World Economy in Crisis: Unemployment, Inflation and International Debt

John Marston was a federal civil servant in Ottawa.

Dr. Lorie Tarshis has taught at Tufts University, Stanford University, and the University of Toronto, and currently lectures at York University in Toronto. From 1978 to 1981 he was Director of Research and Executive Secretary of the Ontario Economic Council. A specialist in macroeconomics and international monetary economics, he has written several books on these subjects and has received both Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellowships and also a Ford Senior Research Fellowship.

The current book deals with our present-day problems of soaring prices, soaring unemployment, and soaring debt. These are the symptoms of a crisis that has held most world economies in its grip since the late 1960s.

Tarshis discusses our failure to make use of the world’s production capacity, which shows up as an increase in unemployment; the speeding up of the inflation rate; and the growing danger that the heavily indebted developing countries simply cannot service their rapidly growing debts.

Dr. Tarshis contends that much of this suffering is not necessary; that the crisis could have been eased had it not been for governments’ faulty diagnosis and poorly designed prescriptions. His recommendations are directed at easing inflation; raising employment and output; and permanently reducing the burden of Third World debt — rather than stop-gap reactions.

An informed and thought-provoking book.