This book tells the story behind President Franklin D. Roosevelt's use of the phrase "living wage" in a variety of speeches, letters, and statements, and examines the degree to which programs of the New Deal reflected the ideas of a living wage movement that existed in the US for almost three decades before Roosevelt was elected president. Far from being a side issue, the previously unexplored living wage debate sheds light on the New Deal philosophy of social justice by identifying the value judgments behind its policies. Moving chronologically through history, this book's highlights include the revelation of a living wage agenda under the War Industry Board (WIB)'s National War Labor Board (NWLB) during World War I, the unearthing of long-forgotten literature from the 1920s and 30s that formed the foundation of Roosevelt's statements on a living wage, and the examination of contemporary studies that used a simple living wage formula combining collective bargaining, social insurance, and minimum wage as a standard for social justice used to measure the impact of New Deal polices.

Every school and public library should update its resources on Spain with this lively and succinct narrative of Spain's long and rich historical experience. Emphasizing people rather than abstract developments, this narrative makes Spanish history readable and engaging. Based on the most recent scholarship, it examines the politics, society, economy, and culture of Spain chronologically, focusing on the last two centuries. Pierson, a noted authority on Spanish history, traces Spain's foundations in the Roman empire and Muslim conquest to its golden age in the late Middle Ages, its subsequent decline, and its struggle to build a democratic government and modern economy following the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The work provides a timeline of events in Spanish history, brief biographies of key figures, and a bibliographic essay of interest to students and general readers.

An introductory chapter offers an overview of Spain today, its geography, government and politics, economy, religion, and culture. The next few chapters discuss its earliest cultures, its place in the Roman empire, its Christianization and years as a Germanic kingdom, and its incorporation in 711 C.E. by military conquest into the world of Islam. The energies developed in the Christian reconquest of Spain led to its embarkation on the conquest of an overseas empire in the Americas and the Philippines that lasted for more than 300 years and had a profound effect on global history. The interests of the Habsburg (1516-1700) and Bourbon (1700-1808, 1814-1868, and 1875-1931) dynasties on the Spanish throne made Spain a major player in European power politics into the years of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. By 1825, its resources drained, Spain painfully adjusted to straightened circumstances, endured civil wars and dictatorships, and struggled to build a democratic government and modern economy, which it has accomplished today.

Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art examines how the collapse of the French franc in the decades following the First World War activated powerful 'push' and 'pull' economic forces that compelled French art collectors to monetise their collections while simultaneously elevating the purchasing power of international art collectors. These factors are shown to have played a significant, and previously under-recognised role, in the large-scale translocation of French modernist art that radically accelerated its commercial and critical reception across the globe and positioned it at the apex of the newly established hierarchy of modern art.

This volume traces the evolution of the field of law and economics from its European roots to its neoclassical "Chicagoan" period to its current identity as a more fluid, transatlantic discipline. Paying special attention to the work of German economist Juergen Backhaus, who was instrumental in the reintroduction of the European perspective to the field, this book analyzes this gradual shift in the law and economics debate and provides a state-of-the-art of the literature currently being produced by the field's most active scholars. Beginning with a discussion of the history of the field and Backhaus' role in its development, the volume provides a survey of issues central to the current debate such as legal processes in both Europe and the U.S., constitutional political economy, regulatory law, and the ongoing evolution of the European Union. The importance of this volume is two-fold, as it firmly grounds the discipline in history while establishing a future research agenda. This book will be of use to researchers studying law and economics as well as those interested in institutional analysis.

This book defines the relationship between the thought of Adam Smith and that of the ancients---Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the Stoics. Vivenza offers a complete survey of all Smith's writings with the aim of illustrating how classical arguments shaped opinions and scholarship in the eighteenth century.

While ethics has been an integral part of economics since the days of Adam Smith (if not Aristotle), many modern economists dismiss ethical concerns in favor of increasing formal mathematical and computational methods. But recent financial crises in the real world have reignited discussions of the importance of ethics to economics, including growing calls for a new approach to incorporating moral philosophy in economic theory, practice, and policy. Ironically, it is the ethics of virtue advocated by Aristotle and Adam Smith that may lead to the most promising way to developing an economics that emphasizes the virtues, character, and judgment of the agents it models. In Economics and the Virtues, editors Jennifer A. Baker and Mark D. White have brought together fifteen leading scholars in economics and philosophy to offer fresh perspectives on integrating virtue into economics. The first section covers five major thinkers and schools in the virtue tradition, tracing historical connections and suggesting new areas of cooperation. The second section applies the ethics of virtue to modern economic theory, delving into its current practices and methodology to suggest areas for integration with moral philosophy. Finally, the third section addresses specific topics such as markets, profits, and justice in the context of virtue and vice, offering valuable applications of virtue to economics. With insights that are novel as well as rooted in time-tested ethical thought, Economics and the Virtues will be of interest to economists, philosophers, and other scholars in the social sciences and humanities, as well as professionals and policymakers in the fields of economics and finance, and makes an invaluable contribution to the ongoing discussion over the role of ethics in economics.

