Compiling graphs for a trade course, and lo what did I see:
Figure 1: US exports of goods and services (blue), and exports ex petroleum products (brown), both as a share of GDP. NBER defined recession dates peak-to-trough shaded gray. Light orange shading denotes Trump administration. Trump’s trade war dated from 2018Q1 (announcement of Section 232 investigations). Source: BEA, NBER and author’s calculations.
So by the eve of the NBER peak (i.e., 2019Q3), exports had fallen by 0.87 percentage points of GDP, and exports ex-oil had fallen by 0.96 percentage points. (If you’re curious, net exports ex-oil had deteriorated 0.2 percentage points over that period).
Are you using GDP out of convenience, like the drunkard who searches for his lost keys only where the lamplight shines? GDP is built in to your data sources, isn’t it convenient to pretend it has no statistical uncertainty?
Do you really still believe GDP represents anything other than an arbitrary, fickle, social (not physical) phenomenom? How much faith do you have in GDP?
how much faith do you have in the authority (agency) that decides the question and how to get the answer?
skeptics are not bad.
Nor are they necessarily good. Depends on the skeptic. rsm doesn’t have anything to same, and just keeps saying it.
You don’t need “faith” in GDP for this exercise, just a stable benchmark to measure against.
rsm,
Even if one wants to dismiss GDP as meaningful, the value of exports is tied to employment, and certainly people like to have jobs and get upset when they lose them. So more exports means more jobs, something most people approve of, even if they may not be all that worked up about some measure of the “value” of those exports.
Offhand I would say that claiming Menzie is “like a drunkard” is a bit over the top here. Looks like you have been reading Econned’s attacks on him too much. Do you also want to accuse him of egomania and having egg on his face as well while you are at it?
What if everyone got an inflation-proofed basic income?
If you look at actual exports, are they lower now than under Trump?
Is Menzie desperately searching for some arbitrary measure he can commit chart crime with to press a purely politically partisan agenda?
《Exports are valued at the free alongside ship value of merchandise at the U.S. port of export, based on the
transaction price including inland freight, insurance, and other charges incurred in placing the merchandise
alongside the carrier at the U.S. port of exportation.》
What does the price some accountant reports on a survey have to do with the actual contract price?
《Goods data are a complete enumeration of documents collected by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and are
not subject to sampling errors. 》
What about time delays?
《This report presents current month statistics which reflect nearly complete coverage.》
So there actually is unreported sampling error?
《National estimates of end-of-month inventories are based on data from the Monthly Retail Trade Survey and the
Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey. 》
《Because the retail and wholesale estimates are based on a sample survey, they contain sampling error and
nonsampling error.》
《The margin of sampling error gives a range about the estimate which is a 90 percent confidence interval. If, for
example, the percentage change estimate is +1.2 percent and its estimated standard error is 0.9 percent, then the
margin of sampling error is ±1.753 x 0.9 percent or ±1.6 percent, and the 90 percent confidence interval is −0.4
percent to +2.8 percent. 》
Does their example give us an idea of the scale of uncertainty involved?
《Nonsampling error encompasses all other factors that contribute to the total error of a sample survey estimate. This
type of error can occur because of nonresponse, insufficient coverage of the universe of businesses, mistakes in the
recording and coding of data, and other errors of collection, response, coverage, or processing. Although
nonsampling error is not measured directly, the Census Bureau employs quality control procedures throughout the
process to minimize this type of error.
The U.S. Census Bureau recommends that individuals using retail and wholesale estimates incorporate this
information into their analyses, as sampling error and nonsampling error could affect the conclusions drawn from
the estimates.》
https://www.census.gov/econ/indicators/index.html
Why is our professor ignoring US Census Bureau recommendations? Does he have a lot of faith in government quality control? Or is he just sifting through noisy data, cherry-picking at will to support whatever story he is trying to tell?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=nZfi
January 30, 2018
Exports of Nonagricultural Goods minus Imports of Nonpetroleum Goods, 1980-2021
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=nZfk
January 30, 2018
(Exports of Nonagricultural Goods minus Imports of Nonpetroleum Goods) as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 1980-2021
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mgWj
January 30, 2018
Exports of Nonagricultural Goods minus Imports of Nonpetroleum Goods, 2007-2021
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mgXN
January 30, 2018
(Exports of Nonagricultural Goods minus Imports of Nonpetroleum Goods) as a share of Gross Domestic Product, 2007-2021
I’m curious what caused the slight rebound in 2020ish. I wasn’t aware of the trade war really ending per se so I’m guessing that the pandemic goods surge helped trade in general. Also curious about import effects–FRED shows a similar shape to the graph. I’m assuming that it’s hard to tease out effects of Trump trade policy vs. the steep fall caused by the pandemic.
It’s interesting to see how we became a petro-state after 2009.
I do know our soybean exports have completely rebounded. What drives our exports is the trade policies of other nations. Even if the US has not backed off on our tariffs, could this be China reducing its tariffs? I guess this is a question we should ask Dr. Chinn.
https://www.china-briefing.com/news/us-china-relations-in-the-biden-era-a-timeline/
China-briefing.com provides timelines for the new developments in the US/China trade relationships. It takes some effort to follow all of this and an overall economic interpretation does not seem be part of their information. But there is something called the Phase One Deal that sounds promising.
Because of the idiotic way the tariffs were designed it was inevitable that they would hurt our exports. Trump taxed things (particularly metals) that our producers need to make their products. So the cost of making products in US was forced up – making us less competitive in export markets. The retaliation from other countries were that putting tariffs on end products (motorcycles, bourbon, etc.) which also hurt our export. So the effects on exports were exactly as any Exon 101 student could have predicted (did Trump even get a gentlemans C in that course?).