A dynamic analysis of France's external trade - determinants of merchandise imports and exports and their role in the trade surplus of the 1990s. Economic Papers No. 122, October 1997

摘要

From the Introduction. One of the striking characteristics of France’s economic performance since the beginning ofthe present decade has been the strength of the external accounts. In particular, on the basisof national accounts data, since 1989 the current account and the non-energy trade balancehave recorded rising surpluses, which in 1996 amounted to 1.7 % of GDP and to close to 1.5% of GDP, respectively. The service balance, on the other hand, has registered persistentsurpluses which averaged between 1 and 1.4 percent of GDP in the 1990s. The largestcomponent of merchandise trade is trade in manufactured goods1. The balance onmanufacturing trade recorded surpluses throughout the period following the 1973 oil crisis tothe late 1980s. The manufacturing trade balance slipped into deficit in the period 1987-1991but subsequently moved into surplus which rose to almost 1 % of GDP in 1996. Graph 1presents quarterly data on the evolution of these variables from the beginning of the 1970s tothe end of 1996; data adjusted for inflation present a similar picture. It is clear that sincemovements in the current account are dominated by movements in the non-energy and, inparticular, in the manufacturing trade balance throughout this period the sources of thecurrent account improvement in the 1990s are likely to be those explaining the improvementof the manufacturing trade balance.