With regions and nations having formally fulfilled the ex ante conditionality, this book provides a first overall review of RIS3 policy processes, aiming to assess the consistency of the concept of smart specialization from an applied, policy-oriented perspective. Moving from the theory of design to the practice of implementation, the reflections and case studies in this volume reveal strengths and weaknesses in the way concrete strategies have been conceived and implemented, enabling reflections on the future of the concept in a more general sense. In many cases, smart specialization strategies turn out to be new variants of regional development policies, embracing the importance of a place-based approach. However, the approach's potential to add distinctive value will stem from its capacity to turn innovation and knowledge into tools for local development by harnessing them for wider territorial development goals. By helping regions to identify and leverage untapped resources through new processes, smart specialization-based policies may help to reconcile cohesion and competitiveness objective. Consequently, new approaches appear most promising where institutional, administrative and political conditions allow the setup of genuinely new processes and where their focus is on territorial assets in a comprehensive manner rather than mere industrial renewal. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Planning Studies.

What is the nature and role of competition in markets and politics? This book examines the institutional dimension of markets and the rules and institutions that condition the operation of market economies. Particular attention is paid to the the role of the state, specifically the role of governments in shaping and maintaining the economic constitution of their societies.

This book offers a fresh take on a major question of global debate: what explains the rise in economic fraud in so many societies around the world? The author argues that the current age of fraud is an outcome of not only political-economic but also moral transformations that have taken place in societies reshaped by neoliberalism. Using the case of Uganda, the book traces these socio-cultural and especially moral repercussions of embedding neoliberalism. Uganda offers an important case of investigation for three reasons: the high level of foreign intervention by donors, aid agencies, international organisations, NGOs and corporations that have tried to produce the first fully-fledged market society in Africa there; the country's reputation as having adopted neoliberal reforms most extensively, and the intensification of fraud in many sectors of the economy since the early 2000s. The book explores the rise and operation of the neoliberal moral economy and its world of hard and fraudulent practices. It analyses especially the moral-economic character of agricultural produce markets in eastern Uganda. It shows that neoliberal moral restructuring is a highly political, contested and conflict-ridden process, predominantly works via recalibrating the political-economic structure of a country, and deeply affects how people think and go about earning a living and treat others with whom they do business. The book offers an in-depth, data-based analysis of the moral climate of a market society in motion and in so doing offers insights and lessons for elsewhere in the Global South and North.

This text offers an unorthodox account of why and how global capitalism has entered a phase of unsustainable crises of accumulation and legitimacy, and examines the different exit strategies open to Latin American countries.

This book provides new insights and research studies on how developing countries come to terms with the nationalisation policies of Gulf economies that provide employment for their nationals. Focusing on regions and countries that have traditionally been overlooked, it includes studies on labour migration from Egypt to the Middle East and from the Philippines to Lebanon, migrant experiences and policy prospects in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, and Indian migration to the Gulf. The book fills a critical gap in migration research by studying migration from various Indian states, such as Tamil Nadu, Telugu-speaking states (Telangana and Andhra Pradesh), Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. It also explores the unexpected phenomenon of demographic windows of economic opportunity (not documented in demographic literature) observed in a few Arab countries due to older migrant expatriates returning to their home country; the impact of international out-migration on intergenerational educational mobility among children in migrant-sending households in Kerala; and forced migration of Kerala Muslims to the Gulf.

Developmental Macroeconomics: Access to Demand, the Exchange Rate and Growth offers a new approach to development economics and macroeconomics. It is a Keynesian-structuralist approach to economics applied to middle income countries that emphasizes the strategic role of demand in creating investment opportunities that are essential to economic development. It also explores crucial links between short-term full employment and financial stability with medium term growth. While this book emphasizes the central role played by the exchange rate it does not ignore other macroeconomic prices (the interest rate, the inflation rate and the profit rate). It develops a group of concepts and models and blends them together in the model of the tendency to the cyclical overvaluation of the exchange rate in developing countries. According to this model, the exchange rate tends to be chronically overvalued. In so far that this is true the exchange rate ceases to be just a short-term problem to be treated by macroeconomics and becomes central to development economics and should be crucially oriented to manage the exchange rate and keep it competitive at the industrial equilibrium level. The book closes with the presentation of new developmentalism - a national development strategy based on the system of models previously discussed that is both an alternative to old national-developmentalism and to liberal orthodoxy or the Washington consensus.

