First, the characteristics of the development of contemporary international service trade
International service trade refers to the foreign trade of service industry (tertiary industry), that is, the service business activities of providing and receiving international transportation, insurance, finance, tourism, science and technology with compensation. Since 1970s, international trade in services has developed rapidly, breaking through the traditional field of international commodity activities. With the signing and entry into force of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), international trade in services has attracted more and more attention from all countries and become another hot spot in world economic and trade competition. According to the annual report of the World Trade Organization 1997 released in February 1997, the global service trade has developed rapidly, with a growth rate of 5% in 1996, and it is expected to increase to 7% in 1997, with a total amount of 2.7 trillion US dollars. Looking at the development of international service trade, the following trends are presented:
1. The proportion of service trade in international trade is increasing. The development of service trade is a sign of industrial progress. More than half a century after World War II, especially since 1970s, due to the deepening of international division of labor, the constant adjustment of industrial structure, the intensification of scientific and technological revolution and the rise of multinational corporations, international trade in services has developed rapidly at a speed higher than that of trade in goods. 1970, the total world trade in services was only $7 10 billion, but 1980 soared to $383 billion, an increase of more than five times. After 1980, international service trade still maintained a rapid growth momentum, with an average annual growth rate of about 5%, which was two of the average annual growth rates of international goods trade of 2.5% in the same period. By 1993, the total world trade in services reached 1.03 trillion US dollars, accounting for more than a quarter of the total global trade. It is predicted that with the implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreement of GATT and the formal operation of the World Trade Organization, countries will further open their service markets and the service trade will further develop, accounting for one third of the total global trade by the end of this century.
2. The field of international service trade is expanding. At present, the scope of international service trade includes: (1) international transportation (sea, air and land transportation); (2) International tourism; (3) International financial services (including insurance); (4) International information processing and transmission software data service; (5) International consulting services (including accountants and lawyers); (6) Export of labor services such as construction and project contracting; (7) International telecommunication services; (8) project services such as advertising, design and accounting management; (9) International leasing services; (10) After-sales services such as commodity repair, maintenance and technical guidance; (1 1) international audio-visual services (12) international exchange services in education, health, culture and art; (13) Commercial wholesale and retail services; (14) intellectual property (industrial property and copyright) services; (15) international investment services; (16) Other official international services.
3. The development of international trade in services is uneven. First of all, industrialized countries have an absolute advantage in international service trade. Generally speaking, most industrialized countries are surplus countries in international service trade. According to statistics, the proportion of industrialized countries in the world service trade from 65438 to 0986 was 78.6%, of which transportation, net investment income and tourism income accounted for more than 75% of all projects. In the 1996 list of the top 20 global service trade exports, industrialized countries account for 15, and the United States ranks first with exports of $202.6 billion. Second, the development of the industry is uneven. With the rapid expansion of the global market of service trade, the differences between service industries are getting smaller and smaller, and the development speed of each industry is not the same. The traditional global transportation service industry is still growing, but the growth rate is slowing down, with an annual growth rate of only 2%; Tourism has increased by 6%, while the growth rates of financial services, telecommunications services and patents have all reached 7%. Third, emerging developing countries have a good momentum of development. Generally speaking, developing countries are at an obvious disadvantage in the field of service trade. Except for individual projects such as tourism and labor remittance (that is, projects mainly exporting labor services), almost all of them are service trade deficits. However, with the economic development of developing countries, especially the rapid rise of emerging developing countries, their international service trade has also developed rapidly. From 65438 to 0996, the export growth rate of service trade in Asian countries and Latin America reached 8%, which was higher than that in North America and Western Europe. Singapore, South Korea, China, Thailand, China, Hongkong and Taiwan Province Province have all entered the top 20 of global service trade exports.
