Introductory Remarks

Abstract

Chapter 1 of this volume, ‘World Trade and Monetary Order’, by Paolo Savona and Enzo Grilli, explicates relationships that exist between foreign trade and monetary order, and, in turn, economic growth. The prevailing state of affairs — an international monetary order based on the dollar standard by default — is a very unsatisfactory situation which only incidentally serves the needs of stability in exchange rate parities and international liquidity. Savona and Grilli argue very forcibly for the establishment of a new, collectively accepted, international monetary order as a necessary condition for sustaining satisfactory levels of world economic growth. They support the proposition that there exists a causal link between monetary order and economic growth by first examining the relationship that exists between terms of trade and capital accumulation, and then clarifying the relationship between international monetary order and terms of trade.