The International Economic Association (IEA) was founded in 1950 as a non-profit organization with purely scientific aims. It is in fact a federation of national economic associations and presently includes 58 professional organizations from around the world. Its basic purpose is the development of economics as an intellectual discipline and the organization has tried to fulfil this purpose by promoting mutual understanding within all parts of the world. During its existence it has organized over 70 round-table conferences for specialists on topics ranging from fundamental theories to methods and tools of analysis and major problems of the present-day world. Triennial World Congresses are also held, and have regularly attracted the participation of a great many economists from all over the world. The publication in 1991 of a conference held in 1958 does, however, require some form of explanation. The conference was funded and due to be published by UNESCO but UNESCO lacked the resources to do so.
The conference itself was a mixture of communist and non-communist countries which ranged from the USSR, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria of the the communist countries to USA, France, Brazil, Egypt and Turkey fom non-communist countries. It quickly showed that with the help of translators a successful meeting of minds between economists of the two schools can be achieved. The USSR, represented by the Association of Soviet Economic Scientific Institutions, quickly joined the International Economic Association. The interest of this book is that the hopes and expectations of 1958 can now be assessed in light of the development of the last 30 years.