4. More and more countries attach importance to international service trade. Since 1970s, due to the rapid development of international service trade, the competition in the international service trade market has become increasingly fierce. All countries have increased the development of international service trade and strengthened the research in the field of international service trade for their own interests. Especially since 1986, international service trade has become a new topic in Uruguay Round, and the development of international service trade and domestic service industry has become the focus of government, enterprises and academic circles. Governments in many developed countries allocate funds to support academic circles and think tanks to carry out special research in this field, and analyze the economic meaning, realistic development, strategies for competing for the world market and various possible policy actions of international service trade. On the one hand, developing countries are still cautious about opening up markets such as finance, insurance, transportation and commercial sales, on the other hand, they have begun to attach importance to this research, trying to truly know ourselves and ourselves in this new international economic and trade field, so as to take the initiative in the practice of entering and opening up the international service trade market. Second, the reasons for the rapid development of international trade in services
The fundamental reason for the rapid development of contemporary international service trade lies in the historical changes in the world economic structure. The new scientific and technological revolution in 1960s accelerated this historical evolution, which led to changes in the world trade structure and people's social life style. Specifically, the development of contemporary international service trade mainly has the following reasons.
1, the driving force for upgrading the world industrial structure. According to the theory of economic growth stage of development economics, with the growth of national economic capacity, the industrial structure of the country will be upgraded in turn, gradually changing from agricultural economy to industrial economy, and then developing from industrial economy to service economy. In the early 1960s, major western countries had completed their own industrialization process and began to enter the post-industrial development stage, that is, the focus of domestic economy shifted to the service industry. The industrial upgrading driven by the economic growth of various countries has triggered a large-scale adjustment of the world industrial structure. The imbalance of the new world economic structure formed in this process leads to greater demand for international services, which makes the total trade volume of global service industry have the potential for rapid growth.
2. Driven by the growth of international trade in goods and international investment. For more than half a century after the war, the international trade in goods has been expanding. Take the world's total export value of goods as an example. The value of 1 1 billion in 1990 and $3,394.9 billion in 1990 have increased nearly 56 times in 40 years, far exceeding the growth rate of world industrial production and gross national product in the same period. Driven by the rapid growth of trade in goods, the scale and quantity of traditional service trade projects directly related to the import and export of goods, such as international transportation services, international cargo insurance and international settlement services, have doubled. The rapid expansion of international investment and the inclination to service industry not only led to the growth of international trade in goods, but also led to the rapid growth of international trade in services. In particular, the rapid expansion of international investment income as a factor service project itself constitutes the expansion of overseas service trade flows.
3. The powerful impetus of the new scientific and technological revolution. The new scientific and technological revolution, especially the information technology revolution that emerged in the 1960s, has strongly promoted the rapid development of international service trade. First of all, the development of high-tech is widely used in the service industry, which has transformed many previously "non-tradeable" services into "tradeable" services, thus increasing the types and scope of international service trade. For example, some traditional education services and health services, which have always been considered as "non-tradable" services, can now be stored on disk or software for trading. The development of information technology and communication technology also makes banking, insurance and commodity retail possible. Doing business on a global scale brings opportunities for cross-border services. Secondly, the scientific and technological revolution has accelerated the international movement of labor and scientific and technological personnel, especially the movement of professional scientific and technological personnel and senior managers to other countries, and promoted the expansion of international service trade. Finally, with the progress of science and technology, the industrial structure of developed countries has gradually shifted to technology-intensive and capital-intensive high-tech industries, and labor-intensive industries have shifted to newly industrialized countries and some developing countries, so that these countries and regions can make use of the rich and cheap labor resources in the region to earn foreign exchange service income and form large-scale domestic service exports.
4. Promote the integration of the world economy and the internationalization of social life. With the development of regionalization and integration of the world economy and the substantial improvement of people's living standards in various countries, the social life of modern people is becoming more and more international. Traveling abroad, receiving education and hiring professionals are not out of reach even for people in developing countries. In the past 40 years, tourism has become one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the service trade related to the internationalization of social life has also developed by leaps and bounds.
keynes revolution
A hundred years ago, few people in western economics talked about the macro and micro differences of economics. Today, when western economists talk about macroeconomics and microeconomics, it seems so natural, as if this issue can be divided into day and night in one day, and there is no need to argue. However, there is always a process for anything and any formulation to be recognized by the world. So how did macroeconomics come into being?
During the period of 1936, a great event happened in western economic circles, that is, J.M. Keynes published his masterpiece: General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (hereinafter referred to as General Theory). Keynes began to create public opinion when he first wrote the general theory. He mentioned it in a letter to the dramatist Bernard Shaw, and proudly said that this book may completely change the way the world thinks about economic issues, attracting the world to wait and see. Sure enough, when this book came out, it was a real sensation, and western economists realized that there had been a "revolution" in economics.
