International trade policy is facing a cross-roads. This is creating uncertainty, impairing world economic growth. Unless a policy of more open markets is pursued, protectionism may well turn into a self-perpetuating and cumulative process. This is why the 1986 Kiel Conference was devoted to Free Trade in the World Economy: Towards an Opening of Markets. We felt that such a conference would help to stimulate policy discussion preceding the Uruguay Round under the auspices of the GATT and the moves within the European Community towards completing a common internal market by 1992.

This book provides a reassessment of the government's role in the provision of social insurance. It shows how President Reagan's proposal for a transition to block grants is designed to lay the responsibility for financing the spending in the hands of the same political decision-makers.

This volwne is the outcome of the 19th Kiel Week Conference held at the Institute of World Economics, 22-24 June 1988. It contains the revised versions of the papers and comments submitted after discussion.

Major industrial countries have shown strikingly different performances in recent years. Between 1982 and 1987 • employment in the United States and Japan increased by 13 and 6 per cent respectively but only by 2 per cent in Western Europe. While unemployment rates in America and Japan are presently almost as low as they were in the late 1970s when the cyclical position was about the same • they are double as high as they were then in Western Europe. Correspondingly, GNP growth in Western Europe was low by past and international standards.