Preface

Abstract

Extract Whenever we try to predict or shape the future, it is invariably in the image of our understanding of the past. This is especially so in areas as complex as economic policy-making at a national level, and policy co-ordination at an international level. In trying to indicate the directions in which economic policies need to proceed both nationally and internationally during the 1990s, this volume draws inspiration from an analysis of the ‘golden age’ of the post-war economic boom, and tries to blend historical analysis with economic theory. It marks, I believe, an important stage in the continuing development of economics. It would be foolish to imagine that we can somehow reproduce in the 1990s the conditions which gave rise to the rapid growth of the 1950s and 1960s. It would be even more foolish, however, to ignore the experience of those years. At least we have one advantage over the policy-makers and economists who struggled to understand the post-World War II system at the time, which is, that we know that the system broke down. But why it collapsed remains a controversial yet highly relevant issue.