ABSTRACT
At the time of putting the finishing touches to this volume, the world appears to be a very turbulent place. The ‘big’ issues of the day include the unwinding of central planning in Eastern Europe and the transformation to market-based economies; market completion in Western Europe, and the potential for economic and monetary union; the possibility of a fourth oil shock; environmental degradation and the consequences of climatic change; the signing of some kind of agreement from the eighth round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) multilateral arrangements, which might yet shore up the multilateralist consensus which has served the world economy so well over the post-war period; and debt-driven stagnation in many developing countries. These are the issues which economists will be called to advise on. They promise to make the 1990s exciting, interesting and perhaps a little less comfortable than the 1980s.
