How Can Reliability Analysis Impact Your Company's Bottom Line? While reliability investigations can be expensive, they can also add value to a product that far exceeds its cost. Affordable Reliability Engineering: Life-Cycle Cost Analysis for Sustainability & Logistical Support shows readers how to achieve the best cost for design development testing and evaluation and compare options for minimizing costs while keeping reliability above specifications. The text is based on the premise that all system sustainment costs result from part failure. It examines part failure in the design and sustainment of fielded parts and outlines a design criticality analysis procedure that reflects system design and sustainment. Achieve the Best Cost for Life-Cycle Sustainment Providing a framework for managers and engineers to develop and implement a reliability program for their organizations, the authors present the practicing professional with the tools needed to manage a system at a high reliability at the best cost. They introduce analytical methods that provide the methodology for integrating part reliability, failure, maintainability, and logistic math models. In addition, they include examples on how to run reliability simulations, highlight tools that are commercially available for such analysis, and explain the process required to ensure a design will meet specifications and minimize costs in the process. This text: Demonstrates how to use information gathered from reliability investigations Provides engineers and managers with an understanding of a reliability engineering program so that they can perform reliability analyses Seeks to resolve uncertainty and establish the value of reliability engineering Affordable Reliability Engineering: Life-Cycle Cost Analysis for Sustainability & Logistical Support focuses on reliability-centered maintenance and is an ideal resource for reliability engineers and managers. This text enables reliability professionals to determine the lowest life-cycle costs for part selection, design configuration options, and the implementation of maintenance practices, as well as spare parts strategies, and logistical resources.

King seeks to understand how the transition from state-socialism to capitalism was accomplished in Eastern Europe. The purpose of studying the process of transition is uo understand the end-point of the transition; that is, the structure of the postcommunist economy results from the different ways that private property was made by enterprise level actors. King identifies strategies of transition employed by postcommunist economic elites to transform property and acquire various property rights discusses, the conditions under which different strategies are likely to be selected, lists and, the resources used by actors to implement these strategies.

As King illustrates through his case studies, when aggregated, these strategies are primarily responsible for the structuring of the postcommunist capitalist systems. This is done through the creation of different types of property (such as multinationals or management buy-outs) and integrating mechanisms (such as markets or state redistribution). The resulting property forms and integrative mechanisms that emerge from this process are assessed for their possible effect on economic performance and long-term development. Differences that exist among the various postcommunist economies are explained by the institutional legacies from the reform period of communism. This book is of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with East European studies, political and economic sociology, and international political economy.

This book outlines the core concept of the theory of mixed oligopoly and presents recent results that have arisen in a mixed oligopolistic market. The wave of privatization since the 1980s has taken the development of the theory of mixed oligopoly in several directions. Although the main concern of the theory of mixed oligopoly focuses on the effect of regime change-especially privatization of a public firm-on social welfare, existing studies have not considered the difference in economic environments. With drastic changes in economic environments along with economic development in recent years, the domestic and foreign markets have become more and more integrated, firms have become concerned about corporate social responsibility, and governments or politicians have had various interests and preferences. Against that background, this book revisits the question of how privatization affects social welfare by incorporating regional and international interdependency and investigates how firms' activities for corporate social responsibility, governments' preferences, and political economic situations affect the market circumstance in a mixed oligopoly. The dynamic aspect of privatization is also investigated.

This book shows how the three most important countries in South America have responded to the challenges of globalization since the mid-1960s: the first OPEC price hike, the Third World debt crisis leading to the “lost-decade” for the continent, and, finally, bold but often ill-planned neo-liberal reforms of the 1990s. Latin America will experience another cycle of structural changes in the coming decades, as the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s failed to produce the desired effects of social justice, fair income distribution, sustainable growth, and consolidation of democracy.

The Eastern Enlargement of the EU will not be complete until the new member states join the EMU. Economic and political economy arguments point to fast EMU accession of new member states. Failure to do so will create a two speed Europe, a fundamental change in the economic and political architecture of the EU, adding to the strains already evident between core and peripheral countries. Current high level of trade and business cycle integration of new member states with the Eurozone, decreases the probability of asymmetric shocks. Lower transaction costs, elimination of exchange rate risk and the danger of currency crises, further trade and investment creation, lower interest rates and large fiscal gains, should outweigh the loss of the exchange rate as adjustment tool. The Eastern Enlargement of the Eurozone provides comprehensive economic analysis of theoretical, empirical and political issues that will determine whether EMU enlargement is a success, which has implications for all common currency systems.

