The State and Trends in the Development of the World Economy

Abstract

The essay deals with the economic and social development in the 1990s and with new aspects, which have emerged especially during the second half of that period. This applies mainly to four financial and economic crises (the two Latin American, the Russian and Asian), to the modification of economic growth, to the capital-investment and trade policy climate.
The author, furthermore, attempts to make a short-term prognosis in the context of long-term trends the development of the world economy. He sees the causes of the instable development in the manifold increase of speculation capital, in the acceleration of its movement and in the not very adequate reaction of international finance institutions. The author further sums up the discussion on their reform. The essay contains also certain ideas centering on the consequences of the fragility of the economic situation, the rise of poverty in the world and the differentiation in certain major segments of the world economy. Special attention is given to the European centre of the world economy and to long-term trends in its development.