Geoffrey Harcourt remained a steadfast left Keynesian all his life. He applied his economic analysis in framing policy recommendations targeting the welfare of the poor. He undertook incisive and comprehensive surveys of the work of Cambridge post-Keynesians, some of whom were involved intellectually or practically in the economics of developing economies. Keynes, remaining an imperialist as far as India was concerned, nevertheless produced a corpus which has been immensely helpful in understanding developing economies and prescribing policy solutions for them. First, Keynes created the modern macroeconomics discipline and refined the concept of national income, allowing methods of collecting and organising economic and social data enabling assessment of intersectoral impacts. Second, still relevant today is his idea of an International Clearing Union, disciplining countries with excessive balance of payments surpluses or deficits, even though American opposition at Bretton Woods prevented its adoption. Third, although an economist of the short run, Keynes took up issues of vital concern for the development of an underdeveloped economy, departing from his long-held fears about excessive population growth and contributing to policies for stabilising commodity prices. While Keynes remained a Eurocentric imperialist, his dreams for Europe in general and Britain in particular proved relevant for many developing countries today. He supported public investment and state involvement in solving problems of unemployment and industrial restructuring. His analysis of the instability of stock markets and dangers of financialisation remains highly relevant in a world experiencing major stock market crashes in almost every decade since the 1970s.

It is well known that in the traditional Soviet-type economies, there is a spontaneous tendency of enterprise and ministries to integrate vertically, as a response to the supply uncertainty typical of a chronic shortage economy.

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the link between the vertical integration issue and economic reform. It is argued that, in an institutional context with fixed prices, when there is shortage of inputs, enterprises consuming these inputs will generally not be able to agree on a rationing scheme, in the absence of vertical integration. This decisional vacuum entails the functional necessity of a central planner who will decide on the rationing scheme. It is shown that this result may help to highlight some of the key theoretical and empirical issues of economic reform. One of its main implications is that, in an economy where vertical integration is weak, the abolition of imperative planning can hardly be successful if shortages are not suppressed at the same time. On the other hand, it is much easier to abolish imperative planning if the economy is highly vertically integrated but, because vertical integration destroys the competitive nature of markets, the main goals of economic reform cannot be fulfilled unless additional structural changes are introduced in order to create a competitive environment.

Cette étude a pour but d'examiner la position compétitive des industries belges dans les secteurs les plus concernés par l'achèvement du marché intérieur. Trois principales conclusions émergent de cette analyse. Tout d'abord, les enjeux du marché intérieur sont particulièrement importants pour l'industrie belge puisque les secteurs les plus sensibles à 1992 y représentent 63% de la valeur ajoutée industrielle, contre 49% en moyenne dans la communauté européenne. Ensuite, la situation de l'industrie belge dans ces secteurs est globalement favorable puisque le poids des points forts en termes de valeur ajoutée et d'emploi industriels l'emporte sur celui des points faibles. Toutefois, ces dernières occupent près de 20% de l'emploi industriel. Finalement, il faut déplorer que les points forts appartiennent plutôt à des secteurs traditionnels et que, par contre, les performances belges sur le marché communautaire soient médiocres dans des secteurs en développement, comme l'informatique et les télécommunications.

De nombreux travaux récents ont jeté un doute sur la capacité des modèles traditionnels de fournir une explication totalement satisfaisante des échanges internationaux. Le recours accru aux analyses d'Economie Industrielle, de concurrence imparfaite et de théorie des jeux fournit un cadre complémentaire particulièrement utile.

C'est dans ce contexte que le présent article propose quelques illustrations simples des nouvelles recherches. La première section met en lumière plusieurs aspects des relations stratégies internationales, y compris le rôle joué par les acteurs publics. La deuxième section illustre le rôle des stratégies collusives, tant privées que publiques dans les échanges internationaux.