The growing importance of Japan on the world market has brought with it changes in the international division of labour and a shift in the focus of the expansion in world trade away from the EC and the USA. What factors determine the shares of the EC, the USA and Japan in international trade?...

In the last issue of INTERECONOMICS Nobumitsu Kagami analysed Japan’s behavioural pattern and role in the international monetary sphere. The following complementary article covers the field of the country’s foreign trade.

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...

In implementing the Multilateral Textile Agreement the European Community opted for the instrument of export self-restraint agreements which - in contrast to unilaterally imposed restrictions - may already be concluded before a threatening market disruption has actually materialized. On the...

Since 1970 the world economy has gone through a series of grave crises which have stimulated an intensive discussion about the economic and political relations between industrialized and developing countries. As seen from the Federal Republic of Germany, the witnessed events have not only an...