Acclaimed financial journalist Eric J. Weiner reveals how foreign countries and private investors are increasingly controlling the global economy and secretly wresting power from the United States in ways that our government cannot reverse and about which the average American knows nothing.
The most potent force in global commerce today is not the Federal Reserve, not the international banks, not the governments of the G7 countries, and certainly not the European Union. Rather, it is the multi-trillion-dollar network of super-rich, secretive, and largely unregulated investment vehicles--foreign sovereign wealth funds, government-run corporations, private equity funds, and hedge funds--that are quietly buying up the world, piece by valuable piece.
As Weiner's groundbreaking account shows, the shadow market doesn't have a physical headquarters such as Wall Street. It doesn't have a formal leadership or an index to track or a single zone of exchange. Rather, it comprises an invisible and ever-shifting global nexus where money mixes with geopolitical power, often with great speed and secrecy.

Led by cash-flush nations such as China, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and even Norway, the shadow market is hiring the brightest international financial talent money can buy and is now assembling the gigantic investment portfolios that will form the power structure of tomorrow's economy.

Taking advantage of the Great Recession and subsequent liquidity problems in the United States and Europe, the major players of the shadow market are deploying staggering amounts of cash, controlling the capital markets, and securing not only major stakes in multinational companies but huge tracts of farmland and natural resources across the world. Yet that's not all; they're also pursuing political agendas made possible by their massive wealth and are becoming increasingly aggressive with the United States and other governments.

Highly informative and genuinely startling, Eric J. Weiner's up-to-date account gets out in front of daily events, with proof of his argument destined to appear in the news for years to come. "The Shadow Market "moves the conversation from "international competition" to "global financial warfare," and stands as an urgent must-read for anyone interested in the future of the global economy, America's position in the world, or how and where to invest money today.
DID YOU KNOW?
***The Pentagon has run elaborate simulations of global financial war. Result: America lost, and the shadow market won.
***The U.S. dollar is under siege as a global currency; oil-producing nations have already begun secret discussions about replacing it in oil trading.
***While Greece was burning in the spring of 2010, the shadow market nations were spending hundreds of billions of dollars all over the world rather than helping to fix the European crisis. Why? Because it wasn't their problem.
***With its wealth of natural resources, Brazil may be more powerful than Germany, France, and Great Britain put together, and may soon rival the United States for economic supremacy in the Western Hemisphere.
***In April 2009, China told the International Monetary Fund to sell 3,217 tons of gold. How much did China buy? That's a secret. What else is China buying? As many of the oil reserves in non-Middle Eastern countries as it can, including in Canada. It has bought so many Australian natural resource companies that Australia is getting nervous. And some would say that China has, in effect, already purchased Taiwan.
***Many of the shadow market countries are racing to improve their food-security risks by buying large swaths of farmland in other countries, potentially at the risk of starving the local citizens. Saudi Arabia has a farm the size of Connecticut in Indonesia, and Korean industrial giant Daewoo controls half the arable land of Madagascar.
***Iran is China's third largest oil supplier and in return receives significant protection from Chinese diplomats, who are increasingly important players on the geopolitical stage.
***The shadow market countries will soon control nearly $20 trillion in assets, a sum greater than the gross domestic product of the United States. such as Wall Street. It doesn't have a formal leadership or an index to track or a single zone of exchange. Rather, it comprises an invisible and ever-shifting global nexus where money mixes with geopolitical power, often with great speed and secrecy.

Cloth has always been the most global of all traded commodities. It is an illuminating example of the circulation of goods, skills, knowledge and capital across wide geographic spaces. South Asia has been central to the making of these global exchanges over time. This volume presents innovative research that explores the dynamic ways in which diverse textile production and trade regions generated the 'first globalization'. A series of experts connect this global commodity with the dramatic political and economic transformations that characterised the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Collectively, the essays transform our understanding of the contribution of South Asian cloth to the making of the modern world economy.

