ABSTRACT
The discussion of State or other governmental controls over inter-regional and international trade and investment was confused, during and just after the Second World War, apart at any rate from the two or three years of immediate post-war readjustment. The tendency has been to concentrate on a few well-denned types of control, including tariffs, exchange control, export and import quotas, and inter-governmental commodity agreements. At the international level, consultation between firms and planning authorities is well developed. Very similar ideas have come out of recent experience of international or inter-regional investment and development. The distinction is important when the question conies up of relations, not between regional and national authorities but between national and international authorities. No world government is likely to have the information it would need to direct, efficiently and at reasonable cost, the main course of international trade and investment.
