When I mentioned last week that the trade figures had become something of a Cinderella statistic, barely mentioned these days, I was not quite prepared for the response. Many people got in touch to tell me they were puzzled by how data that once dominated the debate — and often led the evening news — had become, at best, an also-ran.
Even before that reaction, I promised to rectify this by writing about what has been happening to trade. I try to keep promises, so here goes.
Let me start by dealing with the puzzle. There was a time when the trade figures were indeed central to the economic debate and economic policy. To understand why, we have to go back to the post-war exchange