This book critically engages with how formal and informal mechanisms of governance are used across the world. Specifically, it analyzes how the governance mechanisms of formal institutions are questioned, challenged and renegotiated through informal institutions. Whilst there is an emerging body of scholarship focusing on informal practices, this is scattered across a number of disciplines. This edited collection, by contrast, fosters a dialogue on these issues, moving away from monodisciplinary and normative methodologies that view informal institutions and practices simply as temporary economic phenomena. In doing so, the authors provide a wider understanding of how governance is composed of both the formal and the informal, which complement each other but are also constantly in competition. This novel approach will appeal to social scientists, economists, policy-makers, practitioners, and anyone else willing to widen their understanding of how governance works.

Japan has always been an "odd man out" from the standpoint of Western norm or Western finance. It is a country that is as developed as any in the West. However, it is also a country that possesses the significant institutional and cultural traits that separate it from the West. An important question in finance is to what extent the basic models of finance, developed with the Western "perfect market" view in mind, can be applied to Japan; or conversely, what critical adjustments must be made to make models amendable to the reality of Japanese finance. This book contains 21 substantive papers that address various aspects of Japanese finance. This is an attempt to bring them together under the same cover so that the commonality and peculiarity of Japanese finance can be more easily discerned across different applications as well as compared across countries. Hence, despite apparent differences in topics, the theme is international and comparative in nature throughout.

"Geopolitical and Economic Changes in the Balkan Countries" is a background work on the history, wars, and invasions of the Balkans. The ways in which this background has produced and altered the present unsettled situation in Bosnia and other parts of the peninsula is discussed. The recent involvement of the United States and the stabilizing role of Greece in southeastern Europe, as well as the potential economic cooperation between the Balkan countries and the European Union are analyzed.

This comparative analysis of growth, structural change and labour market dynamics in the Greater Mekong countries (Yunnan Province in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar) of Southeast Asia is the first of its kind. It explores economic integration and cooperation, the possibilities for improving the functioning of labour markets and facilitating mutually beneficial labour flows in the region. The book begins with a comparative overview of policy reforms, economic performance and structural changes, focusing on economic relations in the Greater Mekong countries. It then examines the salient features of labour market structures and policies, patterns of cross-border migration, and information systems, paying attention to the similarities and differences between countries. It is especially timely in the context of economic transition from socialist systems in the three Indochina countries, the ongoing policy reforms in Yunnan Province and Myanmar, and in light of the Asian financial crisis in shaping growth trends. The analysis yields policy recommendations for improvement in labour market performance. The book will be of great interest to development and labour economists and those working in the field of Asian studies, as well as to policymakers.

Fifteen years ago, twenty-seven countries in Europe and Central Asia embarked on their economic transition paths. For some, the outcome was a considerable success. Several others are still struggling to shed the inheritance of the past and to correct more recent policy mistakes. Why were post-Communist recessions so long in some countries and growth disappointing? Why was fiscal performance so different? Was democracy a factor, which facilitated reforms or rather slowed them down? This book discusses these questions in the context of new empirical evidence, including a critical examination of the main themes in the economics of transition literature.

Post-communist transformation differs from any previous experience of societies in transition by its scope, speed, international framework and complicity. It contains elements of democratization, marketization, nation building, and the creation of a new international environment in the framework of globalization. The contributors give an internal perspective of these highly complicated processes in a comparative form and using a multidisciplinary approach.

Welfare rise, spatial mobility, and global information and communication channels (in particular, social media) have prompted the emergence of a specific booming and rapidly growing mobility industry all over the world, namely tourism. The tourist sector (including recreation and leisure activities) has turned into a complex contemporaneous socio-economic and geographic phenomenon, with a multiplicity of travel motives (e.g., entertainment, culture, relaxed life style, wellness, nature, etc.) and with a wide variety of impacts (e.g., urban- and regional-economic effects, crowding phenomena, environmental decay, etc.). Time has now come to offer a synthesis of the analytical apparatus in tourism research, with particular attention for system-wide, socio-economic and environmental dimensions of this important global industry. Tourism has in the past been a largely neglected field in regional science research. And therefore, it is laudable that Joao Romao has taken the decision to compose a systematically designed and well crafted monograph on the socio-economic, environmental and spatial dimensions of modern tourism. It offers a wealth of analytical insights and quantitative research tools for advanced tourism studies. It also fills an important gap in the current regional science literature. Peter Nijkamp, Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam

