Is the United States Being Priced Out of World Markets?

Abstract

The ideas contained in this article were first presented in a summarized form at the International Marketing Session of the American Marketing Association Conference in December, 1959, and subsequently delivered in an expanded version at the Eighth Annual Conference of the Great Lakes States Industrial Development Council at Purdue University in January, 1960. Because of current wide discussion of the subject and its importance to marketers especially, Professor Dowd's analysis is reproduced here in its entirety.

Professor Dowd offers proof that, although prices of products may be high because of increased costs of raw materials, taxes, labor, and declining efficiency of productive organization, U.S. exports are not being priced out of world markets. The popular belief is based upon an erroneous statistical comparison of two “abnormal” years, 1957 and 1958.

Nevertheless, American producers may not be maintaining their share of world exports since they are not applying the principles of modern marketing management, essential to successful domestic selling, to increasingly important foreign markets.