Representation of the Structure of Production (1935)
- 3 Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium (1945)
- 4 Domestic and International Equilibrium (1947)
- 5 International Monetary Policy and the Search for Economic Stability (1947)
- 6 Growth in Underdeveloped Countries (1952)
- 7 Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries (1953)
- 8 Period Analysis and Inventory Cycles (1954)
- 9 A New Look at the Dollar Problem and the United States Balance of Payments (1954)
- 10 International Investment To-day in the Light of Nineteenth-Century Experience (1954)
- 11 The Relation between Home Investment and External Balance in the Light of British Experience, 1945–1955 (1956)
- 12 Reflections on India's Development Plan (1957)
- 13 Balanced and Unbalanced Growth (1957)
- 14 International Trade Theory and Development Policy (1957)
- 15 Trade Fluctuations and Buffer Policies of Low-income Countries (1958)
- 16 Patterns of Trade and Development (1959)
- Notes
- Bibliography
8 - Period Analysis and Inventory Cycles (1954)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Ragnar Nurkse: Trade and Development
- 1 Causes and Effects of Capital Movements (1934)
- 2 The Schematic Representation of the Structure of Production (1935)
- 3 Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium (1945)
- 4 Domestic and International Equilibrium (1947)
- 5 International Monetary Policy and the Search for Economic Stability (1947)
- 6 Growth in Underdeveloped Countries (1952)
- 7 Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries (1953)
- 8 Period Analysis and Inventory Cycles (1954)
- 9 A New Look at the Dollar Problem and the United States Balance of Payments (1954)
- 10 International Investment To-day in the Light of Nineteenth-Century Experience (1954)
- 11 The Relation between Home Investment and External Balance in the Light of British Experience, 1945–1955 (1956)
- 12 Reflections on India's Development Plan (1957)
- 13 Balanced and Unbalanced Growth (1957)
- 14 International Trade Theory and Development Policy (1957)
- 15 Trade Fluctuations and Buffer Policies of Low-income Countries (1958)
- 16 Patterns of Trade and Development (1959)
- Notes
- Bibliography
Summary
A prominent feature of economic fluctuations in the United States is the part played by changes in inventory investment, i.e., in the net flow of goods into or out of commodity stocks held by the business system. These changes accounted on the average for 23 per cent of the changes in Gross National Product in the five upswings and for as much as 47 per cent in the five downswings that occurred during the twenty years between the wars. In the period since the war the recessions of 1948–49 and 1953–54 have been strongly marked each time by a cutback in inventory investment. The quarterly data now available show that this accounted for practically the whole decrease in GNP from the fourth quarter of 1948 to the third quarter of 1949, and again from the second quarter of 1953 to the first quarter of 1954, according to the last figures reported.
The large share of inventory changes in the ups and downs of business activity cannot be explained without reference to the timing as well as the extent of the swings in inventory investment. If these swings occurred irregularly, their share in the fluctuations of aggregate output could easily turn out to be zero or even negative. In reality, net inventory investment fluctuates closely—more closely than we might perhaps expect—with the volume of activity (not with the rate of change in activity).
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- Information
- Ragnar NurkseTrade and Development, pp. 213 - 236Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2009