Editorial Introduction - Industrial Restructing in the Global Economy

There is now widespread recognition by economists and industrial planners that, after some decades of historically unprecedented economic growth, the world economy is in a period of transition.The conditions which govern and shape best-practice industrial accumulation are changing, and new types of economic structures are now required for competitiveness to be achieved.This transition is reflected in a significant decline in both productivity growth and GDP growth in Europe and North America, a phenomenon which first emerged in the late 1 960s.