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?

Following the prolonged upswing in the world economy during the eighties, the subsequent downturn is proving to be more persistent than expected. It looks as if the USA is now at last on the road to recovery but Japan and Western Europe are still having a tangible dampening effect at the turn of...

After a three-year slowdown in the world economy, unemployment in the industrial countries is again almost as high as at the end of the recession in the early eighties. Any improvement will be dependent on a distinct resurgence of economic activity. With the recovery in the USA gaining greater...

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...

Recent negotiations about selling prices for crude oil have reflected an economic controversy between developing countries and the industrialised nations of the West. That, in this particular case, the demands raised by developing countries had to be accepted almost entirely was due to their...