Bank for International Settlements

The twenty-fourth annual report of the Bank for International Settlements was made public in June 1954. In reviewing the period April 1, 1953, March 31, 1954, the report noted that 1953 had been a year of economic progress for most countries, and adjustment and consolidation for the world as a whole. In a great many nations production had reached new record heights; prices had shown a remarkable degree of overall stability; and monetary confidence had been strengthened, as evidenced by the improvement in reserves and in quotations on the exchange markets, and by the fall in the free-market price of gold. These facts were important not only in themselves but also because they had dispelled preconceived ideas and prejudices, such as: 1) the claim that changes in interest rates or other measures in the field of credit were ineffective and outmoded as instruments of economic management; 2) the idea that a small decline in industrial output in the United States would lead to a proportionately greater reduction in American imports and consequently widen the dollar gap; and 3) the notion that a strengthening of monetary reserves and an improvement in the value of individual currencies could be achieved only by a policy of “deflation” and at the cost of large-scale unemployment. At the same time the business trend in the individual countries had been characterized by an exceptional degree of diversity due to the growing strength of most European economies and the pursuit in the western hemisphere of policies designed to lighten the impact of a downward adjustment of levels of business activity.