Robust growth and the strong dollar set pattern for 1983 import and export prices, (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, April 1984

Robust growth and the strong dollar
set pattern for 1983 import and export prices

Mark J. Johnson

U.S. import prices, as measured by the International Price Program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fell 2.4 percent in 1983. (See table 1.) Declining energy prices and the continued appreciation of the dollar against other currencies pulled prices downward, although the robust U.S. economic recovery places some upward pressure on prices. The drop in U.S. import prices was an important factor in the slowdown of domestic inflation in 1983, as measured by the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index.

The U.S. all-commodities export price index, which was published for the first time with the release of fourth-quarter 1983 data, fell 0.4 percent during the last 3 months of the year. (See table 2.) The new all-export index provides full coverage of U.S. merchandise exports; services and military goods are not included. Key individual export price indexes showing increases in 1983 were those for grain and for machinery and transport equipment, while the index for bituminous coal exports declined 14.2 percent. Export prices were greatly influenced by the strong U.S. dollar, the relatively slow pace of economic recovery abroad, and reduced demand for U.S. products by developing nations with heavy international debt loads.

This excerpt is from an article published in the April 1984 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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