The world economy is threatening to find itself in a vicious circle of escalating protectionism. Franz Peter Lang explains the dangers and consequences of this. Gary Banks argues that the “new protectionism” is not so much a temporary by-product of the recession as the external manifestation...

Criticism within the Catholic churches of Latin America of the IMF and its approach to the development problems of the sub-continent has been persistently increasing in recent years. The measures imposed by the IMF, especially those following the payments crisis of 1982 have met with growing...

Voluntary export restraints play a substantial part in international trade today. This article compares the effects such restraints have upon certain exporting countries with the effect of sanctions applied under Article XIX of the GATT. It is shown that the microeconomic protectionism analysis...

The following article considers the effects triggered by exporting countries' reactions to the new protectionism. It demonstrates that if the analysis is broadened to take account of macro-economic interdependence the assessment of the trade interests, for instance, of “new” exporting...

Regulation can have counter-effects that work against the interests of those who advocate it, in both centrally-planned and market economies. Little research on these effects has been carried out so far, with the result that they have been ignored by policymakers.

Currently there is much discussion as to whether the chapter of West Germany’s post-war history popularly known as the “Economic Miracle” can be repeated in the region of the former GDR. Professor Lang presents a series of factors which encouraged the West German economic miracle at that...

The policy of reform in the former Eastern Bloc countries is relying on introducing the mechanisms of the market economy. However, the process of putting such changes into practice with concrete measures has to overcome a number of impediments which have so far hardly been considered by the...

The integration of the former state-trading countries into international free trade may, on the one hand, sensibly complement the reforms now under way towards their becoming market economies; on the other hand, this move harbours the risk of perpetuating and indeed aggravating the economic...