Balanced Accounts? Constructing the Balance of Payments Problem in Post-war Britain

2009 ◽  
Vol CXXIV (509) ◽  
pp. 863-884 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Post War

Imports and Stocks

1959 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 36-38
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Actual Usage ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post War

In some post-war years, stock changes., through their effect on the level of imports, have been a major cause of balance of payments fluctuations. They have been important again during the past year (see page 5). From statistics of supplies, disposals and stocks of individual commodities, we have therefore tried to separate changes in imports due directly to stock changes from those due to changes in the actual usage of imported commodities. The resulting figures of stock changes are given in table 11 of the Statistical Appendix, where they can be compared with figures of imports.

The Balance of Payments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Post War

This chapter traces the changing representation of the balance-of-payments ‘problem’ from the 1940s through the post-war period, and the reasons for its virtual disappearance as an important narrative about the economy in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The balance of payments is an especially striking case of both the malleability and partiality of narratives deployed to seek to persuade the public of the importance of an economic policy issue. This chapter also shows the possibility of long-standing economic ‘problems’, once deemed vital to the national economy’s management, disappearing from view as new ways of looking at economic issues, linked to changing institutional arrangements and doctrines, come to the fore.

The City of London and the Politics of ‘Invisibles’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aled Davies
Keyword(s):  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Industrial Economy ◽  
Financial Centre ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Post War ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This chapter considers the resurgence of the City of London as an international financial centre in the late twentieth century. It highlights the role played by a campaign to promote the revival of the City as a post-sterling international financial centre. The Committee on Invisible Exports campaigned for the recognition of the City’s contribution to Britain’s balance of payments through its ‘invisible earnings’, and argued that this could be increased by reducing impediments on its activities. The invisibles campaign was a distinct product of the post-war preoccupation with the balance of payments, which challenged the fundamental belief, embedded in economic policy since the war, that the route to national prosperity was in expanding industrial production. The campaign sought to reconceptualize Britain as a historic commercial and financial, rather than industrial, economy. In doing so it undercut a core principle on which the social democratic political–economic project was based.

Germany’s Economic Growth In 1950–60 and the Problem of the Country’s Balance of Payments Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-60
Author(s):  
Zbigniew Klimiuk
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
German Economy ◽  
National Income ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
West Germany ◽  
West German Economy ◽  
Investment Activity ◽  
Gdp Growth Rate ◽  
State Expenditure ◽  
Post War

The 1950s in Germany, especially the period 1953–1958, were later recognised as the ‘golden years of the post-war period’. By the end of this period, most of the war damage had been removed and the economy was in a state of dynamic growth. In the period 1949–59, the average real GDP growth rate was about 7.4% with an average investment rate of 24.2% (in current prices). In the years (1950–53), a massive housing construction programme was carried out that was financed almost in half from public funds. Germany’s economic growth in 1950–60 mainly influenced by investment activities and the growth of exports. During this period, state expenditure did not play a major role in the growth of the West German economy (its share in national income steadily declined during the period in question). A the same time, the share of exports in national income was very high and showed a continuously increasing trend. A long-term growth of exports — affecting constantly the expansion of demand — became an important factor stimulating investment activity, which is the main lever of economic growth. At the same time, unusually strong export activity improved the balance of payments, which showed systematic surpluses. It should also be stressed that private consumption was not a factor driving economic prosperity in West Germany in this period. The share of consumption in Germany’s national income showed a declining trend in favour of investment.

scholarly journals Whatever Happened to the Balance of Payments ‘Problem’? The Contingent (Re)Construction of British Economic Performance Assessment

2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 607-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Clift ◽  
Jim Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
Balance Of Payments ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Assessment Techniques ◽  
Post War ◽  
Economic Constraints ◽  
Political Economic

This article analyses the changing political significance of UK balance of payments assessment in the post-war era, seeking to explain its disappearance as a policy issue today. We demonstrate the historically contingent nature of balance of payments performance assessment by comparing its shifting, conjunctural, constructions, rooted in underlying political economic assumptions, across four periods in the 20th and 21st centuries. We argue that the political salience of UK balance of payments assessment is contingent upon structural changes (both ideational and material) within the global political economy and domestic politics. Changes in the prevailing policy paradigm through which balance of payments was interpreted (for example from ‘embedded liberalism’ to neo-liberalism), and redefinitions of balance of payments assessment techniques, both of which happened on numerous occasions in the post-war world, had the effect of reshaping the nature of the external international political economic constraints to which UK governments were subjected.

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