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Chapter II. The World Economy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Extract

Economic growth in the industrial countries fell short of our expectations during the summer, particularly in Japan and Italy and to a lesser extent in West Germany. Despite the resumption of growth in the United Kingdom and a firmly upward trend of production in North America, the aggregate output of the OECD countries increased only slowly and for the year as a whole the rise in their GNP may not reach 3½ per cent in real terms.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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References

Note (1) page 24 Unless otherwise indicated, conversions from national currencies to US dollars are made in this section at April rates of exchange for countries whose currencies have since been floating.

Note (1) page 28 As the existing rate of duty on automobiles is 3.5 per cent and the statutory limit 10 per cent, the maximum rise possible is 6.5 per cent. For this reason, and also because there is some evidence that their price-elasticity is higher than average, auto mobiles are treated as a separate category.

Note (2) page 28 See National Institute Economic Review, no. 42, November 1967, page 5.

Note (1) page 29 R. Rhomberg and L. Boissonneault, ‘The foreign sector’ in Duesenberry, Fromm, Klein, Kuh (eds.), The Brookings quarterly econometric model of the US, 1965 (using quarterly data 1954-61).

Note (2) page 29 For a full account, the reader is referred to the description of the original version of the model by F. G. Adams, H. Eguchi and F. Meyer -zu- Schlochtern, in An econometric analysis of international trade, OECD, Paris, January 1969; subsequent alterations in the model were described by Frans Meyer -zu- Schlochtern and Akira Yajima, ‘OECD Trade Model’: 1970 version, OECD Economic Outlook, December 1970 (Occasional Studies).

Note (1) page 30 For revaluations above 10 per cent it was assumed that 2 per cent of the change would be absorbed in export prices; for revaluations less than this, 1 per cent. Similar, but less uni form adjustments were made to relative import prices. Whilst relative export prices are in terms of dollars, import prices are measured in terms of national currencies.

Note (2) page 30 The effects of the US import surcharge and other pro tectionist measures were excluded throughout.

Note (3) page 30 In order to let the model ‘settle down’ the realignments were introduced in the first half of 1971.

Note (4) page 30 The formal expression of the revaluations or devaluations shown on the right hand side of table 2, is, for country i, where mij is the jth country's share in i's imports, r being the extent of revaluation against the dollar.

Note (5) page 30 It is worth pointing out, though, that the net changes in parity measured in this way do not appear to differ markedly from changes measured on the basis of shares of country exports to alternative markets, nor therefore from the simple average of the two bilateral weighting possibilities (export shares or import shares). The obvious merit of the method used in table 12 is its comparative simplicity.

Note (1) page 32 The UK is shown as experiencing a 1 per cent rise in export volumes in this context. In the domestic economy forecast (page 6), we indicated that predicted UK exports had been slightly reduced because of the realignments; this was because the realignment we were concerned with there was that which had taken place since August—that is, after the mid-May revaluations by Germany and certain other European countries, which were favourable to UK exports. Since mid-August, sterling has experienced a weighted average revaluation (calculated on the same basis as the figures shown in table 12) of 3/4-1 per cent.

Note (2) page 32 It needs to be borne in mind of course that the model does not incorporate the feedback effect of trade on output levels.

Note (3) page 32 The procedure for using the OECD trade model was a ‘trial and error’ one, so that fresh trials were needed for each realignment.

Note (1) page 33 The relationship is not very precise because of the differences in pattern of adjustment assumed. However, the results of table 13 associate US turnrounds of $4.4, 6.1, 7.8, and 8.4 billion with weighted dollar devaluations (table 12) of 6.9, 9.1, 11.1, and 12.0 per cent respectively.