Abstract
DESPITE widespread apprehension at the beginning of the year about the possible extent of repercussions of recession in the United States, production and employment in nearly all countries outside the United States and Canada continued to rise throughout 1954, which was one of the most satisfactory postwar years. Not only retail prices, but even wholesale prices and primary product prices in general, remained remarkably stable. Only in some of the underdeveloped countries was there any significant degree of monetary and price instability, stemming from continued difficulty in limiting development to available resources. Except where fluctuations in coffee and rice prices created special problems, the difficulties arising from the instability of export prices, which in earlier years had been a prime cause of disequilibrium for countries specializing in primary production, were less serious in 1954.
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