International Aspects and Conclusions

Abstract

The previous chapter considered the appropriate principles for the macroeconomic policy mix in a single open economy that was not large enough for it to be justifiable (in its own narrow interests) for it to take account of the effects of its actions on the rest of the world. But, in fact, the policies of each individual country have important effects on the economies of the rest of the world, even when those effects are not so large as to react back on the original government in a clearly discernible way. The success of the world economy in overcoming unemployment and inflation therefore depends on the decisions of all its individual governments. The world community thus has an interest in placing some degree of pressure upon individual countries to take into account the effects of their policies upon the rest of the world.