What kind of person was Keynes? John Mayod Keynes (1883 ~ 1946) was born at the same time as Marx's death. Keynes was not a simple economic theorist. Some people accused him of spending too little time on economic research in his life.
Keynes had a wide range of friends and interests, which was the case when he was still studying at Eton College and Cambridge University. Keynes served in the Indian affairs department of the government and achieved remarkable results. He has been engaged in practice, worked as a teacher at the Royal College and also worked as a treasurer. These positions are also good opportunities for him to show his talents. This institution was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1920, but by the year Keynes died, it had a net asset of 2 million pounds. Keynes was interested in drama, literature, music and ballet, and his wife was a Russian ballet dancer. Keynes also studied mathematics and wrote a book on probability theory before graduation.
During the First World War, Keynes was an adviser to the advisory group of the Royal Indian Finance Minister and a director of the Bank of England. After the war, he participated in the Paris Peace Conference as the main representative of the British Treasury, but because he was deeply dissatisfied with the contents of the Treaty of Versailles, he did not advocate claiming compensation from Germany and resigned soon. From 65438 to 0944, Keynes attended the Bretton Woods Conference as the chief representative of the British delegation and made great contributions to the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In addition to The General Theory, Keynes also wrote many works in his life, such as On Currency Reform, The Road to Prosperity, How to Raise War Expenses, etc. "and so on. But Keynes's main contribution is his main work "General Theory", which reflects his basic theory and policy proposition.
The background of Keynesian revolution
As the name implies, macroeconomics studies big economic problems, that is, it is its responsibility to study the economic variables of the whole society, which is also the main contribution of Keynes.
But we can't simply say that the study of macroeconomic problems only started from Keynes. In fact, before Keynes, economists of all ages, such as mercantilists, physiocrats and classical schools represented by Adam Smith, Ricardo and Marshall, all studied macroeconomic issues. Later generations basically attributed the economic theories of Adam Smith, Ricardo and Marshall to microeconomics. Although this statement has some truth, it always seems far-fetched. If they were still alive, they might not agree with this judgment. In all fairness, classical economists have historical limitations in their research on macroeconomic issues, and they have never laid the cornerstone of macroeconomics.
Mercantilists are mainly concerned with macroeconomic issues. Their interest is to know what is the main force that determines the productivity of the whole economy. Can the potential production capacity be realized? Therefore, they emphasize the origin and causes of economic growth. They admire the government and think that without government intervention, the whole economy may not be able to give full play to its potential. They strongly advocate that the government should dominate domestic and international trade and vigorously control the money supply.
The problems discussed by physiocrats are also more macro than micro. The physiocratic school, represented by French economist Quesnay, also seeks the origin and causes of economic growth, but does not approve of controlling domestic and foreign trade. Their interest is not money, but what is the real driving force for economic growth? In their view, material wealth is not created through the exchange process, but comes from agriculture or nature. The famous Quesnay economic table divides the whole economy into three sectors, namely farmers, land and non-agricultural sectors. This analysis method gives great enlightenment to future generations. For example, Marx's two categories analysis and Leontief's econometric analysis of input-industry table are all inspired and influenced by Quesnay's economic table.
Adam Smith strongly opposed the view of mercantilism. He believes that there is no internal force in the whole economy that will hinder the realization of the highest productivity. At that time, some mercantilists thought that too low consumption level and too much savings would cause depression. But Adam Smith believes that saving will lead to economic growth, because saving and capital accumulation are synchronized, and some people's savings mean that this part of the money is invested by others, so saving will not cause depression. He opposed state intervention in trade, advocated laissez-faire and competition, and believed that competition would make the best use of resources. Obviously, he studies macro issues. However, he believes that the whole society is regulated by an "invisible hand" because of competition and plays a role that government intervention cannot play, so economists and politicians seem to have no serious task in macroeconomics. At that time, Adam Smith urged the government to be "clean" and reduce intervention. Influenced by his thoughts, the attention of later generations to economic problems mostly turned from macro to micro.
