History of World Economy
The three years after the Second World War, which was characterised in the Western World by the predominance of the United States, witnessed the gradual liberalisation of exchange, the implementation of Keynsian measures, the development of new kinds of international cooperation and of the European Common Market, the rise of Japan. A course of economic development which was led by the mass production of the large industry and by the expansion of the service industries, with the contribution of the social reforms for employment and for an equal distribution of income. The division between the First and Third Worlds increased and in the Sixties, the increase in public expense, the extension of Welfare and the rise in the price of petrol caused a standstill. However, USSR and the Communist countries did not overtake the west, and in fact, in these years the crisis of the collective economy started which would soon become irreversible.