The key figure of the capitalist utopia is the individual who is ultimately free. The capitalist's ideal society is designed to protect this freedom. However, within Planet Utopia: Utopia, Dystopia, Globalisation, Featherstone argues that capitalist utopian vision, which is most clearly expressed in theories of global finance, is no longer sustainable today. This book concerns the status of utopian thinking in contemporary global society and the possibility of imagining alternative ways of living outside of capitalism. Using a range of sociological and philosophical theories to write the first intellectual history of the capitalist utopia in English, Featherstone provokes the reader into thinking about ways of moving beyond this model of organising social life through sociological modes of thought. Indeed, this enlightening volume seeks to show how utopian thinking about the way people should live has been progressively captured by capitalism with the result that it is difficult to imagine alternatives to capitalist society today. Presenting sociology and sociological thinking as a utopian alternative to the capitalist utopia, Planet Utopia will appeal to postgraduate and postdoctoral students interested in subjects including Sociology, Social Theory, Cultural Studies, Cultural Theory and Continental Philosophy.

After more than two decades of widespread hardship for most nations, what are the different paths available for them to resume steady growth and welfare? Will they actually succeed in building new growth models that meet the challenges of the present phase of internationalisation? This book attempts to answer these questions by analysing different perspectives and discussing the conditions for new national growth trajectories to emerge. The book provides conceptual tools for characterising alternative growth regimes by analysing their institutional backgrounds and political context. Unlike standard convergence theories, the authors argue that the diversity of capitalism is likely to persist as national economies adapt to the forces of globalisation. Still these national paths remain strongly conditioned by the kind of governance set up at both regional and fully international levels. The Hardship of Nations will be of great interest to undergraduates and graduates in the social sciences - economics, political sciences, sociology, geography and management - who require an overview of the debates on growth of national economies in the present stage of globalisation.

Using the frameworks of systems theory, modernization, and the world system, New Age Globalization presents a composite multilevel, multidirectional picture of globalization informed by eight different but interdependent subsystems unlike most other works in this genre of literature that imply globalization to be nothing more than the global economy. The eight subsystems or dimensions of globalization discussed include global demographic, economic, environmental-ecological, political, conflictive, cultural, scientific-technological, and religious subsystems. The result of these multiple perspectives and data sources should be of interest to a large cross-section of global readership of scholars, business leaders, and policy-makers in an unfolding world order that can make or unmake the lives of millions of people around the world.

This book explores the encounters with market socialism through reforms in China and Vietnam and looks at the distinctions between market socialism and capitalism. The book discusses whether market socialism is compatible with economic integration and whether state ownership can be reconciled with a market economy.

The book provides conceptual and empirical insights into the complex relationship between knowledge flows and regional growth in the EU. The author critically scrutinizes and enhances the RIS (Regional Innovation System) approach, discussing innovation as a technological, institutional and evolutionary process. Moreover, she advances the ongoing discourse on the role of space and technological proximity in the process of innovation and technological externalities. The book closes with an investigation of the role of technological change and knowledge spillovers in the dynamic growth and catching-up of EU regions. "

Both Europe and America are in the middle of an economic and financial crisis that has given birth to a growing social crisis. Failure to deal with the crisis comprehensively threatens to cause state defaults and instigate a global economic recession. Prolonged economic crises cause social crises that, if left unresolved, instigate violence and revolutions. Rabie analyzes the causes of the crisis and articulates a strategy to deal with its many facets. Saving Capitalism and Democracy tries to answer the difficult questions posed by intellectuals, the media, politicians, students and ordinary people concerning the crisis and how to avert an impending catastrophe.

