Government and Economies in the Postwar World - Economic Policies and Comparative Performance, 1945-85 (Paperback, Revised)

The chance to begin anew seldom occurs. Yet the nearly complete breakdown of the world economy between 1939 and 1945, together with the dominant position of the United States at the end of the war, provided just this opportunity. A new international economic order was built on the ruins of the old. How this happened - and the role of government in economic performance - is the subject of this book. Written by political scientists, contemporary historians and economists, the book offers ten country studies covering all the major industrialized nations in the West: the USA, USSR, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Spain, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In each chapter readers will find information on the main objectives and instruments of economic policy, the institutional framework, where the country started from at the end of the war, and a summary of what happened thereafter both in terms of policies and outcomes. Each chapter also contains data on the country's economic performance, a list of selected dates of important events, and a guide to further reading. The book begins with an overview of the system of international trade and payments. This book should be of