Monday, July 31, 2017

A widget conceived/designed in the US, costs $20 per unit to manufacture in the Philippines, sells in US for $50, saves the consumer around $250/yr. How does that effect the trade deficit as it is calculated and quoted in the various literature? Wanted to provide more detail but the space is limited

For example, if Americans buy televisions from China, and have no other transactions with China, the Chinese end up holding dollars. These monies can be held in the form of bank deposits in the United States or in some other U.S. investment. The payments of Americans to China for televisions are balanced by the payments of Chinese to U.S. individuals and institutions, including banks, for the acquisition of dollar-monies. Put another in another way, China sold the United States TV sets, and the United States sold China dollars or dollar-denominated assets such as Treasury bills. These dollar-assets become China’s reserve currency for additional transactions in other parts of the world that require payment in dollars.
Despite the fact that the totals of payments and receipts are necessarily equal, there will be inequalities such as excesses of payments or receipts, in the form of deficits or surpluses for a given kind of transaction. As a result, there can be a deficit or a surplus in any of the following economic areas: merchandise trade, services trade, foreign investment income, unilateral transfers-- like foreign aid—remittances by foreign workers, private investment, flow of gold-- money among central banks and treasuries, or any combination thereof and other international transactions like credit and insurance as a specific source of particularity.

No comments:

Post a Comment