Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 42. (1992)

NAUTZ, Jürgen: Österreichische Überlegungen zur wirtschaftlichen Integration Europas und zum europäischen Machtgleichgewicht. Die wirtschaftspolitischen Arbeiten Richard Schüllers im amerikanischen Exil 1943–1950

EDITION

that they use the dollar grants to import goods which they get as free gift, and that they import goods from the United States even they are able to get them elsewhere at lower price. France imports American tractors, while Italian factories are unable to sell the tractors they have produced and have many unemployed workers. Though England’s exports to France are greater than her imports, she prohibits imports of french textiles and chinaware because she gets “conditional” dollar for her trade surplus with France. Poland had difficulties in exporting her coal to neighboring countries, which were receiving American coal as a grant, and so on 6).

The question is whether world trade can be expanded and the dollar shortage eliminated by maintaining exchange controls and other trade restrictions, or whether the misallocation of ressources, the tremendous waste, and the administrative complexities caused by these controls do not restrict trade and agravate the existing disquilibriums. It is the purpose of the Bretton Woods agreements and of the ITO Charter to abolish the restrictions, and in the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948, each participating country pledged itself to take “ financial and monetary measures necessary to stabilize its currency, establish or maintain a valid rate of exchange, to balance the budget”. To stop inflation in these countries has become a difficult problem on account of their internal political situations and because of the distortion of their price and cost structures resulting from controls and restrictions. If the European countries should not be able to overcome their open or repressed inflations and to adjust their exchange rates in the next year, controls will have to stay and neither a customs union nor a free-trade area can be established. But even if they do check inflation, a European customs union will not be achieved, whereas it might not be impossible to create a European free-trade area, which does not require the machinery of a customs union and does not depend on complete political unification.

6) Many examples of such absurdities are quoted in the report of the Economic Commission for Europe, A Survey of the Economic Situation and Prospects of Europa (Geneva 1948) Part 4, Ch. II.

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