在这一讲中我们要谈谈过去五十年中对稳定世界经济作出贡献的两个重要国际组织 Iternational Monetary Fund 国际货币基金组织和 World Trade Organisation 世界贸易组织及其前身 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade，简称 GATT，也就是关税及贸易总协定的由来和发展。
澳广金融节目主持人巴里克拉克首先介绍了这两个国际组织诞生的历史背景：
These institutions came into existence because policy makers in the United States and the United Kingdom, the dominant players in the post-World War II planning game, wanted to avoid a repeat of the mistakes made during the inter-war years.
From an economic perspective, the period between the two world wars might best be described as an era of instability and collapse. The 1930s saw a drastic contraction of world trade, lower income and high unemployment.
下面我们分段听一遍巴里克拉克的这段谈话和中文翻译：(英文略)
这些机构的成立是由于美国和英国这两个在第二次世界大战后制定计划时占支配地位国家的领导人希望避免重复在两次大战之间那段时期犯的错误。从经济角度来看，第一次和第二次世界大战之间的那段时期可以说是动荡与崩溃的时期。在一九三十年代，世界贸易严重收缩，收入降低，失业增加。
接下来我们完整听一遍巴里克拉克的这段谈话。(略)
澳大利亚莫纳什大学的里查德斯纳普教授对当时的历史背景作了进一步的解释。他在谈话中使用了这样一些词组：
1 international monetary system 国际货币秩序
2 currency turmoil 货币动荡
3 erecting trade barriers 设立贸易壁垒
4 bilateralism 双边主义
5 preference 优先，特惠
6 contagious 可蔓延(传染)的
斯纳普教授说：
There were two or three main things: one of course was the collapse of the international monetary system with countries restricting payments abroad and access to foreign currencies - and so there was a great deal of currency turmoil. And then, with the onset of recession and depression in the world, you had countries erecting trade barriers, trying in fact to export unemployment, trying to stimulate demand for their own products by keeping imports out.
And this was contagious, so that in the early 1930s, you had a very, very substantial decrease in international trade and, of course, with that, an increase in inefficiency, as countries were trying to do more and more themselves.
You also had a great growth in bilateralism, that instead of trading on a multilateral basis - that is trading with anyone and buying from the cheapest source - you had a whole series of trade agreements where preferences were being given to particular countries.
And so you had three aspects going on really: You had first of all a currency turmoil; you had, secondly, very substantially increasing trade barriers and associated with that and with the Depression greatly decreasing trade; thirdly you had a great deal of channelling of trade with preferred countries.
责任编辑：mman
