The evolution of China's market economy is one of the most important developments in the world economy in the twenty-first century. The diverse contributors to this book provide a unique set of essays that evaluate legal, regulatory, and economic aspects of China's transition from planned to market economy. While market-oriented policy reform in China has led to substantial growth and progress since the onset of the reform period in 1979, many challenges remain. This study begins with a general survey of China's transition to a market economy and is followed by more elaborate analyses of specific sectors. The authors consider China's changing regulatory structure and the relationships of this structure to Chinese markets, developments in markets for goods, services, and production factors, changing trade patterns, and the determinants of foreign direct investment and its role in overall capital formation. They provide a comprehensive assessment of market reforms in China. In-depth yet accessible, the book will be of great value to policy makers, business planners, students and researchers concerned with China, as well as those interested in the world economy at large.

Explores capitalism’s role in creating the current state of climate emergency Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by a new more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population. What caused this massive shift in the history of the earth? In this comprehensive study, John Bellamy Foster tells us that a globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism’s alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.

Higher education, especially that which is publicly funded, is under increasing scrutiny from politicians and the public as competition in this sector increases. Susanne Warning provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic positioning of public universities as service providers in a competitive sector. The author develops two distinct theoretical approaches to the analysis of public universities. The first is the concept of strategic groups, originating in management theory. It implies that due to different returns on investment in teaching quality and research quality, heterogeneity will exist in the university sector. The second approach involves a three-stage duopoly game of competition between universities, and is underpinned by the industrial economics literature. Universities in this formal equilibrium model of differentiation position themselves in terms of teaching and research quality in order to attract students. Although the analysis is based on data for German publicly funded universities, however, the author's conclusions offer important insights for all countries where publicly funded universities play a role, particularly in the current climate of shifts towards more competitive university systems. With an exclusive combination of economic analysis and institutional data, this book will prove invaluable for anyone with a particular interest in the economics of higher education.

Mario Amendola and Jean-Luc Gaffard argue that all too often, markets and technology are treated as two magic words that will open the door to a wealth of riches. An increasing number of governments appear to be aiming for a pure market economy in order to reap the benefits of a benevolent technology that promises the most spectacular advances. Both markets and technology can certainly be considered essential economic factors, but which market and what technology? Is the current prevailing view of competition without restraints and privatisation at all costs actually the essence of the market? This book maintains that the dominant view mistakes the relationship between growth and technical change and, as a consequence, the role of the market in this context. The authors argue that once the issue is analysed in the proper light, the usual ingredients of the dominant policy recipe - zero inflation, balanced budgets, privatisations, deregulation of all markets, extreme flexibility - may not actually be the appropriate ones.The Market Way to Riches will appeal to academics from many branches of economics including heterodox, evolutionary and macroeconomics and those with an interest in economic growth generally. Policy makers influencing economic growth will also find much to engage them.

*Selected by Emma Watson for her Ultimate Book List* Fashion is political. From the red carpets of the Met Gala to online fast fashion, clothes tell a story of inequality, racism and climate crisis. In The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, Tansy E. Hoskins unpicks the threads of capitalist industry to reveal the truth about our clothes. Fashion brands entice us to consume more by manipulating us to feel ugly, poor and worthless, sentiments that line the pockets of billionaires exploiting colonial supply chains. Garment workers on poverty pay risk their lives in dangerous factories, animals are tortured, fossil fuels extracted and toxic chemicals spread just to keep this season's collections fresh. We can do better than this. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion goes beyond ethical fashion and consumer responsibility showing that if we want to feel comfortable in our clothes, we need to reshape the system and ensure this is not our last season.

Tackling innovation as an endogenous process, this groundbreaking new book builds upon the Schumpeterian creative response by implementing the tools of complexity economics. This reappraisal of the Schumpeterian legacy allows the author to apply complexity economics to endogenous knowledge externalities and consequently move away from the Darwinistic and biological accounts of evolutionary economics. This approach proves that firms, in out-of-equilibrium conditions, try and react by means of introducing innovations. The success of this reaction is contingent upon access conditions to knowledge externalities. Cristiano Antonelli demonstrates that the consequent introduction of innovations may, in turn, knock firms further out of equilibrium and cause positive changes in the system's properties that feed the introduction of further innovations. In addition, this can also engender the decline of the system's properties and push firms to adaptive response that drive the system towards an equilibrium without growth and change. This path dependent loop of interactions between the system properties and the individual actions of firms is central to this book. Paving the way to a new phase of evolutionary economics, the book's prime readership will be students and scholars who study and teach evolutionary economics, the economics of innovation and/or the economics of growth.

