For the past half century the developing countries have struggled with their relationship to the world trading system, the role of their trade policies in their own economic growth, and the influence of the world economy on their prospects for growth. Until the 1980s, the developing countries were bystanders rather than participants in the design of the international trading system. They followed policies of "import substitution," thereby insulating their economies from the rest of the world.

By 1980, however, policymakers in most developing countries realized the import-substitution policies had failed, and they finally began opening up their economies and integrating them into the international economic system.

In this book, part of the Integrating National Economies series, Anne O. Krueger traces the reasons for the developing countries' reversals of earlier policies and demonstrates the importance of the open international trading system for them. She analyzes the interaction of developing countries and the world economy from the late 1940s to the early 1990s, reviews the lessons learned, and surveys the situation in the mid-1990s.