Western economists inherited Adam Smith's viewpoint and developed the microscopic aspects of economics. They always believe that there will be no serious problems in the macro economy. The most famous time for this argument is when the French economist Say proposed that supply creates demand. Almost all of them believe in Say's law. In their view, competitive capitalism is the most beneficial to society.
However, the theory must be tested by practice. "Invisible hand" and "Say's law" did not provide any guarantee for the prosperity of capitalist society. Facts have taught people who stick to old dogmas. In the late 1920s and early 1930s. An unprecedented economic crisis has occurred in the capitalist world. Western countries are in chaos, everything is depressed, prices plummet, factories close down, people are in panic and the situation is turbulent. Today, westerners still have a lingering fear when talking about that crisis.
Milton friedman, a famous American economist, said, "The economic depression that began in the middle of 1929 is an unprecedented disaster for the United States. 1933, before the economy reached its lowest point, the national income in dollars was reduced by half. The total output has dropped by one third, and the number of unemployed people has risen to an unprecedented level of 25% of the total labor force. "
Crisis shakes faith, people generally doubt the capitalist system, and the process of capitalist collapse is gradually accelerating. At this critical moment, western economists have to reflect and criticize the existing economic theories and seek new theories to explain the grim crisis reality, so as to obtain feasible ways to save capitalism. So the times make heroes, and Keynes didn't miss the opportunity, so the macroeconomic theory accompanied by his theory came into being.
Keynes's basic viewpoints and policy propositions
What is the main difference between Keynes's theory and traditional economic theory?
Keynes put forward the concept of "full employment" in view of the serious unemployment during the economic crisis. The so-called full employment means that everyone has something to do at a certain wage level.
Keynes divided unemployment into three types: first, in a special labor market, unemployment caused by oversupply is called "friction unemployment"; Second, for various reasons, people don't like their existing jobs and prefer to stay at home. This phenomenon is called "voluntary unemployment". Another reason is that under the current wage level, people are willing to work but can't find a job, which is called "involuntary unemployment". Friction unemployment can be quickly solved by training the skills of the labor force and adjusting the national economic structure, while voluntary unemployment is the choice of the labor force itself, so neither of these two kinds of unemployment is really "unemployment". Therefore, as long as the problem of involuntary unemployment is solved, it can be called full employment.
If we want to achieve full employment, we need a national income level that reaches full employment. Keynes affirmed that the level of national income and employment depends on the level of effective demand. In his view, the previous theory was wrong because it assumed that supply would create demand by itself. When someone questions Say's law and thinks that excessive saving or excessive consumption may lead to depression, the classical theory always explains that the decision of saving will always lead to the decision of investment, and the change of interest rate will balance the decision of saving and investment. Keynes reached the opposite conclusion. He believes that what affects the balance between savings and investment is the change of national income level, not the change of interest rate. This is Keynes's income determinism.
Keynes's income determinism holds that the level of national income depends on the level of total demand, and the effective demand of total demand depends on the demand for consumer goods and investment goods. As far as personal consumption is concerned, "living within our means", the level of consumption depends on the level of income, and consumption always accounts for a certain proportion of income, which is the so-called "consumption tendency". Generally speaking, this ratio or trend is relatively stable. But with the increase of people's income, the expenditure of consumption will be slower than the growth of income.
An important conclusion drawn from this is that when the real national income increases, the consumption level of parties will also increase, but it will not increase as fast as the national income. This means that the marginal propensity to consume (the amount of consumption increased per yuan of national income) is less than 1. The speed of consumption is not as fast as the growth of national income, and the extra money is of course used for savings. So with the increase of people's income, the absolute amount of savings is also increasing. Obviously, there is a gap between total demand and actual consumption. If savings are not converted into investment in time, there will be excess products and insufficient effective demand. Due to insufficient effective demand, the national income level will be reduced.
It can be inferred that the balance of national income is not necessarily the balance of full employment. As long as the demand is insufficient, social resources will not be fully utilized, and as a result, national income will be "balanced" under the conditions of unemployment and idle resources. Therefore, in Keynes's view, if we only rely on market self-regulation, then the balance of full employment is only a special case. Usually, the national income balance is less than full employment.