The economic relationship between the U.S. and China during the 1940s has long been neglected, with few scholarly works focusing on the period. This era was overshadowed by the political and diplomatic changes during and after the failure of the Nationalists in 1949. Without a close and insightful look into the reconstruction of China with American involvement during the late 1940s, one cannot identify the problems which led to the Nationalists' failure, nor can one answer the questions dealing with the impact of American economic policy toward China during that time.

Economics for Alfred Marshall, the last of the classical economists, is concerned with activities in the ordinary business of life. In that milieu, we find conflicts and chaotic behavior among people, firms, and countries, which make them conduct their affairs in different, and sometimes, ironic ways. Economic Ironies Throughout History explores, explains, predicts, and harnesses these ironies for economists and scholars alike. Szenberg and Ramrattan distill their core economic ironies from a vast history of philosophy and literature that applies to economic thought. They include philosophical, psychological, literary and linguistic discussions and the personalities behind those ideas such as Socrates, Kierkegaard, Hume, Freud, Jung, Saussure, and Barthes. This book is ideal for economists as well as scholars across the business, social science, and humanities fields.

This book examines the early American cotton industry through British perspectives. The book covers the period from the 1780s to 1880, and concerns mainly Lancashire and New England, although there are many references to Scotland on the one hand, and to Pennsylvania and New York on the other. By concentrating on the spinning branch of the industry, which was far more affected by technological advances than the weaving branch during this period, Cohen is able to contrast different types of technologies, workers, markets, and goods. For example, the book contrasts how American industrialists acted differently than the British millowners and deals with the response of American factory workers to industrialization as distinct from the British operatives. Three interrelated themes emerge to define the theoretical subject matter of this study: mass production versus craft production, technology and organization, and craft control. Significantly, this study recognizes the often overlooked importance of mule spinning to the industry. The volume examines the craft workers' rise to and struggle for power, the rise of the foreman, the role of unions, and an exploration of strikes--how they happened, why they happened, and what happened because of them. In the final chapter, the book expands its focus to examine the relationship of cotton to the coal, iron, and steel industries.

Volume 31 of Research in Economic History (REHI) is forthcoming in April 2015. REHI is a peer-reviewed book series published once a year. We cover all areas of economic history, including demography and development. Research in Economic History is a well-established and well-cited journal which has presented work by leading researchers in the field of economic history, including economists, historians and demographers.

This volume explores the concept of the honest merchant, taking a broad perspective and covering a wide range of aspects. It looks at the different types of "honest merchant" conceptions originating from different cultures and literary traditions. The book covers Japanese, Islamic, Scandinavian, Russian, German, Spanish, as well as other aspects, and studies different disciplinary backgrounds of the honest merchant, such as philosophical, economic, neuroethical, sociological and literary ones. The concept of the honest merchant has a long tradition in business ethics. In the Hanseatic League and in medieval Italy, the ideal of the honest businessman was taught since the late Middle Ages. It originated during a time when travelling merchants were often regarded with a sceptical eye. The honest merchants of their time however held clear principles in their business and took responsibility for their community. In later times, the religious notions of the concept lost their pivotal place to reason and morality. This book goes beyond the tradition of discussing business ethics in association with concepts from the Hanseatic League and medieval Italy, and puts the central concept of business ethics in a much greater perspective.

The oil price collapse of 1985-6 had momentous global consequences: non-fossil energy sources quickly became uncompetitive, the previous talk of an OPEC 'imperium' was turned upside-down, the Soviet Union lost a large portion of its external revenues, and many Third World producers saw their foreign debts peak. Compared to the much-debated 1973 `oil shock', the `countershock' has not received the same degree of attention, even though its legacy has shaped the present-day energy scenario. This volume is the first to put the oil `counter-shock' of the mid-1980s into historical perspective. Featuring some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field, Counter-Shock offers a balanced approach between the global picture and local study cases. In particular, it highlights the crucial interaction between the oil counter-shock and the political `counterrevolution' against state intervention in economic management, put forward by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in the same period.

At the start of the eighteenth century Louis XIV needed to remit huge sums of money abroad to support his armies during the War of the Spanish Succession. This book explains how international bankers moved French money across Europe, and how the foreign exchange system was so overloaded by the demands of war that a massive banking crash resulted.

The notion of the "Silk Road" that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 CE. It investigates inter-imperial zones and networks of exchange which were crucial for ancient Eurasian connections. Volume I provides a comparative history of the most important empires forming in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It surveys a wide range of evidence that can be brought to bear on economic development in the these empires, and takes stock of the ways academic traditions have shaped different understandings of economic and imperial development as well as Silk-Road exchange in Russia, China, India and Western Graeco-Roman history.

