Study title

The present study aims to identify the broad relationship between economic cycle and foreign trade in the last decades before the First World War, using statistical methods. Data base is the statistic of foreign trade. “The development of foreign trade in the last decades before the First World War in countries that had imposed trade statistics can be represented by the two main categories; total imports and total exports. The values in those categories not only depend on the development of magnitudes but also on the development of prices. If you only analyze the value series, the most important research question could not be answered; in which extend the changes in the numbers are due to real changes in trade volume and not only due to changes in prices. Therefor the isolation of development in the magnitudes is the most important aim.” Soltau, F., 1916, a. a. O., S. 15f). For the present data for trade, trade volume and price indices for foreign trade, the trend lines are in form of third degree parabolas (parabolic trend) to divide the effect of changes in development and changes in economic cycles. Changes in economic cycles are then represented as percentage deviations of the actual values (unbalanced values) from the trend values (balanced values). The values for economic cycles are given for trade values, trade volume and for prices. “It is a pity that the development of German foreign trade in the 1970s cannot be taken into account. Only after a reform from 1879, data for exports was collected gapless and trough a new customs tariffs the values received a whole new meaning. Therefore, the values for the years before 1880 are not comparable with the latter values” (Soltau, F., 1916, a. a. O., S. 20). The same analysis which was undertaken for Germany had been tried for the world trade. This analysis is based on the trade values themselves, which include changes in prices. 33 countries were taken into account and were divided into two groups: industrial...