Solutions to Case Studies for Graduate Students

Kofi Aninakwa

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781644244982
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Graduate students, college libraries, and organizations or management teams will benefit tremendously when they acquire and use the solutions to the case studies in this book. Case studies are the well-established and proven techniques that guide students or management teams to adopt prudent concepts theoretically in real-world situations.These studies can help to address an organization's dilemma depending upon the expectations of the stakeholders and the investors. In this edition, this book

THE UNITED STATES TRADE DATA FOR THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2015

Abstract

The United States (US) statistics of import and export is the official government and nongovernment shipments of merchandise between foreign countries and the US Customs Territory (the fifty states, District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico), US foreign-trade zones, and the US Virgin Islands. The statistics, in general, records the physical movement of merchandise between the United States and foreign countries around the globe.

The statistics used to compile the merchandise trade balance exclude the following types of transactions: (a) United States trade with US possessions, trade between US possessions, and trade between US possessions and foreign countries (except Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands); (b) merchandise shipped in transit through the United States from one foreign country to another; (c) shipments to the US Armed Forces, including post exchanges, for their own use, as well as US merchandise returned by the US Armed Forces for their own use; (d) Monetary gold and silver; (e) Issued monetary coins (in current circulation) of all component metals; (f) bunker fuels and other supplies and equipment for use on departing vessels, planes, or other carriers engaged in foreign trade; (g) shipments of furniture, equipment, and supplies to US government agencies as well as such merchandise when returned to the United States; and (h) imports of articles repaired under warranty.

key words: United States, statistics, shipments, exports, imports, foreign countries

Introduction

The trade balance for any country is the difference between the total values of its exports and imports in any given year. When a country’s total annual exports exceed its total annual imports, it is said to have a trade surplus. When imports exceed exports, a country has a trade deficit. The US exports and imports over the past half century demonstrate quite clearly that although exports increased from 1995 to 2000, imports increased more, producing a sizeable trade deficit by the end of the decade (US Census 2012). Some other transactions are not considered to be of statistical importance, such as shipments of personal and household effects of travelers and certain temporary exports and imports.

In history, the world has seen the United States recording the largest trade deficits during the 1980s. At the end of the twentieth century, however, the deficit began increasing again and peaked in 2005. The US trade deficits declined substantially during the first half of the 1990s. The US trade deficit declined between 2011 and 2012 from $559.9 billion to $540.4 billion (Scott 2013). A substantial drop in the trade deficit in 2013 has pointed toward an economic recovery for the US. This is a result of a boom in oil exports from increased exploration (Deseret 2013).

Economists and citizens in the US and other countries have debated the significance of trade balances. Many argue that it is better for countries to have trade surpluses— to export more than they import—than to have deficits. They believe that trade deficits are harmful for a number of reasons: Trade deficits shows a sign of a nation’s economic weakness due to excessive reliance on products made by others and from deficiencies in the home country’s economic output. An excess of imports over exports comes at the expense of domestic production and jobs in the eyes of many labor supporters. Some people argue that the loss of millions of manufact...