In the 1990s, institutional and evolutionary economics emerged as one of the most creative and successful approaches in the modern social sciences. This timely reader gathers together seminal contributions from leading international authors in the field of institutional and evolutionary economics including Eileen Appelbaum, Benjamin Coriat, Giovanni Dosi, Sheila C. Dow, Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Uskali Maki, Bart Nooteboom and Marc R. Tool. The emphasis is on key concepts such as learning, trust, power, pricing and markets, with some essays devoted to methodology and others to the comparison of different forms of capitalism. An extensive introduction places the contributions in the context of the historical and theoretical background of recent developments in economics and the social sciences.Essential reading for lecturers, researchers, graduates and advanced undergraduates in economics, business studies and sociology, this diverse yet complementary collection of essays will also find a broad readership amongst those wanting to understand the manifest changes apparent within modern socio-economic systems.

This book unites diverse heterodox traditions in the study of endogenous money - which until now have been confined to their own academic quarters - and explores their similarities and differences from both sides of the Atlantic. Bringing together perspectives from post-Keynesians, Circuitists and the Dijon School, the book continues the tradition of Keynes's and Kalecki's analysis of a monetary production economy, emphasising the similarities between the various approaches, and expanding the analytical breadth of the theory of endogenous money. The authors open new avenues for monetary research in order to fuel a renewed interest in the nature and role of money in capitalist economies, which is, the authors argue, one of the most controversial, and therefore fascinating, areas of economics. Providing new theoretical and empirical grounds for the construction of a general, policy oriented theory of money, this thought-provoking collection will appeal to academics, researchers and students interested in monetary economics. It will also be welcomed by monetary policymakers and central bank officials.

The OECD includes the richest nations in the world. It issues recommendations on economic and social policies. Is its counsel on welfare state policies coherent? And is it followed by member states in Western Europe? These are the guiding questions of this book, which is a first to deal with such issues. The OECD and European Welfare States comprises 14 country studies considering OECD recommendations and their implementation in Western European welfare states, an analysis of the internal processes in the OECD, a theoretical introduction and a concluding comparative chapter. The overall results show a large degree of consistency in OECD analyses and recommendations, though little efficacy is revealed. The authors of this book have compiled a major contribution to the analysis of the impact of international organisations on national welfare states, widening the scope of traditional analyses of national welfare state development. This edited book will be of special interest to those researchers and graduate students in the fields of international business, welfare state policy and comparative politics. It will also appeal to policy makers concerned with the OECD or welfare state development.

What new products or services should you launch next year? How can you improve the productivity of a paint line? What should you name your new venture? How can you decrease patient waiting times? How can you improve the customer experience? Pretty much any creative problem-solving task can be framed as seeking a new match between solution and need, from operational process improvements to creating strategies to foster organic growth. Innovation tournaments aim to find a match that is not just good, but exceptional. Leveraging more than two decades of experience organizing innovation tournaments in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, from Buenos Aires to Kuwait City, Shanghai to Moscow, and with many Fortune 500 companies, two renowned researchers, entrepreneurs, and the foremost experts on innovation tournaments offer a template that you can use to generate winning ideas that will drive great outcomes—whatever your challenges, whatever your business. In The Innovation Tournament Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Exceptional Solutions to Any Challenge, Wharton professors Christian Terwiesch and Karl T. Ulrich offer an engaging, often humorous, and always actionable guide to help you learn: --How to frame and articulate your specific innovation challenge --How to decide on the right format, structure, and strategic direction for your own innovation tournament --How to maximize the quality of the opportunities that will compete --How to select the very best ideas --How to develop those ideas into real-world opportunities --How to use tournaments to foster a culture of innovation Fast-reading and filled with real-world successes, The Innovation Tournament Handbook is a comprehensive roadmap to finding a new match between a solution and a need that is not merely good, but exceptional.

