9 Contemporary Macroeconomic Theories . From the Golden Age to Stagflation During the dark years of the Second World War people were already beginning to discuss the bases on which the world economy could be rebuilt when the war was over. Between the First and Second World Wars. | 9 Contemporary Macroeconomic Theories . From the Golden Age to Stagflation During the dark years of the Second World War people were already beginning to discuss the bases on which the world economy could be rebuilt when the war was over. Between the First and Second World Wars not only did Great Britain lose its position of economic leadership but the backwardness of the whole of Europe became evident while technology capital and organizational methods began to be massively imported from the United States. Thus the latter played a major role in determining the directions of reconstruction. There were three principal presuppositions on which the new period of prosperity was based economic development as an instrument to solve distributive conflicts and to control Communism European integration as an insurance against the outbreak of another world war and international coordination as a condition for avoiding disruptive crises such as those of the interwar period. The Marshall Plan contributed decisively to the renewed industrial development of the European countries pushing them towards economic collaboration supplying the means for importing indispensable raw materials resolving the German question without creating problems of reparation payments and finally instilling in the Europeans the wish to imitate the American way of life. Also very important were the international monetary agreements concluded at Bretton Woods in 1944 with the foundation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and the signing of GATT mechanisms designed to co-ordinate monetary and commercial measures on the world scale. The great boom that followed was generalized involving the old industrialized countries and some of the new born from the process of decolonization. Naturally those that had a solid industrial base were able to narrow the gap with the USA giving rise to a real economic miracle however most countries which were emerging at that time from their colonial past