Mainstream research has rationalized China's stock market on the basis of paradigms such as the institutional approach, the efficient market hypothesis, and corporate valuation principles. The deviations from such paradigms have been analyzed as puzzles of China's stock market. Girardin and Liu explore to what extent, in the perspective of Chinese cultural and historical characteristics, far from being puzzles, these 'deviations' are rather the symptoms of a consistent strategy for the design, development and regulation of a government-dominated financial system. This book will help investors, observers and researchers understand the hidden logic of the design and functioning of China's modern stock market, taking a political economy view.

American manufacturing is in obvious crisis: the sector lost three million jobs between 2000 and 2003 as the American trade deficit shot to record highs. Manufacturers have increasingly decentralized productive responsibilities to armies of supplier firms, both domestically and abroad. Many have speculated as to whether or not manufacturing is even feasible in the United States, given the difficulties. Josh Whitford's book examines the issues behind this crisis, looking at the emergence of a 'new old economy', in which relationships between firms have become much more important. Whitford shows that discussion of this shift, in the media and in the academic literature, hits on the right issues - globalization, de-industrialization, and the outsourcing of production in marketized and in network relationships - but in an overly polarized way that obscures as much as it enlightens. Drawing on the results of extensive interviews conducted with manufacturers in the American Upper Midwest, Whitford shows that the range of possibilities is more complex and contingent than is usually recognised. Highlighting heretofore unexamined elements of constraint, contradiction, and innovation that characterize contemporary network production models, Whitford shakes received understandings in economic and organizational sociology, comparative political economy, and economic geography to reveal ways in which the American economic development apparatus can be adjusted to better meet the challenges of a highly decentralized production regime.

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.

The global ubiquity of informal economic activities has turned informality into a key policy question, not least in international peace- and state-building. This book explores a core aspect of economic informality: its resilience despite comprehensive international anti-informality operations. Using Kosovo as an illustrative case, Danielsson suggests that to understand the resilience of informality, two distinct areas of practice need to be studied in conjunction rather than separately. The first concerns the professional practices enacted by international organisations in their attempts to formalise the informal economy in Kosovo. The second area of practice concerns the everyday informal economic practices of social agents in Kosovo. To study these areas of practice at their junction, Danielsson uses Pierre Bourdieu's concept of symbolic power and argues that in post-conflict Kosovo, the distinct practices have become interwoven and co-constitutive of a novel ordering and meaning of informality. The resilience of the informal thus plays out through - while undermining and reinforcing the need of - the international anti-informality operations. Including scholarship from global governance, global political economy and social theory, this book's original perspective on informal economies and power will appeal to scholars and professionals located in peace studies, development studies, and the field of international relations.

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.

Economic theory and a growing body of empirical research support the idea that economic freedom is an important ingredient to long-run economic prosperity. However, the determinants of economic freedom are much less understood than the benefits that freedom provides. Economic Freedom and Prosperity addresses this major gap in our knowledge. If private property and economic freedom are essential for achieving and maintaining a high standard of living, it is crucial to understand how improvements in these areas have been achieved and whether there are lessons that can be replicated in less free areas of the world today. In this edited collection, contributors investigate this research question through multiple methodologies. Beginning with three chapters that theoretically explore ways in which economic freedom might be better achieved, it then moves on to a series of empirical chapters that examine questions including the speed and permanence of reform, the deep long-run determinants of economic freedom, the relationship between voice and exit in impacting freedom, the role of crises in generating change, and immigration. Finally, the book considers the evolution of freedom in China, development economics, and international trade, and it concludes with a consideration of what is necessary to promote a humane liberalism consistent with economic freedom. Economic Freedom and Prosperity will be of great interest to all social scientists concerned with issues of institutional change. It will particularly appeal to those concerned with economic development and the determinants of an environment of economic freedom.

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.