This significant new book provides a succinct overview of the essential policy issues surrounding capital liberalization. The book compares the experiences of transition economies in Europe with those of advanced nations, allowing the reader to examine the changing international economic and financial environment within which transition countries have to liberalize. The book first deals with the critical issues concerning liberalization, including sequencing and financial market development. The authors move on to present an overview of the early liberalization experiences of advanced economies and East-Asian countries. This provides the context for a series of chapters reviewing liberalization progress in transition economies, in which international experts and senior officials analyze their own countries' experiences. The authors also emphasise the importance of financial market reform and the construction of a sound institutional framework if countries are to attract and productively use capital inflows. A stable financial system, whilst not infallible, is also crucial for minimizing the risk of financial crises of the type experienced by a number of countries during the 1980s and 1990s. The comprehensive scope of the subject matter and international contributions from a range of different perspectives will ensure this book is warmly received by academics and researchers with an interest in EU accession, transition economics and financial market reform. It will also serve as a useful guide to governments involved in capital liberalization in other parts of the world such as Latin America and Asia.

Market dominance - encompassing single firm dominance, overt and tacit collusion, mergers and vertical restraints - raises many complex analytical and policy issues, all of which continue to be the subject of theoretical research and policy reform. This second edition of a popular and comprehensive text extends the arguments and combines an analysis of the issues with a discussion of actual policy and case studies. This new edition addresses the recent fundamental changes in antitrust law, especially in the UK and the EU, and reviews some high profile and controversial cases such as the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger and the Microsoft monopoly. The author moves on to deal with several unresolved questions including the conflicts between trade and antitrust policy, the foreign take-over of domestic assets and extra-territorial claims made by certain countries. Market Dominance and Antitrust Policy will be of considerable value to students and scholars of economics, law and business, as well as researchers, policymakers and practitioners with an interest in competition policy and international trade.

Constitutional political economy applies an economic approach to the analysis of constitutional choice. Initially, research clearly leaned towards legitimizing the state and its actions. However, the transitions taking place in Central and Eastern Europe have made apparent the necessity to improve our knowledge of the working properties of alternative constitutional rules, thus stressing the importance of positive analysis. The authors analyse both the opportunities and dangers of importing constitutions from around the world into this area. The papers assembled in this volume deal with the question of what individual transition processes have taught us in terms of constitution-building. The book contains analyses of post 1989 constitutional developments in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe from the perspectives of varied disciplines; including academics, politicians and the judiciary. Constitutions, Markets and Law will be welcomed by scholars of transition studies and political economists as well as practitioners of, and academics with an interest in, constitutional law.

This comprehensive and impressive volume presents the first book-length, multi-country investigation of reform of economic education in transition economies. Authors from the West and from transition economies describe the major changes in economics content and instruction that occurred in schools and universities throughout nations in Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1989 to 2000. Nine of the chapters discuss specific countries - Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. Other chapters describe reforms in the undergraduate economics curriculum at Moscow State University, Kiev State University, and Belarus State University. One chapter reports the findings from a five-nation study of the effect of economics programs to retrain teachers on the economic understanding of secondary students. Another chapter explains the important role of economic education in creating support for public policy reforms in a nation. The results from multi-national surveys of public attitudes toward economic reforms and the market economy are analyzed in one chapter. The book concludes with an insightful explanation of the major 'change agents' responsible for the reform of academic economics and the teaching of economics in the transition economies. Anyone interested in economic education, transition economies, or educational reform in schools and universities will find this book a unique and fascinating reading.

The essays contained herein span over a decade and reflect David Prychitko's thinking about the role of the market system, and its relation to planning and democratic processes. The collection consists of previously published and unpublished articles written not only for economists but also for an interdisciplinary audience. Prychitko extends the Austrian School's criticism of central planning to include the decentralized, self-managed and democratic models of socialism - those that were supposed to distinguish Yugoslav-style socialism from Soviet socialism. He critically evaluates the socialist and market-socialist proposals of contemporary advocates including Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, Ted Burczak, Branko Horvat, and Joseph Stiglitz. A younger Austrian economist, Prychitko has also emerged as an internal critic within that tradition. He questions the Austrian School's claims that the unhampered market maximizes social welfare, that any actions of the state necessarily reduce welfare, and that anarcho-capitalism is viable and desirable. At the same time, he carefully discusses the viability of worker-managed enterprise from a market-process perspective, and offers a qualified defense. Scholars, particularly those with an interest in Austrian economic thought, comparative political economy and free market libertarianism will find this collection a valuable resource.