This book reviews the experience of 14 countries with external liberalization and related policies, based on papers written by national authors following a common 0000oeconomic methodology. The methodology, the papers' main results, and policy implications are summarized in the introductory chapter.
The book reports on a follow-on project to the country studies presented in Lance Taylor (ed.), External Liberalization, Economic Performance, and Social Policy, OUP, 2001. The new project represents a significant extension of the earlier work in that it focuses principally on formerly socialist European economies (Hungary, Poland, Russia), Asian economies (consistently growing China, India, Singapore, and Vietnam; the 1997-98 crisis victims Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand; and cyclically stagnant Philippines and Turkey). Brazil is also included as an important comparator. Macroeconomics has traditionally been less actively pursued in Asia and the transition economies than, say, in Latin America. The 1997-98 crisis awoke the Asians to the importance of macro, and the present book is in part a response to the development.
A distinguishing feature of the book is the common methodology, which focuses on the mechanisms via which effective demand is generated and the interactions of labor productivity, employment growth, and income distribution. The country papers show clearly how trade and capital account liberalization along with changes in the real exchange rate affected demand, productivity, and employment at the country level. They also trace through shifts in the overall income distribution and the incidence of poverty. The authors of the papers bring a wealth of insightinto their thick descriptions a la Clifford Geertz's famous Balinese cockfight about how diverse economies responded to rather similar reform packages and offer lessons about ongoing institutional change. They also suggest policy shifts that may help make economic performance better in the future than it has been in the past.

This book explores the intricate connection between the Single Market, characterized by the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and labor within and across Europe, and the Digital Single Market, the virtual space that promotes freedom of movement of information and data. Both a result and catalyst of the Single Market, the Digital Single Market has become a different space from the Single Market, as the former is based on the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs), while the latter is the result of concerted actions and concessions by Member States in the European Union. The author argues that, similar to the Single Market, the Digital Single Market is an instrument, built by the influence of the Internet, which can provide a new means of socio-economic growth and development in Europe. While sharing many similar characteristics, the Single Market and the Digital Single Market diverge in important aspects, particularly with respect to policy. The research analyzes the interaction between policy actors, their influence in the European decision-making process, and their interests in order to establish a digital policy model, in comparison with market policy. Moreover, this volume considers the implementation process and the success of such initiatives under the current policy model, and puts forward policy recommendations. Ultimately, the author considers the utility of such research on digital policy, considering the current focus on migration, vulnerabilities to internal challenges (e.g., Brexit) and security threats, maintaining that the discussion of digital policies relates to an innovative vision of the European integration process and prospects for its future.

The theory of capitalism and of the economic order is the central topic of the German economic tradition in the 20th century. Capitalism has not only been the topic for Marxist economics and for the Frankfurt School but also for the Historical School and for the postmarxist theory of capitalism in Ordo- and Neo-Liberalism as well as in Solidarism. The question of the foundations of the economic order of the market economy and of capitalism as well as the problem whether a third path between capitalism and social ism is possible occupied this tradition from the Historical School to Ordo Liberalism and the theory of the social market economy. The theory of capitalism and of the social market economy as well as the critique and reform developed in this theoretical tradition is important for the theory of economic systems as well as for today's problems of the eco nomic order. Its relevance for the present world economy is visible in the discussions whether there exist different models of capitalism and whether they can be described as the Anglo-American and as the Rhenish model of capitalism influenced by the thought of the German economic tradition. Michel Albert, the author of this classification, gave the key-word in his book Capitalism against Capitalism. The papers of this book can help to clarify this debate by giving a first hand introduction to some of the main economic thinkers of capitalism."

In this important book, industrial and enterprise reform over the last decade in Eastern Europe is critically reviewed in light of increasing Eastern integration into the global economy. The authors argue for the further globalization of Eastern European enterprise networks as a condition for recovery and growth in the region. Empirical evidence is provided from five industrial sectors (car industry, telecommunication, shipbuilding, computers, software), including case studies and international comparisons.

Why do some privatisations apparently fail to produce expected positive results? Economic theory tells us that privatisation should improve efficiency, but this book, originally published in 1998, suggests that political bargaining in the process of privatisation works against the results we expect to achieve. To gain a better understanding of what privatisation is really about, power at a firm level needs to be understood. Privatisation is a gradually unfolding, evolutionary process, often with defective corporate governance. Politicking can take priority over performance, with the result that efficiency is ignored and profitability is affected. This is a comprehensive book on privatisation which focuses on micro-level behavioural issues and it uses exceptionally rich case evidence to illustrate that privatisation is more about politics than performance.

The privatization revolution, profit or revenue sharing, and employee participation in enterprise decision making are some of the major characteristics of modern capitalism. Such features can be observed in almost all countries, including Western developed, Third World, and primarily ex-socialist countries. The diffusion of stock ownership, the promotion of economic and industrial democracy, and the globalization of production and finance present new challenges and opportunities and reflect important structural economic and political changes. This book examines all these issues and provides valuable information and suggestions for labor-management relations and international business cooperation.