[lbo-talk] Bernanke

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Sep 15 12:06:16 PDT 2007


On Sep 15, 2007, at 2:24 PM, Robert Wrubel wrote:


> What are "nontraded goods and services"? Everything
> except manufacturing?

Not quite - some services are tradable. Here's a selection from the balance of payments accounts:

Travel

Passenger fares

Other transportation

Freight

Port services

Royalties and license fees

Other private services

Education

Financial services

Insurance services

Telecommunications

Business, professional, and technical services

Other unaffiliated services

Travel and transportation are about 40% of the total; finance, about 12%.

Goods exports for the U.S. are about 2.5 times service exports. The U.S. has a substantial surplus on services exports, but it's small beer next to the goods deficit (goods def is about 6.6% of GDP, vs. +0.5% surplus on svc).

Doug



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