Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
The following analysis is primarily concerned with definite mathematical expressions of the relationship between export and national income values in Canada as it developed during the inter-war period, with an attempt to measure the export multiplier and the influence of the barter terms of trade upon the national income, and to make tentative projections into the future.
The mathematical expressions for this relationship are alternatively based (1) on the time series for exports and national income and (2) on the deviations from the linear trends of exports and national income over the period 1923-38. The year 1939 is omitted as the war distorted the relationship even then. The years prior to 1923 are eliminated as their inclusion would lead to inverse correlations in individual cases owing to disturbances in currency relations, abnormal lags and leads in the equilibration of the respective balances of payment, and sudden shifts in the proportional evolution of domestic and foreign markets in the countries concerned.
1 In a later paper the writer will extend the analysis to a consideration of the physical volume and the chief components of Canadian exports and of the main outlets of Canadian exports which appear necessary to sustain projected levels of the national income, under the assumption of a relative homogeneity of the significant trends during the base- and projection- period.