This book introduces readers to some of the salient features and problems of the world economy and gives some indication of the main ways in which economists set about the task of analyzing them. After a general account of what economies are and how they work, the book's discussion develops with reference to broad statistical facts in relation to the following issues : why the world economy is as we find it ; why productivity varies from one community to another ; how prices are formed ; how national economies have grown ; what determines an economy's occupational structure ; how local specialization comes about ; how the pattern of international trade has grown and changed and what the main sources of insecurity in economic life are.