ABSTRACT
The effects and the policy issues of economic integration are much the same for groupings of advanced and developing countries, but the economic contexts are very different. The particular structural features of developing countries combine to produce a situation in which certain aspects of policy, though also relevant in advanced countries, assume a dominant importance in developing countries. In broad terms, the principal difference is that in advanced market economies the market can be largely left to take care of the integration process. As Wiles once put it, admittedly before there was any experience of the Byzantine possibilities of the EEC, ‘it [the market] integrates quietly and impersonally, while prime ministers are in bed’ (Wiles, 1968). The difference can be exaggerated, but it is without doubt important, and it dictates a different integration strategy in developing groupings from what might be appropriate in advanced market economies. Specifically, it points to a need for a more positive integration strategy, in the Tinbergian sense.
