Studies in the Theory of International Trade

Jacob Viner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315409597
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

In this book, originally published in 1937, Jacob Viner traces, in a series of studies of contemporary source-material, the evolution of the modern orthodox theory of international trade from its beginnings in the revolt against English mercantilism in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, through the English currency and tariff controversies of the 19 th century, to the late 20 th century. The author offers a detailed examination of controversies in the technical literature centering on important propositions of the classical and neo-classical economists relating to the theory of the mechanism of international trade and the theory of gain from trade.

Chapter VI

THE INTERNATIONAL MECHANISM UNDER A SIMPLE SPECIE CURRENCY

Besides that the speculation is curious, it may frequently be of use in the conduct of public affairs. At least, it must be owned that nothing can be of more use than to improve by practice the method of reasoning on these subjects, which of all others are the most important, though they are commonly treated in the loosest and most careless manner.—David Hume, “Of interest,” Political discourses, 1752.

I. INTRODUCTORY

In this chapter an account will be presented of the history and the present status of the theory of the mechanism of adjustment of international balances, in terms throughout of the simplifying assumption of an international simple specie currency, i.e., with the circulating medium consisting solely of standard metallic money. It was in terms of this assumption that the theory was first presented, and it has served ever since as a convenient device whereby to segregate for separate treatment different problems connected with the mechanism. It should be noted that in this chapter, as throughout the book, the term “balance of payments” is used in its original sense of an excess of immediate claims on abroad over obligations to abroad, or vice versa, which must be liquidated by specie. It should be noted also that by a “disturbance” to international equilibrium will be meant a change in one of the elements in a preexisting equilibrium such as to require a new equilibrium, and that this change, whether it takes the form of a series of crop failures, of international tributes or loans, of new import duties, or of a relative change in the demands of the two countries for each other’s products, is presumed to continue indefinitely, and its cessation is treated as a new change in the reverse direction. A wide variety of disturbances can be used to illustrate the theory of the mechanism of international trade, and each has its own sequence of stages and to some extent its own set of special problems. A selection must be made, therefore, and the reader is asked not to attribute to me or to the writers cited generalization of the conclusions reached from the analysis of cases specifically dealt with beyond what the context clearly shows to be intended.

The “classical” theory of the mechanism of international trade, as developed from Hume to J. S. Mill, is still, in its general lines, the predominant theory. No strikingly different mechanism, moreover, has yet been convincingly suggested, although there has been gain in precision of analysis, and some correction of undoubted error. In recent years, it is true, a number of writers have pointed out what they regard as major errors in the classical theory, and have claimed that to eliminate these errors would require major reconstruction of the classical doctrines. But the current notions as to what the classical doctrines actually were are, with respect to this as to other matters, largely traditional rather than the product of examination of the original sources, and even when, as sometimes happens, the critics do use classical texts as the basis for the interpretation of the classical doctrines, they confine their references almost wholly to Ricardo and to J. S. Mill, and to the compressed, elliptical, and simplified expositions of their doctrines which are to be found in short chapters, labeled as on international trade, in their Principles. But if an adequate notion of the classical doctrines as to the mechanism of international trade is to be had, it is necessary to examine the writings of other classical economists, and for Ricardo and J. S. Mill to read in their Principles beyond the chapters distinctly labeled as dealing with international trade and also to explore what they had to say on this subject elsewhere. It is also necessary to bear in mind that there were important differences of doctrine within the ranks of the classical economists themselves, so that on some important points it is impossible to find any one doctrine which can properly be labeled as the classical doctrine. The following account will, I trust, demonstrate that some at least of the much-emphasized discoveries and “corrections” of recent years either are to be rejected as erroneous or were current doctrine in the classical period.

