This is the eighth book of my collected papers, each on a fairly narrow range of topics within economics — international economics, international financial questions, financial history and economic history (including some specialized topics such as the multinational corporation and the Marshall Plan). The exercise has strong overtones of narcissism, which makes me uneasy, but may serve a useful purpose in assembling in convenient locations work that would otherwise remain scattered and in part lost (as perhaps it should be). And yet I am a sufficient believer in the market test to defend myself against the charge of vainglory by pointing out that none of the. | appeared in 1776 (Chapter 5). It equally relates to the resurgence of the French economy after World War II at a time when the analysts, including economic historians, were busy explaining French economic retardation (Chapter 7). The essays on commercial policy between the wars (Chapter 6) and US foreign economic policy over two centuries (Chapter 8) are rather more descriptive than analytical, but Chapters 9 and 10 pose a salient question of the present day, whether the growth processes of an economy can be extended by policy measures readily available to governmental bodies. The issue is posed in acute form by the decline in the rate of personal savings in the United States since the 1970s, and especially after tax reductions favoring the higher-income groups were adopted for the ostensible purpose of raising saving rates. It arises also in other areas related to the aging process: declines in the rates of gain in labor and factor productivity; loss of innovation activity, outside the narrow area of finance; increasing consolidation of interest groups — "distributional coalitions" in Mancur Olson's (1982) terminology — with their effective resistance to increases in taxation or reduction in benefits, including in the latter for the "military-industry complex," a reduction in military expenditure. As economies age, unrejuvenated by the losses of major wars, they have no trouble in willing the ends, but find it increasingly difficult to will the means, which implies recognizing and distributing the costs. The trauma of defeat in war, as Olson points out, may dissolve these vested interests and make possible appropriate technical policies under effective leader-
