1Towards a Genera Theory of the Balance of PaymentsHGJohnson 本文引自International Trade and Economic Growth一书，原发表于 1958 年，系作者取材于其在英国剑桥大学等高校讲课稿，其中部分内容引自早期的一篇论文“凯恩斯有关国际收支理论的一般概括” ，发表于Indian Journal of Economics ，第 37 卷，1956 年。 作者简介：Harry Gordon Johnson 是美国著名的国际经济学家，曾任美国芝加哥大学和英国伦敦经济和政治学院教授，发表多部国际金融方面的著作，是当代货币分析法的代表人物之一。1977 年病故。论文提要：本文主要介绍调节国际收支的主要理论和调节政策。作者指出国际收支的分析是依据一国的总收支而非国际账户上的收支，从而揭示国际收支逆差的货币性质，也必然伴随着本国货币的流出或信用扩张，使国际收支逆差与一国的整体经济活动联系起来。作者还提出逆差反映社会上的存量意愿和流量意愿，前者宜采用直接管制政策，后者可采用支出减少或支出转移政策。在充分就业情况下，后者必须受前者的支持。这是一篇研究国际收支调节理论和调节政策的必读之作。The theory Of the balance Of payments is concerned with the economic determinants of the balance of payments，and specifically with the analysis Of policies for preserving balance-Of- payments equilibriumSo defined，the theory of the balance of payments is essentially a post war developmentPrior to the Keynesian Revolution，problems of international disequilibrium were discussed within the classical conceptual framework of “the mechanism of adjustment一 the way in which the balance of payments adjusts to equilibrium under alternative systems of international monetary relationsthe actions Of the monetary and other policy-making authorities being subsumed in the system under considerationWhile the Keynesian Revolution introduced the notion of chronic disequilibrium into the analysis of international adjustment，early Keynesian writing on the subject tended to remain within the classical framework of analysis in terms of international monetary systemsthe gold standard，the inconvertible paper standardand to be concerned with the role and adequacy in the adjustment process Of automatic variations in income and employment through the foreign trade multiplierMoreover, the applicability of the analysis to policy problems was severely restricted by its assumption of general under-employment, which implied an elastic supply of aggregate output, and allowed the domestic-currency wage or price level to be treated as given, independently of the balance of payments and variations in it.The pre-war approach to international monetary theory reflected the way in which balance- of-payments problems tended to appear at the time, namely as problems of international monetary adjustment. Since the war, for reasons which need not be elaborated here, the balance of payments has come to be a major problem for economic policy in many countries. Correspondingly, a new (though still Keynesian) theoretical approach to balance-of-payments theory has been emerging, an approach which is better adapted to post-war conditions than the foreign trade multiplier theory and elasticity analysis of the pre-war period in two major respects: it poses the problems of balance-of-payments adjustment in a way which highlights their policy implications, and it allows for conditions of full employment and inflation. 2The essence of this approach, which has been termed the absorption approach, is to view the balance of payments as a relation between the aggregate receipts and expenditures of the economy, rather than as a relation between the countrys credits and debits on international account. This approach has been implicit to an important extent in the thinking of practical policymakers concerned with balance-of-payments problems in post-war conditions. Its main formal development is to be found in the works of Meade (1951), Tinbergen (1952), and Alexander (1952), though many others have contributed (Stuvel, 1951; Harberger, 1950; Laursen and Metzler, 1950; Harrod, 19521.The purpose of this reading is to synthesize and generalize the work of these writers, and to use their approach to clarify certain aspects of the balance-of-payments policy problem.Let us first summarize the traditional approach to balance-of-payments theory. The balance of payments must necessarily balance, when all international transactions are taken into account; for imbalance or disequilibrium to be possible, it is necessary, to distinguish between autonomous international transactions-those which are the result of the free and voluntary choices of individual transactors, within whatever restrictions are imposed by economic variables or policy on their behaviour-and induced or accommodating international transactions-those which are undertaken by the foreign exchange authorities to reconcile the free choices of the individual transactors-and to define the balance of payments to include only autonomous transactions. To put the point another way, balance-of-payments problems presuppose the presence of an official foreign exchange authority which is prepared to operate in the foreign exchange market by the use of official reserves so as to influence the exchange rate; and disequilibrium is defined by changes in the official reserves, associated with imbalance between the foreign receipts and foreign payments of residents of the country, where resident is defined to include all ec