Underwritten by the enormous power of the USA, whose anti-Communist
policies were as much economic as they were political, this new
multilateral system of economic governance was reinforced over the
years by the creation of new agencies. These include the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), formed in 1960 to
undertake multilateral policy surveillance; the World Trade Organization
(WTO), which succeeded the GATT in 1995; and the Group of Eight (G8),
established as the G5 in 1975 to facilitate policy coordination among the
world’s most developed economies.