INTERNATIONAL TRADE

International trade merits special attention because it differs in several crucial respects from the exchanges of goods and services that take place within a country. First, there are more obvious “barriers” to trade between countries than to trade within countries. These can be simply the result of differences in economic structure, tradition, language or natural resources, or they can be restrictions imposed by governments on the movement of imports, exports, labour and capital. Secondly, different countries use different currencies, and trade is only possible where the currency of one country can be exchanged for the currency of another one. This fact alone is of little consequence where the relationship between currencies is fixed, but in practice the relative values of currencies often change, presenting us with a whole series of additional economic problems. Finally, economic conditions and government policies normally vary more significantly between countries than between regions of a country. Thus buoyant demand in the UK might cause the purchase of more goods and services from abroad than foreigners buy from the UK, resulting in balance of payments problems in the UK.