Economic Regionalism Reconsidered

Abstract

During the decade of the 1950's, considerable popularity was won for the idea that the restructuring of the world economy into regional blocs would mark a great forward step in international economic relations, and might also help resolve certain major international political problems. As the new decade begins, and as a new Administration takes office in Washington, it is timely to reappraise the validity of this idea. To do so is not to suggest that regionalism is the most important aspect of foreign economic policy for the new decade. There come readily to mind at least five other major topics: aid for economic development; stabilization of international markets for primary products; the policy of advanced industrial countries toward imports of low-wage manufactured goods from developing countries; the treatment of trade and aid activities of the Communist bloc; and the reduction of the balance-of-payments deficit of the United States. With respect to broad structural relationships, however, the future of economic regionalism is evidently a matter of special importance.