This book is an important addition to the emerging body of new work on capital. Its primary contribution is in analysing capital investment choice as a process. The understanding of this process requires some modification and significant extension to the standard neo-classical economic tools.Capital and Uncertainty is a non-mathematical text, modernizing and adding to the existing thought in this area, with insights from game theory, rational choice under uncertainty and new institutional economics. Dr Runge also draws upon 25 years of business experience in setting out a thorough and immensely practical exposition of the risk/return trade-off and how major capital investment decisions are made within firms. Topics studied include: the nature of capital investment decisions entrepreneurship and the market order capital investment choice processes capital investment models capital decisions: choices between strategies Economists, industrial organisation specialists, business academics and practitioners alike will all find this book of immense interest and use.

This substantial book examines key economic, political and social aspects of Malaysia at the turn of the new century. It covers the years of rapid growth and dramatic structural change leading up to the 1997 financial crisis, and the subsequent adjustments which enabled the economy to resume its vigorous advance. The authors critically address affirmative action policies aiming to help Malays enter the modern economy and make income distribution more equitable while reducing poverty. They look at case studies of persisting poverty amidst economic progress, and also scrutinize the development of East Malaysia with its special problems away from the centre of power in Kuala Lumpur. The authors review the direction of politics after Prime Minister Mahathir, as well as exploring Malaysia's foreign, education, and labour policies. They canvass the idea of a 'new Malay' better adapted to modern society, investigate the position of the Chinese, examine the struggle for women's rights within the religious framework of Islam, and discuss the contributions of Malaysian NGOs to ongoing changes. They finally draw together crucial issues facing Malaysia in the 21st century. The contributors, who are leading scholars in their spheres, have produced a wide ranging and comprehensive guide to the economy and society of Malaysia. This book will be of great value and interest to students and scholars of Asian economics, development and social studies.

During the last decade of the twentieth century, the Korean peninsula was the stage for non-stop, dramatic political and economic events. This volume brings together an unusually broad range of perspectives on US policy towards North Korea, the North Korean economy, and North-South economic co-operation and unification. The year 2000 opened a new chapter on the Korean peninsula; the North-South summit in June was no doubt a historical milestone that could lead to major changes on the peninsula. But the fundamental issues herein addressed are still relevant and important. No overnight solutions or magic bullets exist. Essential ingredients for North-South economic co-operation, ranging from regional security matters to policy nuts and bolts, remain little changed. Assembled in this volume are a diverse group of economists and analysts from academia, government and think tanks in the US and South Korea. Topics range from philosophical to practical policy matters. Students, researchers and policymakers interested in Korea and in the broader issues of economic and political integration will find this volume fresh and insightful.

It is a widely held belief that the Polish experience of system transformation following the final collapse of 'real socialism' in 1989 is one of the 'best'. Poland into the New Millennium surveys the country's post-communist transformation as it prepares for the challenges of the early years of the new century. The contributors describe key aspects of system transformation in order to promote better understanding of the nature of the processes introduced to the economy and society since 1989. The book seeks to illustrate what has been achieved - and what has not - and tentatively explores likely future developments in relation to the problems that may lie ahead. Entry into the European Union figures as a major issue, but the volume contains sometimes controversial and divergent interpretations of the underlying dynamic shaping Polish society in the new millennium. This comprehensive and multidisciplinary book will be invaluable to researchers, lecturers and students concerned with post-communist transformation across the social sciences and will be of great importance to members of international organisations, consultancies, and financial institutions with a particular interest in Poland.

Ten years after the collapse of communism in Poland, the debate continues over the impact of the transition to a market economy. Whilst few actually say the socialist system could - or should - have been preserved, the path of change has been far from smooth, and has produced both winners and losers in the race to reform. This book assesses the prevailing attitudes of both support and disenchantment among Poles towards transition, in the light of their own experiences. In particular Janice Bell uses statistical indicators on economic well-being, regional voting results and public opinion survey data to analyse the socio-economic influences on patterns of voting behaviour, and finds unemployment to be a crucial denominator. Groundbreaking in its perspective, this study will appeal to all those concerned with the social implications of reform programmes in former communist countries.

