Bank for International Settlements

The twenty-fifth annual report of the Bank for International Settlements was made public in June 1955. In reviewing the period April 1, 1954—March 31, 1955, the report noted that 1954 had been a fundamentally prosperous year; in most countries of Europe the volume of production had continued to increase during 1954, and in the United States and Canada output had begun to rise again in the second half of the year and had continued to increase in the early months of 1955. The progress had been all the more notable since it had been achieved concurrently with an unusual degree of over-all price stability and without any resurgence of major balance-of-payments difficulties; in these respects the conditions prevailing in 1954 had been a continuation of those of the two preceding years. In discussing the 1953–1954 recession in the United States and the recovery which had taken place in the United States since the autumn of 1954, the report outlined the forces and policies which it felt had enabled the recession to be halted effectively and fairly rapidly: 1) the great wealth and liquidity of the United States economy; 2) the operation of various “automatic stabilizers”, such as income tax and unemployment insurance, which had not been dependent upon new policy decisions, but had come into operation of their own accord; 3) other factors conducive to stability, such as long-term borrowing, the insurance of individual bank deposits against loss to the depositor up to $10,000, and the system of margin requirements which had been introduced in 1934; 4) special steps taken by the authorities in the field of fiscal and credit policy; and 5) the continued economic expansion in western Europe.