The sudden shock of the fivefold increase of the price of oil in the autumn of 1973 has been reflected since in the world trade by structural changes in its composition by categories of goods and its regional distribution. How has the international trade coped with this shock, and which more...

“The flow of goods, services, capital, current payments and other transactions of trade across frontiers … is fundamentally free …” — with these words begins the German AuBenwirtschafts-Gesetz — AWG (Foreign Trade Act), Article Number One. After this Law had been passed in 1961, many...

The European Economic Community has now been in existence for about 20 years. Five years have elapsed since it was enlarged. What progress have the member countries made in the integration of their foreign trade? What would be the repercussions of a southward extension of the EC to take in...

The locomotive theory is likely to come up again for discussion at the next summit of the major industrial nations in Bonn in July. What are the basic ideas behind this theory? And what are its chances of success if adopted as an economic policy?

In the spring of 1978 the International Energy Agency (IEA) staged the second “Allocation System Test”, a simulation exercise designed to check the ability of 19 OECD countries to cope jointly with another oil crisis. The topicality of such a contingency test is demonstrated by the...

The most extensive tariff cuts in the history of GATT were completed with the fifth and final stage of the Kennedy Round. Tariffs on a volume of trade in excess of $ 40 bn have been reduced by an average of 50 p.c.

The EC’s association and preference policy has again and again given rise to criticism by those developing countries who are not favoured as well as by the other industrial states. Sometimes, however, it seems that preferences have been overestimated. It cannot be overlooked that the...

The relations between 46 developing countries and the EC had to be reviewed and revised after the expiry of the EC association agreements with the 19 Yaoundé states and the three Arousha states and also because of the accession of Great Britain to the EC which made it necessary to include also...

Early this year the US Administration made reference to “a marked improvement in the relations between the EC and the USA over the period of the last three years” — an astonishing statement in the light of the mounting non-tariff obstacles to trade between the EC and the USA.