The world economy gained distinct momentum last year. Following North America, the forces for growth have now prevailed in Western Europe and the Japanese economy has also picked up. Real gross domestic product in the industrial countries rose faster than expected at 3%. Will this upward trend...

The upswing in the world economy has lost momentum surprisingly fast. A slowdown in growth in North America had been expected, but the budding hopes in Japan and Western Europe for a continued recovery in utilisation of capacity and employment were disappointed. Are there grounds for such hopes...

1979 saw a pronounced cyclical downturn with mounting, inflation and balance of payments problems bear upon the western industrialized countries with the long-expected recession materializing in the USA early in 1980. In Western Europe demand and production began to slide a little later....

The world-wide economic recession, which began as a result of the second explosive rise in oil prices in the spring of 1980, lasted throughout the whole of last year. Unemployment in industrialised countries has shot up at an alarming pace, whereas only limited progress was registered in the...

After hopes of an international economic recovery had been repeatedly dashed during a slump period lasting almost three years, 1983 proved to be the long-awaited turnaround year for the world economy. In fact, the upswing came earlier and with greater momentum than had initially been forecast at...

In 1984 the world economy witnessed the kind of high growth rate it had last seen eight years ago. In the industrialised countries real GNP increased by almost 5%. The most pronounced increase was in the USA, although the initial thrust clearly tailed off during the course of the year. Against...

The pace of economic expansion in the world economy as a whole last year was strongly influenced by the cyclical slowdown in the USA. The increase in the real GNP of the industrialised countries, for example, fell from almost 5% in 1984 to just under 3% in 1985. Does this mean that the phase of...

After the price of oil began falling sharply during the first few months of 1986 the prospects for a more pronounced and long-lasting economic upswing in the industrialised countries were generally regarded as having improved. The increase in demand and production in 1986, however, was more...

After the stock market crash in the autumn of 1987 even optimists were predicting a sharp slowdown in the growth of the world economy in 1988. In the event, the GNP of the industrialised countries increased by 4% in real terms last year. What is the outlook for 1989?

1989 was another highly satisfactory year for the industrialised countries, with real gross national product growing by an average of around 31/2%. Performance differed from one country to another, however, with the USA beginning to lag behind. Is this the harbinger of a general slowdown in growth?