The Long Wave in the World Economy

The Long Wave in the World Economy, originally published in 1992 and now available in the United States, offers an interpretation of the long wave cycle of alternating upswings and downswings in economics. The present global situation--with Eastern and Central Europe in turmoil, much of the Third World impoverished, and the West still blighted by unemployment--resembles the crisis of the late 1930s. It is not the first time that economics and politics have repeated themselves over roughly half a century. In the 1920s, Kondratieff was already writing of a "long wave" cycle. Since that time, many economists have tried to explain this phenomenon, but none has done justice to its complex cause and changing character. InThe Long Wave in the World Economy,Andrew Tylecote argues that current economic problems, like others before them, are largely due to national and international inequalities. A more equal distribution of wealth can be a stimulus to economicgrowth. In defense of this argument, Tylecote draws from an impressive range of historical and contemporary material, spanning the study of technology, sociology, politics, international relations, demography, and history.