The model advocated by Western Europe and embraced by Eastern Europe has been based on the idea that capital should flow from capital-rich to capital-poor countries. Economists have to go back to the nineteenth-century United States to find a similar textbook example of successful growth, with large current-account deficits financed mainly through foreign direct investment.
为了完全看清这个提议的荒谬之处，可以想想过去20年里极其成功的东欧增长模式。这种得到西欧支持并为东欧所采纳的增长模式，建立在资本应该从资本充裕的国家流向资本缺乏的国家的理念之上。经济学家要回到19世纪的美国，才能找到类似的成功增长的典型例子，这样的增长伴随着主要通过外国直接投资带来的巨额经常账户赤字。资金流动伴随着前所未有的金融一体化，现在西方母银行控制着大部分的东欧银行。