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Addresses the issue of preferential trade arrangements, looking first at part of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which sanctions Customs Unions and Free Trade Areas. During the 1960s, regionalism (preferential trade agreements among a subset of nations) failed, but it was the subject of a revival in the 1980s. The author analyses the second regionalism, from the viewpoint of world welfare, and asks whether non-discriminatory multilateral free trade for all will result, or whether the world economy will become fragmented. Regionalism has political appeal and thus will expand; if it is contained and shaped then maximum benefits may be obtained whilst any damaging effects are minimalised.

The introduction of regional autonomy, as established in the 1948 Constitution, has been slow and gradual, taking the shape of an administrative decentralization despite the legislative power granted to the regions created by the Constitution. Following the 1993 laws regarding the local authorities and the 1999 laws regarding the regions whose power has been granted a high level of legitimacy, the contemporary phase is being characterized by a constitutional change (revision of 2001) which has given the regions their own legislative authority, in addition to new financial resources, and has guaranteed, through the principle of subsidiarity, the autonomy of the communes and cities. However, the implementation of this reform, which is being delayed by centralizing resistance, may lead to different types of federalism, certain groups going as far as proposing a 'devolution' that would challenge the permanence of territorial solidarity. Adapted from the source document.

During the decade of the 1950's, considerable popularity was won for the idea that the restructuring of the world economy into regional blocs would mark a great forward step in international economic relations, and might also help resolve certain major international political problems. As the new decade begins, and as a new Administration takes office in Washington, it is timely to reappraise the validity of this idea. To do so is not to suggest that regionalism is the most important aspect of foreign economic policy for the new decade. There come readily to mind at least five other major topics: aid for economic development; stabilization of international markets for primary products; the policy of advanced industrial countries toward imports of low-wage manufactured goods from developing countries; the treatment of trade and aid activities of the Communist bloc; and the reduction of the balance-of-payments deficit of the United States. With respect to broad structural relationships, however, the future of economic regionalism is evidently a matter of special importance.

Trend toward creation of "super-regions", larger economic zones that transcend national boundaries; Western and Central Europe. Based on his forthcoming book to be published by Pantheon. "Banana" zones, Germany's Länder, Catalonia, France, and "Padania".