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...

Talks are at present in progress in Geneva among 51 industrialised and developing countries on a renewal of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) which expires at the end of 1981. The preliminaries of the negotiations have already revealed the existence of massive conflicts of interest not only...

Since the end of the Tokyo Round six years ago, mercantilistic elements have affected an increasing proportion of world trade. Theorists and practicians alike consider that GATT, as the trade arm of the international economic order, is now in a lamentable condition and is looking increasingly...

The international economic development over the last century was characterised by various kinds of cycles. This article focusses on cyclical changes in the net barter terms of trade between primary products and manufactured goods. By comparing and contrasting the present circumstances with those...

Among the many contraints facing all participants in the international division of labour in the present decade, some seem to affect centrally planned economies (CPEs) to a greater extent than other countries. The CPEs' additional problems are due, according to Prof. Winiecki, to specific,...

There seems to exist wides pread agreement on the superiority of free trade over other forms of trading systems with protectionism being accepted, at best, as a temporary device for slowing down adjustment processes. As against that, Dr. Hager argues that the markets of industrialised and...