"When thinking about modern China's chemical industry, forget not Fan Xudong," so declared Mao Zedong publicly after 1949. Although Mao might have united front politics in mind when invoking Fan as a paragon of the national bourgeoisie, why would the chairman praise a champion of private enterprise? How did Fan Xudong and his colleagues build Yongli from scratch into one of the largest industrial conglomerates in modern China amid predatory foreign competition and domestic strife? What were his secrets of success? Drawing from company documents, government archives, and personal correspondences, this book traces Yongli's birth, growth, nationalization, and how Fan and his colleagues pursued a third path of national development between for-profit private enterprise and state ownership.

Originally published between 2002 and 2011, the first 6 meticulously researched and extensive volumes of this set cover a vast period of US financial and economic history, from the 'discovery' of America, through Civil War, Independence, two World Wars, the Great Depression, and on through the turbulent 20th and early 21st Centuries. An entirely new volume brings the series up to date to the Pandemic of 2020. Carefully documented and lucidly written by Jerry W. Markham, these volumes give an unparalleled insight into financial scandals; corporate governance issues; the development of US securities, derivative and mortgage markets; housing boom and bust and stock market panics. The final (entirely new) 7th volume is divided into three chronological sections: the first section describes the recovery of financial markets after the Great Recession. It begins with an overview of the state of the economy at the start of the new decade, including some of the political storms affecting the economy and financial markets. The second section sets forth regulatory responses to the Financial Crisis of 2008, including the massive fines imposed on large banks by a swarm of regulators. The third section describes the rules adopted under the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 that broadly affected financial markets. It also recounts the Trump trade wars and ends with an account of the financial and economic turmoil that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

This book offers a key to several important chapters of the history of Czech lands, firmly anchoring them in a broad European context. The Medieval transformation that impacted the Czech lands mostly in the 13th century is seen as a broad cultural change in which domestic preconditions encountered a system of innovations already evolved in West Central Europe. The main topics analysed are the onset of landed nobility, the transformation of the rural milieu, and the early history of towns. This analysis draws on every source category, including written testimony, archaeological findings, and architectural monuments. Inspired by microhistorical methodology, it does not indulge in general schemes but studies carefully chosen samples of the transformation and its natural differentiations. Winner of the 2012 Book Prize of the Early Slavic Studies Association.

Volume 30 contains articles on the economic history of Europe and the U.S. including "Democratization and Central Government Spending, 1870-1938: Emergence of the Leviathan?" by Jari Eloranta, Svetlozar Andreev and Pavel Osinsky; "Swedish Regional GDP 1855-2000," by Kerstin Enflo, Martin Henning and Lennart Schon; "Did the Fed Help to Form a More Perfect Monetary Union?" by John A. James and David F. Weiman; "The Anthropometric History of Native Americans, 1820-1890" by John Komlos and Leonard Carlson; and "The dispersion of customs tariffs in France between 1850 and 1913: discrimination in trade policy," by Becuwe Stephane and Blancheton Bertrand.

This book gives a full account of the economic and social history of Italy since unification (1860), with an introduction covering the previous period since the Middle Ages. The Economic History of Italy represents a scholarly and authoritative account of Italy's progress from a rural economy to an industrialized nation. The book makes a broad division of the period into three parts: the take-off (1860-1913), the consolidation in the midst of two wars and a world depression (1914-47), and the great expansion (1948-1990). Professor Zamagni traces the growth of industrialization, and argues that despite several advanced areas Italy only became an industrialized nation after the Second World War, and that during the 1980s the South was still clearly behind the rest of the country. Zamagni analyses data both from a macroeconomic position, in looking at the growth of the finance sector, or the role of the State, and from a microeconomic position when she draws conclusions from the changing population structure, or from the actions of individual businesses. Professor Zamagni reveals that even though the population more than doubled during this time the level of national income rose 19-fold, to move Italy from a peripheral status in Europe to a central position as a prosperous country. A central theme of the book is Professor Zamagni's argument that the Italian economy has been successful not by any great individuality of its own but by being flexible enough to incorporate the successes of other countries: Japan's integrated business network, for example, or Germany's financial structure. She places the industrialization of Italy in the international context by comparing Italy's GDP and other measures of prosperity at different times to the USA, Japan, the UK, France, and Germany. The book is based on original field-work by the author, and the many detailed but small-scale studies existing in Italian. Quantitative trends are described in more than 70 tables of data, while the book provides appendices containing chronologies of main events in various sectors and biographies.