The objective of this paper is four-fold. First, the characteristics of current international trade in the capitalist regime and their implications will be analyzed without resorting to the conventional comparative advantage or the factor endowment theory. Second, expected changes in the international capitalist market under the new world economic environment will be illustrated. Third, the implication of recent world economic developments such as economic integration, regionalism, formation of free trade areas, and economic cooperation among the industrial powers, like G-7, will be studied in light of the first two objectives. Finally, from the standpoint of these recent economic developments, we shed light on the kind of adjustments required for those countries whose economic developments have been engineered on the basis of the outward-looking economic growth model.

Contents

I. Introduction

II. Overview of Traditional Trade Theory

III. Problems in International Economic Order

IV. The New Political Economy of Protectionism

V. Emergence of a New System

VI. Concluding Remarks

References