In this place we regularly published the HWWA Index of World Market Prices which has been computed since the fifties and was a comprehensive indicator of the price movements of the major raw materials traded in the world markets. Unavoidably, an, index of this kind has to be adjusted from time...

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....