Comment

Abstract

It is difficult not to share the central argument of P. Savona’s and E. Grilli’s chapter, that without restoring more appropriate conditions in the workings of the international monetary system, ‘the path of world economic growth will remain tortuous, and its speed unsatisfactorily slow’. This dissatisfaction is apparent, for instance, when considering the world economic performance in 1984 — when, by common consent, the best results in many years were achieved. In fact, income growth, inflation reduction, international trade recovery have been accompanied by a number of fundamental imbalances in international monetary relationships, exchange rates, external payments and the distribution of the positive results across the main geographic areas.