So, will savings be converted into investment in time? According to the traditional theory, as long as the interest rate is appropriate, all savings should be converted into investment. Keynes played the devil's advocate. He believes that the amount of investment does not depend entirely on the interest rate, but mainly on the expected profit string. With the increase of investment aid, the expected return of capital will decrease, which is called diminishing marginal efficiency of capital. The relationship between profit and investment quantity is often unstable, because investment decision is based on the estimation of future cost and sales income, so profit expectation will play a considerable role in investment decision. Uncertainty, risk, expectation, investor's attitude and confidence will all have an impact on investment decision. Therefore, if the amount of savings is high and the interest rate falls again, it may not directly lead to an increase in investment.
Keynes believed that simply lowering interest rates to stimulate investment is not always effective, and sometimes investment is not affected by interest rates. If the expected profit prospect is not good, even if the interest string falls again, it will only lead to more savings and less investment. Because savings exceed investment, the national income level drops.
Keynes's view on the explanation of interest rate mechanism is different from the past. According to the previous theory, interest rate depends on the interaction between saving and investment. At the current interest rate level, if savings exceed investment, the interest rate will fall; On the contrary, if investment exceeds savings, interest rates will rise. Changes in the money supply will not affect long-term interest rates, nor will it affect the actual national income level. Money supply can only affect the price level.
Keynes explained that the interest rate depends on the desire and quantity of individuals and enterprises to hold money, that is, the money supply affects the interest rate. Under different interest rates, people's demand for holding money is different. Keynes called it "elastic preference function", which consists of three motives: (1) for the purpose of trading (personal shopping, enterprise buying investment); (2) for preventive purposes (prepare a sum of money to meet unexpected expenses); (3) for the purpose of speculation (where the income is high, where to invest the money).
The currency held for the first two purposes is insensitive to changes in interest rates, which is called a complete lack of profit elasticity. The currency held for the third purpose is very sensitive to changes in interest rates and has interest rate elasticity. The lower the interest rate falls, to a certain extent, the currency held for the third purpose becomes completely elastic to the change of interest rate. This happened during the Great Depression, that is, the amount of money increased greatly and there was no need to lower interest rates. In other words, the interest rate remains unchanged at a low level, and the amount of money still increases substantially. People hold more money for the third purpose because the interest rate is so low; It is almost the same to put the money in the bank or in your hand, but it is better to hold it in your hand. Keynes called this situation a "liquidity trap". He criticized that traditional economics only saw transactional money demand (the first two purposes) and ignored speculative money demand (the third purpose).
Previous theories thought that money had the function of value storage, but it was not emphasized very much. Keynes particularly emphasized this point; He thinks that the interest rate is determined by the money supply. The most important difference between him and the classical school about interest rate is the theory about speculative demand for money, that is, increasing the money supply will lead to a decline in interest rate, and increasing investment will increase national income. At a very low interest rate, all the money supply will be absorbed by speculative demand.
In a word, Keynes's theory basically involves four concepts: (1) consumption function; (2) Marginal efficiency of capital; (3) Flexible preference function; (4) Money supply. Only by understanding their relationship with the overall goal of full employment can we basically master Keynesian theory.
One more thing has to be mentioned: Keynes's theoretical feature is the analysis of economic fluctuations. He emphasized the role of investment, that is, a certain change in investment will lead to a change in income, which will change with a certain multiplier (multiple) of the original investment. Let's not introduce the multiplier theory for the time being, let's talk about the origin first. This multiplier effect was first put forward by Russian economist Dugan Balanovschi, but it has never been formally expounded in theory. In 193 1, Keynes's colleague Kahn at Cambridge University developed this analysis in detail. Keynes later fully adopted this multiplier theory in the General Theory, which was later widely known.
Based on these theories, Keynes put forward the idea of state intervention in economy. He advocates that the government can achieve full employment by regulating demand. In the case of insufficient effective demand, he advocated expanding government expenditure, increasing money supply and implementing deficit budget to stimulate national economic activities in order to increase national income and achieve full employment.
