The efficacy of Department of Defense policies and actions in lessening the United States international balance of payments problem

摘要

The purpose of this study is to penult a determinationof whether actions taken by the Department of Defense can hopematerially to alleviate the serious international balance ofpayments problem which the United States faces. In order to dothis it was necessary, first, to study briefly the substance ofwhat the balance of payments problem is, combined with the interrelatedgold flow problem, and then, to analyze the broadspectrum of actions which the Department of Defense has takenand plans to take in the future. In making the study, the author found the advice andassistance of various individuals in the Balance of PaymentsDivision, Budget Directorate, Department of Defense, and in theOffice of Business iSconomics, Department of Commerce, to beinvaluable. Also, many statistics compiled by these two officeswere fundamental to this study, but the use of a fiscal year bythe Department of Defense versus the use of a calendar year bythe Department of Commerce caused problems of reconciliationwhich were sometimes insurmountable. Different categorisationsand combinations of items contributing to the balance ofpayments also caused some difficult problems of analysis.