II. THE MECHANISM ACCORDING TO HUME

In so far as the classical theory of the mechanism of international trade had one definite originator, it was David Hume.¹ His main objective in presenting his theory of the mechanism was to show that the national supply of money would take care of itself, without need of, or possibility of benefit from, governmental intervention of the mercantilist type. He started out with the hypothesis that four-fifths of all the money in Great Britain was annihilated overnight, and proceeded to trace the consequences. Prices of British commodities and British wages would sink in proportion; British commodities would consequently overwhelm foreign competition in foreign markets, and the increase in exports would be paid for in money until the “level of money” in Great Britain was again equal to that in neighboring countries. Assuming next that the money in Great Britain were multiplied fivefold overnight, he held that prices and wages would rise so high in England that no foreign countries could buy British commodities, while foreign commodities, on the other hand, would become comparatively so cheap that they would be imported in great quantities. Money would consequently flow out of England until it was again at a level with that of other countries. The same causes which would bring about this approach to a common international level when disturbed “miraculously” would prevent any great inequality in level from occurring “in the common course of nature.” The same forces also would preserve an approximately equal level as between different provinces of the same country. An additional, though minor, factor, operating to correct “a wrong balance of trade,” was the fluctuations in the foreign exchanges within the limits of the specie points. If the trade balance was unfavorable, the exchanges would move against England, and this would become a new encouragement to export. The entire mechanism was kept in operation by the profit motive of individuals, “a moral attraction, arising from the interests and passions of men,” acting under the stimulus of differences in prices.

The mechanism, therefore, was according to Hume automatically self-equilibrating, was intranational as well as international, was bilateral, involving adjustments both at home and abroad, and consisted of such changes in the volume of exports and imports, resulting chiefly from changes in relative prices but also in minor degree from fluctuations in exchange rates, as would bring about or maintain an even balance of trade, so that no further specie need move to liquidate a balance.

III. AN OMITTED FACTOR? RELATIVE CHANGES IN DEMAND AS AN EQUILIBRATING FORCE

In Hume’s account, changes in price levels thus play the predominant role in bringing about the necessary adjustment of trade balances, and are assisted only by fluctuations in exchange rates, held to be a factor of minor importance. In recent years a number of writers, most notably Ohlin, have contended that such an account leaves out of the picture an important equilibrating factor. These writers insist that much, or even all, of the equilibrating activity commonly attributed to relative price changes is really exercised by the direct effects on trade balances of the relative shift, as between the two regions, in the amounts of means of payments or in money incomes; that when disturbances in international balances occur, the restoration of equilibrium will or can take place unaccompanied by relative price changes or accompanied by only minor changes in relative prices; and that such changes if they do occur will not be, or are not likely to be, or need not necessarily be—which of these is supposed to be the fact is not always made clear—of the type postulated in the later classical doctrine as expounded by J. S. Mill or Taussig. While none of these writers seems to have applied his doctrine to a currency disturbance such as postulated by Hume, where the need for at least temporary price changes of some kind would seem most obvious, it may be assumed, nevertheless, that they would hold Hume’s analysis of the mechanism to be inadequate even when confined to such cases.

It will be conceded at once that, in the case, for instance, of the initiation of continuing unilateral remittances, the aggregate demand for commodities, in the sense of the amounts buyers are willing to purchase at the prevailing prices, will, in the absence of price changes, fall in the paying country and rise in the receiving country,¹ and that unless there is an extreme and unusual distortion of the relative demands for different classes of commodities from their previous proportions this shift in demands will of itself contribute to an adjustment of the balance of payments to the remittances. The problem is rather to explain why this fairly obvious proposition should not sooner have received general recognition and to determine to what extent its recognition constitutes, as some contend, a major revolution in the theory of the mechanism requiring wholesale rejection of what the older writers had to say. To the first question, even though I have sinned in this connection myself, I have no answer, except that it is difficult to judge, after something has been clearly pointed out to us, how obvious it would or should be to others not so circumstanced. While, however, the account of the mechanism given by Hume and by many later writers gives no indication of recognition that the direct influence on the trade balance of relative changes in demands in the two countries would be an equilibrating factor, such recognition was by no means wholly lacking on the part of the major writers of the nineteenth century.

That imports pay for exports, and that an increase in imports, by providing foreigners with increased means of payment, would operate to increase exports, was pointed out even during the mercant...