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1. Introduction
There are enormous differences in the extent to which individual nations are dependent代写留学生论文 upontransactions with the outside world. The UK has always been an ‘open’ economy, both importing andexporting on a massive scale. Superficially this may simply be seen to reflect the difficulties whichany nation the size of the UK must inevitably face in trying to be self-sufficient across the wholerange of goods and services. However, it is important to note both that the UK’s degree of opennesshas been increasing steadily over the past decades (as has also been true elsewhere in the EU) and thatexternal transactions increasingly involve one-way flows of capital which are unrelated to theimmediate consumption requirements of UK residents.

In recent years the value of both imports and exports has grown to exceed 30 per cent of the UK’sGross Domestic Product (GDP), and it is obvious that these trade flows impact significantly upon theUK’s industrial structure, the level of employment, the standard of living of UK nationals and so on.In other words, the internal and external sectors are inextricably linked, and it is impossible to controlinternal macroeconomic objectives, such as the level of employment and the rate of inflation, withouttaking into account their links with the external sector. Indeed, as we shall see, much of the post-warhistory of UK macroeconomic policy can be viewed in terms of a struggle to find acceptable trade-offs between the internal and external objectives of policy.

2. The system of balance of payments accounts
The balance of payments may be defined as a systematic record, over a given period of time, of alltransactions between residents and non-residents of the UK. The term ‘resident’ covers bothindividuals permanently in the UK and corporate bodies located therein, but not their overseasbranches and subsidiaries. It also includes government agencies and military forces located abroad.‘Permanent’ residence is determined by the intention to remain in the UK for at least one full year.

The object of the accounting system is to record these transactions in a way which is suitable foranalysing the economic relations between the UK economy and the rest of the world. The transactionsmay represent (a) resources provided by, or to, UK residents (imports and exports of goods andservices, together with the use of investments), (b) changes in the UK’s foreign assets or liabilities, (c)or transfer payments.

In principle, transactions are recorded when the ownership of goods or assets changes and whenservices are rendered. In practice, however, trade flows are recorded on a shipments basis, and thepayments which match these shipments are not only almost invariably delayed, but the length of thisdelay is quite erratic from one period to another. In the longer term all the shipments and monetaryflows can be matched up, but the short-term picture is almost inevitably quite heavily distorted. Thisis important because, first, both foreign exchange markets - and indeed sometimes the government -respond in a volatile way to monthly or quarterly balance of payments statistics. Secondly, becausethe annual accounts are constantly being adjusted retrospectively to a degree that can turn surpluses

into deficits, or vice versa. In other words, the short-term picture can conflict with the long-t本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。