The impact of Eastern Europe's convertible currency external debt situation on the financing of East-West trade in the late 1908s and early 1990s.

WHEN in the future historians examine the second half of the twentieth century, they will no doubt identify the accelerated inter-nationalization of production as a landmark comparable with the Industrial Revolution. In this process multinational enterprises have been leading actors in the past twenty-five years and are certain to continue to be so in the next quarter-century. In 1975 the sales of the Western multinational corporations represented one-fifth of the Gross National Product of all capitalist countries. If their growth is maintained at the same rate as over the period 195o-75, by the end of the century this share will be nearly one-half and the whole capitalist economy may very well be dominated by some 200 giant corporations of which three-quarters may be American-based.

This book analyzes East-West economic and political relations in the context of the policies of the major Eastern and Western countries. The authors, a group of international scholars, examine the potential use of East-West trade as an instrument to influence Eastern policies, and they assess the effects of U.S. unilateral imposition of embargoes and sanctions against the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. They conclude that although East-West economic relations suffer during times of increased international tension, trade between them is an important stabilizing element.