ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the rationale for the summits and their early achievements. It establishes from the outset the three distinctive objectives and roles for the summits: reconciling interdependence, collective management and political leadership. Three reasons, each of a different kind, contributed to the genesis of the summits in 1975, such as reconciling interdependence; collective management; and political leadership. The first summits became the focus of the 'locomotive' controversy, on whether the United States, Germany and Japan could properly stimulate their strong economies to encourage recovery in the weaker ones. The treatment of macro-economic policy in the second series of summits changed fundamentally, the conclusions were simpler and the prescriptions - on checking monetary growth and reducing budget deficits - became more uniform; and this was not all. The early summits played a key role in invigorating international trade and monetary negotiations.
