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Observations on the Structure of World Trade and Payments*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 July 2011
Abstract
EVENTS intimately linked to our foreign relations have profoundly affected the level of economic activity in the United States and the character of our economic progress and stability. They cannot be disregarded by those concerned with the level of economic activity in this country. Furthermore, those concerned with the economic policies of the United States must also be concerned with the impact of those policies upon the rest of the world because of the great importance of the United States in the world economy, and because of the link between economic, political, and military events at home and abroad. Since the United States cannot ignore the far-reaching and indirect effect of its policies and decisions, the American people and their government require a detailed and systematic understanding of the economic interrelationships among all countries of the world. Even more, to exercise the international leadership which our great size and resources impose upon us, we must be in a position to assess the effect of developments and actions everywhere upon the political and economic strength of the free world. This article considers a few of the salient features of world economic relations which should always be kept in mind in assessing economic policy alternatives.
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- Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1956
References
1 The basis for this classification has been discussed in greater detail in the appendix to my paper, “On the Elaboration of a System of International Transaction Accounts,” in International Comparison of Economic Accounts, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 20, National Bureau of Economic Research (in press).
2 Transactions excluded are those in gold (monetary or non-monetary), in military aid items, between Soviet bloc countries, and between the US and its possessions. Included are some, but not all, transactions between overseas territories of Western Europe and their respective metropoles. Notably omitted are travel, investment income, government, and miscellaneous service transactions between France, Portugal, and Spain and their respective overseas territories.
3 This statement holds for each country for the whole five-year period on average, taking the median of the five yearly proportions as representing the average.
4 Thirteen US imports in 1952–1954 from Latin American countries (excluding Argentina) and Curacao (NWI), accounting for from 83 to 89 per cent of all items from those countries, were coffee, petroleum, cane sugar, copper, cocoa, lead, iron ore, bananas, zinc, tungsten, wool, tin, and manganese. Except for coffee, cocoa, and wool, every one was the product of foreign enterprises in which Americans have invested heavily. Similarly, thirteen items from Canada which accounted for 71 per cent of all US imports from Canada in 1954 were newsprint, paper base stocks, sawmill products, nickel, grains (imported for milling in bond for re-export), aluminum, fish, copper, asbestos, zinc, meat products, lead, and iron ore. I do not know about grains, fish, and meat products, but all others are products of industries in which Americans have invested heavily. The Commerce Department (in Department of Commerce, Foreign Investments of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1953, p. 2)Google Scholar has estimated that in 1946–1950 “about a quarter of the goods then imported by the U.S. was supplied by U.S.-controlled enterprises abroad.” As the total includes sizable amounts of wool, rubber, and tin from die Far East, in which the US does not have particularly large investments, I would suspect mat the proportion from Western Hemisphere sources supplied by US-controlled enterprises was much higher.
5 The division of markets by the incandescent electric lamp cartel (Phoebus) provides an example. The cartel distinguished three types of markets: home markets, British Overseas Empire (including the dominions, except Canada), and common territory. Home markets were reserved to each member. The British Overseas Empire was left dominantly to the British firms, with lesser shares going to Dutch, German, Hungarian, and American firms. North America (including Canada), Central America, and US possessions and dependencies (except the Philippines) became the exclusive territory of the US cartel member. The sales territories of the Continental producers were: German—Germany and a share of Austria, Italy, Spain, and the British Overseas Empire; Dutch—Holland and Belgium and tlieir territories, a share of Italy and Spain, and junior participation in die British Overseas Empire; French—France and its overseas territories and a share of Spain; Hungarian—Hungary and shares of Austria, Italy, and the British Overseas Empire; and Japanese—the Japanese Empire. The remaining common market was mainly in the unspecified European countries and South America. The German firm had preferred patent rights in Scandinavia, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey, and (with Dutch and Hungarian producers) had practically all the common European market. In Argentina, several producers—US, German, Hungarian, and Dutch—sold dirough a joint subsidiary.
The Phoebus cartel is summarized in Stocking, George W. and Watkins, Myron W., Cartels in Action, New York, Twentieth Century Fund, 1946, pp. 335ff.Google Scholar
6 A little over half the countries of the world for which figures are given by the International Monetary Fund in International Financial Statistics (34 out of 53) show a larger proportion of their exports to the US and Canada in 1954 than in 1937, and an even larger number show an increase in their share of imports from the US and Canada (38 out of 53).
7 The shift toward trade widi die US was so great diat in 15 of 19 instances imports from die US and Canada rose to 60 per cent or more of the country's total in 1954. All but four of the 19 increased the proportion of their exports going to the US and Canada (die four were Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Philippines). Half or more of die otlier countries increased exports to die US and Canada so much more than to other destinations that the share taken by die US and Canada increased 40 per cent or more, and by 1954 for 12 out of 19 countries the US and Canadian share of exports was 60 per cent or more of die total.
8 For all Latin American countries taken together, we find for the latest year for which IFS gives figures (1953) diat the proportion of exports to die US and Canada had increased 33 per cent from 1937 and the proportion of imports 34 per cent, while die proportions going to and coming from Continental EPU countries dropped by 31 and 34 per cent; proportions of trade going to and coming from die sterling area dropped by 43 and 45 per cent.
9 The problems of constructing a set of interarea accounts like those given in Tables 1 and 2, the limitations, and qualifications to the estimates are considered at length in my paper, “Transactions Between World Areas in 1951,” Universities-National Bureau Committee Conference on International Economics, Princeton, N.J., April 13, 1956.