The value of world exports in 1987 was almost $2500 billion, roughly half the value of US GNP, and about equivalent to the GNP of Japan. Over the postwar period international trade has increased to an extraordinary degree — a 40-fold increase in value terms between 1950 and 1987, and a 10-fold increase in volume terms over the same period. Moreover, the growth in trade has consistently
... [Show full abstract] outstripped the growth of output over this period. Between the late 1940s and early 1970s, the trend rate of growth of output was 5 per cent per annum; over the same period the trend rate of growth of exports was 7y per cent (both in real terms). Since the early 1970s real output has been growing at about 3 per cent per annum, real exports at 5 per cent per annum.