Acta Oeconomica 23. (1979)

1979 / 1-2. szám - Kádár Béla: Structural Changes in the International Capital Exports

Acta Oeconomica Vol. 23 (1-2), pp. 75—93 (1979) В. KÁDÁR STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL EXPORTS International capital flows are affected by the accelerating structural transformation of world economy as to its pattern by sectors and countries, its motives and functions. The role of capital export is of increasing importance in spreading up-to-date technological and organiza­tional forms, in deepening the international industrial division of labour and world economic interdependence, as well as in global strategies. The international frameworks The fundamental historical processes of our age have brought about significant changes also in the international capital relationships. These changes are characterized by an expanding volume of international capital exports and by changes in the forms, func­tions, resources and trends of capital relationships. International capital flows had been greatly confined over an about 20-year period by protectionism after the 1929—1933 world crisis, followed by war preparations and World War II. The volume of foreign capi­tal investments shrank also in the physical sense owing to the changes in the East Euro­pean countries and the dissolution of the colonial system. Within the context of the international as well as domestic and political changes in the leading capitalist countries the international flow of capital somewhat revived after World War II. It was an objective of the US post-war political strategy to consolidate gradually the shattered capitalist world system. Accordingly, round three-quarter of the value of US credits, aids and direct long-term investments between 1946 and 1955 were directed to Western Europe and only 10 per cent to the then underdeveloped countries. From the mid-fifties on, along with the establishment of relations between the developing and the socialist countries and with the emerging liberation movements, capital exports to developing countries obtained a primary role among the instruments of power policy and foreign economic strategy of the leading capitalist countries. The value of capital exports to developing countries almost trebled between 1955 and 1965. Capital exports during the first post-war decade lost much of their weight relative to that at the beginning of this century but they were mostly politically and strategically motivated and, consequently, the state overtook the task of preventing, also through capital relations, that certain developed or developing countries should break away from the international capitalist system. With the expansion of the politically motivated government capital exports the terms of the so-called capital and credit market were determined for about two decades not so much by private capital but mostly by the financing practices of the states. Acta Oeconomica 23, 1979

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