Unfortunately, the sensible goal of rebalancing towards net exports can lead to dubious policy prescriptions.
Growth has been driven by capital formation, consumption and only marginally by net exports.
In 2007, net exports contributed almost three percentage points of the 12% increase in GDP.
Around three-quarters of output growth over the past two years came from net exports.
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You can also see that as the boom rolled over the US net exports were strongly rising.
Yet net exports have gone from a modest surplus to record deficits over the same time period.
Household consumption accounted for 34% of total GDP in 2010 compared to just 4% from net exports.
An appreciation in the dollar will change the impact of net exports from a positive to a negative.
As you can see, consumption and investment contributed positively, while net exports and government spending were a drag.
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With consumption declining and investment flat, net exports are the only private sector source of support for the economy.
Gross domestic product has four constituents: consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.
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Net exports, buoyed by a weak dollar, lifted the sagging economy in 2007.
Even so, UBS, a bank, forecasts that in 2009 net exports will be a negative drag on GDP growth.
Net exports are very similar in that they, too, follow the business cycle.
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Converting to ounces, Standard said that net exports in February were 489, 383 ounces in February, compared to 44, 696 in January.
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Then, too, GDP counts net exports exports minus imports and the US, being a net importer, gets dinged on this most every quarter.
But a recovery built on net exports will lack the feel-good factor.
We could spend the rest of our lives attempting to explain that after adjusting for net exports, total expenditures must equal total income.
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Unfortunately, during much of this period world growth was dismal not robust, so the falling euro exchange rate did nothing for net exports.
For the first time in many years, Germany's domestic demand looks set to contribute more to growth in 2006 than its net exports will.
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At the stage of use, GDP is calculated as the sum of final consumption of goods and services, gross formation and net exports excluding imports.
Based on U.S. experience in times of high unemployment, a 10% depreciation of the euro would improve net exports by about 1.5% of GDP.
The depreciation in sterling over the past year should support net exports, but the prospects for demand growth in the UK's main export markets have worsened.
Which is to say, the Gross Domestic Product of a country is equal to its total Consumption (personal and business) plus Investments plus Government Spending plus Net Exports.
But, far from supporting the recovery, our export sector actually pulled it down in 2012, with net exports subtracting about 0.8 percentage points from the annual rate of growth.
Thanks to its monetary and fiscal stimulus, domestic demand has contributed an incredible 12 percentage points to GDP growth this year, while net exports subtracted almost four percentage points.
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Adding net exports, business investment, construction and consumption together, China's growth next year would probably drop to less than 6% without any government help its slowest rate for almost two decades.
The Bank of Korea's surprise rate cut decision on Thursday indicates that South Korea, whose net exports represent nearly 60% of its gross domestic product, has joined the global currency war.
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