The existing balances on the current accounts of the major industrialised countries have given rise to demands, addressed particularly to German economic policy-makers, which amount to a revitalisation of the "locomotive theory". However, were the world economy once more to be "reflated" in...

Low growth and high unemployment have induced the European Union (EU) to outline an economic programme in which long-term effective growth and structural policy measures play a central role. Simultaneously, the German government adopted an "action programme aiming at more growth and employment",...

Unconventional forms of international trade (such as counterpurchase, compensation deals and barter) have assumed rapidly growing importance, especially in many developing countries, as a consequence of the fall in commodity prices and the worsening of international debt problems since the oil...

The process of European integration can be described as the increasing interdependence between economies at different levels of development and with different productive capabilities. It evolved from a pre-eminently political project to a ‘de-politicised’ management based on the automatism...

The Third Development Decade of the United Nations opened with a promising outlook for the developing countries. The economic situation of the OECD countries had improved during 1979 and the "North-South dialogue" seemed to be making progress. But the further course of 1980 and the subsequent...

Plans and proposals for stimulating the world economy and thus aiding economic recovery in the developing countries have been many and varied, ranging from massive transfer of resources, whether automatic or discretionary, through the immediate programme of the Brandt Commission to a...

During the 1970s the North-South Dialogue, which will shortly be continued at the summit in Mexico, was characterized by a gross disproportion between monstrous expenditure - with many losses due to friction - and negligible results. Symptoms of fatigue with regard to the Dialogue are spreading...