It should be said that this thought was basically in line with the actual situation of the capitalist world at that time, so Keynes was successful in many ways. He believes that the concept of balanced budget has no influence on policy decision-making, and calls for the liberation of fiscal policy from the old concept of balanced budget. As a result, the principle of budget balance in classical economics has been broken since then, and many governments have gradually moved from budget deficit as a last resort to positive and worry-free deficit budget. Deficit budget did stimulate effective demand, but it also caused new problems such as inflation, which caused subsequent economists to argue endlessly.
Keynes opposed thrift. Traditional economic theory and social ethics believe that saving and frugality are virtues, and seldom publicizing consumption is a good thing and a good strategy to stimulate the economy. He quoted Mendeville's fable: the bee society prospered because of the pursuit of luxury and luxury life; And decline because of thrift. This shows that thrift is often bad for society.
In order to stimulate economic development, Keynes advocated rising prices. Because the method of reducing real wages through rising prices is smarter and more desirable than the traditional method of reducing nominal wages. Reducing the nominal wage may stimulate the economic activities of enterprises, increase investment and expand employment, which may be feasible for a single enterprise, but it is not a good policy for the whole society. Because lowering the nominal wage is easy to cause the resistance of workers, and lowering the wage level will correspondingly reduce the total demand for products and services, leading to further tightening of the market and production.
Keynes also advocated "helping the poor". He believes that taxing the rich and then helping the poor is conducive to improving the marginal consumption tendency of the whole society. Because the more money the rich have, the more money they save. After taxation, savings will be reduced, and then the poor will be rescued for consumption, and most of the national income will be used for consumption, which is conducive to expanding consumer demand, stimulating production and achieving full employment.
Keynes's policy proposition is not limited to these. As can be seen from the above, his policy proposition is consistent with his theoretical viewpoint. Many of his ideas have been adopted by politicians in western countries. Although some of them have not been fulfilled, his influence is enormous. In the history of economic theory, both those who agree with him and those who oppose him can't help but mention him and his theory. History will not forget him.
Thus, Keynes was the founder of macroeconomics. On the one hand, Keynes's thought comes from thinking about practical problems, on the other hand, it is also inspired by previous economists. The problem of effective demand stimulating national income was not first put forward by Keynes. Malthus' thought had a deep influence on Keynes, and Keynes's admiration for Malthus was often beyond words. However, western economists do not think that Malthusian Revolution happened in economics, but only acknowledge Keynesian Revolution. Because it is Keynes who comprehensively discusses the problem of effective demand and puts forward a relatively complete theoretical system, not Malthus. Malthus, by contrast, is ambiguous in many ways. Besides personal reasons, we should also look for reasons from social roots. Both Keynes and Malthus encountered serious unemployment and depression after the war, but the problems encountered by Keynes were much more serious than those encountered by Malthus. Some people say that Keynes's economics is depression economics, while others object to this statement. In any case, Keynes came up with these theories by thinking about severe depression.
It can be seen that macroeconomics is contrary to the overall analysis of previous economic theories. In fact, the previous theories are not competent for overall analysis and cannot explain the reality of depression and unemployment in capitalist society. Therefore, as a result of the Keynesian revolution, macroeconomics undertook this task. The previous theories and regulations are more used to explain the "micro"-the economic behavior of individual enterprises and consumers. With such a division of labor, macroeconomics and microeconomics seem to be able to perform their respective duties and live in harmony.
Research on The Wealth of Nations
The study of national wealth.
"This work deserves to be respected, and all those who realize the importance of political economy admire him (Smith)."
ricardo
"Dr. Smith is the real founder of modern political economy system. ..... Dr. Smith's works must be at the forefront of those works that contribute to human freedom, civilization and prosperity. "
Mike kulock
"In Adam Smith's view, political economy has developed into a whole, and his scope has been formed to a certain extent."
Marx
"The Wealth of Nations, the Bible and Das Kapital are immortal treasures of human wisdom."
-Galbraith
Please indicate that the blog originated in China.
Research on The Wealth of Nations
"This work deserves to be respected, and all those who realize the importance of political economy admire him (Smith)."
ricardo
"Dr. Smith is the real founder of modern political economy system. ..... Dr. Smith's works must be at the forefront of those works that contribute to human freedom, civilization and prosperity. "
Mike kulock
"In Adam Smith's view, political economy has developed into a whole, and his scope has been formed to a certain extent."