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Imports

What are Imports?
Imports are the sum total of goods and services bought in one country from another. It represents the other side of exports. Imports are another important aspect of the global economy, and of domestic economies. Imports tend most to evoke the principle of comparative advantage, whereby countries with a comparative advantage specialize and export to the benefit of other countries. In other words imports happen due to better, cheaper, or unavailable goods being available outside of the domestic market.

How does it relate to Markets?
Imports are an important indicator for import related stocks, and often provide a gauge for levels of domestic demand. For example (holding prices constant), a rise in the value of imports implies rising domestic demand. Thus imports can be used to gauge the health of an economy, they can also be used to gauge the potential health of significant export partners, e.g. the growth of Chinese exports is dependent on US import growth and domestic demand. Imports can also show their influence on both end user consumption and intermediate form i.e. as inputs for production and possible re-export. 

Protectionism
Similar to exports, a significant impediment to import growth and international trade is protectionism. Protectionism for the global economy is a negative sum game, which often protects the least efficient producers at the cost of the most efficient producers. Protectionism comes in many forms e.g. tariffs, quotas, import bans, intentional bureaucratic slowdowns, subsidies to domestic producers, etc. Growing protectionism is bad for global economic growth, and will ultimately adversely affect an economy.

Imports and the Economy
Imports play a key role in an economy, and tie into a series of other key metrics. For example the trade balance is the difference between exports and imports (net exports in the GDP formula), which is an often reported item, and ties in to a nation's balance of payments; specifically the current account. Obviously one country's exports is another country's imports. Imports also feed into domestic consumption, e.g. large chain stores importing, marking up, and then retailing to consumers.

Sources and further reading:
World Trade Organization - International trade and tariff data
Economics Web Institute - Imports
About.com - Imports and Exports Economic Data
CIA World Factbook - Country Comparison :: Imports
Wikipedia - Import

Graph Library:
Metric - Imports

Original Source: http://www.econgrapher.com/encyclopedia-imports.html

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