Introduction

The world economy is undergoing a major transformation. First, there is a continuing, indeed accelerating, process of globalization. The threefold division of the world that arose during the Cold War and the era of decolonization is disappearing and national economies are merging into a single and increasingly integrated world economy. In the process, the economic significance of individual states is diminishing. National economic policies are daily becoming less effective, yet our institutions of global economic management are feeble and have failed to adapt to changed circumstances. Next, large numbers of developing countries have introduced policies of structural adjustment in order to respond to the new global economic realities and to become more closely integrated into the global economy. At the same time, the socialist economies have begun to restructure their economies. They have entered into a long and painful process of systemic change, seeking a transition from a centrally planned to a more market-oriented economic regime. As part of this transition they, too, have become more closely integrated into the world economy.