The euphoria evidenced in the aftermath of the collapse of communist regimes in the late 1980s and early 1990s sometimes conveyed the impression that the process of democratization would be achieved without difficulty or tribulation. This book sets out to provide a thorough comparative analysis of the challenges which face the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe and considers the impact of political change. Drawing heavily on available survey data, the book provides an in-depth account of how the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe have coped with four major challenges: political fragmentation, nationalism, lack of respect for human rights, and poorly developed civil service systems. The book demonstrates that although the first few years of the 1990s were marked by increasing disenchantment with the new regimes, the change of governments as a direct result of the electoral process and the prospects for European integration have served to reverse this negative trend. Indeed, the authors find that the new political systems have managed to cope with the challenges so effectively that striking similarities with Western democracies are now apparent. Offering new insights into democratic transition, Challenges to Democracy will appeal to political scientists, diplomats and policymakers, and economists with an interest in European and comparative politics.

This volume of new, original essays reflects the lifelong concerns and writings of the person they honor, Professor Howard Sherman. Sherman wrote on a wide range of topics - the causes of recessions, depressions and mass unemployment under capitalism; the difficulties and challenges of establishing viable democratic planning systems under socialism; the down-to-earth realities of economic life in the United States, the Soviet Union and elsewhere; and the theoretical traditions he drew upon to inform these empirical studies, i.e. Keynesianism, institutionalism and, most especially, Marxism. The contributors follow in Sherman's tradition through their careful analysis of topics such as the long-term trends in contemporary global capitalism; the relationship between Marxism and institutionalism; debates over the usefulness of class analysis; the political economy of financial liberalization; lessons from the demise of socialism in the Soviet Union and China; and the possibilities for advancing a workable egalitarian economic agenda. This book demonstrates the continued vibrancy and relevance of radical political economy as a mode of social scientific analysis. Scholars and students in economics, sociology, history, philosophy and political science will find the essays thought-provoking and informative.

The essays in this volume describe, analyse and compare the achievements and the failures of societies that adopted market-based economies within a democratic polity after a long period of communist rule (Russia and Eastern Europe) or military authoritarianism (Latin America). Together, they also trace the rocky course of liberal economic policies over the whole twentieth century. Area experts from various disciplines seek to establish the extent to which the historical experience of the several countries explains successful transitions as well as the less successful efforts to adapt institutions to the needs of a market economy. The papers further show the dilemmas faced in both Eastern Europe and Latin America in reconciling the efficiency benefits of market economies and the need to achieve or maintain socially acceptable patterns of income distribution among the strata of income receivers. In addition to the essays themselves, comments are provided to further explore specific issues. Researchers and students in economics, economic history, political science and regional studies, and others interested in the economics of transition to a market system will find this comprehensive collection an invaluable resource.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has experienced a process of rapid fiscal decentralisation: its 88 regions are now in charge of almost half of total budgetary expenditure, while an overhaul of the revenue allocation system has given them substantial control over locally collected revenue. These regions are highly diverse in climate, natural resources and economic development, with some much better equipped than others to adjust to market conditions. Fiscal Federalism in Russia examines the combined impact of decentralisation and diversity on regional equality of service provision and in particular the provision of education. The book begins with an analysis of the system of intergovernmental transfers and goes on to explore the nature and extent of disparities in education spending, paying particular attention to regions where spending has fallen furthest. The book also contains a case study of the allocation decisions affecting the education sector within a single region, Novgorod Oblast, in North-West Russia. Based entirely on field research, the study provides a rare insight into the decision making process at regional and local level, as well as an analysis of the extent of internal revenue and spending disparities. Academics, researchers and those interested in decentralisation or the economics of transition will warmly welcome this detailed analysis of the direction and impact of inter-governmental transfers in Russia.

This book explores whether foreign direct investment (FDI) can contribute to the competitiveness of industries in Central Europe and to narrowing the gap between these transition economies and countries within the European Union. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia have attracted substantial FDI since the beginning of their transition to a market economy. Using exhaustive empirical data, the authors demonstrate that foreign investment enterprises in Central Europe have higher allocative efficiency, promote macro- and microeconomic restructuring and foster the restructuring of the manufacturing sector in accordance with the host countries' comparative advantages. The case of Austria is used to demonstrate the possible benefits of FDI. On the other hand, high foreign penetration leads to the concentration of production and exports and makes the economy more vulnerable to external shocks. In addition, there may be unwelcome pressures on economic policy in order to maintain the country's position as a frequented investment target. However, the analysis in this book suggests that, on the whole, economies in transition can become more competitive more rapidly and more profoundly with the help of foreign direct investment. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of international economics, European studies, economies of transition and international business.