Scholarly attempts to explain the development of liberal individualism over the course of modern history have tended to focus on key principles and doctrines. Here, O'Flynn shows that that as capitalism continues to grow, the theories, doctrines and moral precepts comprising liberal individualism change and evolve, while its vital social function is preserved. Scrutinising the development of liberal individualism in terms of its social function, connecting related doctrine and principles to the opportunities and obstacles to capital accumulation over the course of history.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the neoliberal ideas that arguably caused the damage have been triumphant in presenting themselves as the only possible solution for it. How can we account for the persistence of neoliberal hegemony, in spite of its obviously disastrous effects upon labor, capital, ecology, and society? The argument pursued in this book is that part of the persistence of neoliberalism has to do with the archaic and obscure political theology upon which of much of its discourse trades. This is a political theology of chance that both underwrites and obscures sacrificial devotion to market outcomes. Joshua Ramey structures this political theology around hidden homologies between modern markets, as non-rational randomizing 'meta-information processors', and archaic divination tools, which are used in public acts of tradition-bound attempts to interpret the deliverances of chance. Ramey argues that only by recognizing the persistently sacred character of chance within putatively secularized discourses of risk and randomness can the investments of neoliberal power be exposed at their sacred source, and an alternative political theology be constructed.

Capitalism as a global system barely allows the needs of the majority of the world's population to be met. Whether from an industrialized country such as the US or from South Africa, the need for an alternative can be felt all over the world. It is clear nowadays that, due to the non-democratic nature and inadequacies of capitalism, another system must take its place. Such a process has already begun through the cooperative movement, which this book examines along with other initiatives. Featuring essays by international scholars and activists from various spheres of the anti-capitalist left, the work features many examples from the north and the south, to cover both the historically-advanced and late capitalist economies. It discusses such initiatives as participatory economics, the Mondragon experience, worker cooperatives in Europe and Latin America, solidarity economy in South Africa, and more. Written in an accessible manner, "Beyond Capitalism" will be an invaluable resource for any student of social movements and political thought and for anyone looking for alternative to today's ongoing systemic crises.

With a large and growing economy and a leadership dedicated both to domestic reform and the further integration into international society and the world economy, China is facing and posing important challenges at the local, national, regional and wider international level. This book analyses the developmental trajectories of China up to and into the new millennium. Focusing on the substance and underlying forces of change, it considers issues and developments in monetary policy, foreign exchange policy, the trade regime, state-owned enterprise reform, regional economic development as well as social changes, particularly those related to social welfare reform and the Internet. The book also covers economic and political developments in 'Greater China', particularly the prospects of reunification after Taiwan's presidential elections, and analyses the core issues and challenges in China's contemporary relations with the USA, Japan, South-East Asia and Europe.

The rapidly increasing importance of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan both in Asia and in the world economy, represents a trend that is set to continue into the 21st century. This book provides an authoritative assessment of the 20th century performance of these countries, and in particular the factors contributing to the acceleration of Asian growth in the latter part of the century. The contributors look at Asia within a global perspective and detailed comparisons are drawn with Australia and the USA. Contributions from leading experts offer a comprehensive review of the procedures necessary to establish valid international comparisons for countries with very different economic histories and levels of development. These include methods of growth performance measurement and techniques of growth accounting. The Asian Economies in the Twentieth Century will be an indispensable new tool for policy analysts, international agencies and academic researchers.

This volume is a collection of chapters covering the latest developments in applications of financial mathematics and statistics to topics in energy, commodity financial markets and environmental economics. The research presented is based on the presentations and discussions that took place during the Fields Institute Focus Program on Commodities, Energy and Environmental Finance in August 2013. The authors include applied mathematicians, economists and industry practitioners, providing for a multi-disciplinary spectrum of perspectives on the subject. The volume consists of four sections: Electricity Markets; Real Options; Trading in Commodity Markets; and Oligopolistic Models for Energy Production. Taken together, the chapters give a comprehensive summary of the current state of the art in quantitative analysis of commodities and energy finance. The topics covered include structural models of electricity markets, financialization of commodities, valuation of commodity real options, game-theory analysis of exhaustible resource management and analysis of commodity ETFs. The volume also includes two survey articles that provide a source for new researchers interested in getting into these topics.

As China's government manages a transition away from the socialist plan, how does it build the regulatory institutions it needs to manage the new market economy? Without the correct institutions, laws and agencies that implement the laws in place, the remarkable growth witnessed in China over the last two decades will falter. Financial sector reform lies at the heart of China's economic transition and China's stock market has become critical to the reform of state-owned industry, the supply of fiscal revenues and in building a modern pension system. The Development of China's Stockmarket takes a close look at the policy-making and regulatory institutions the government has created to manage equity development and shows how, in contrast to neo-institutional and economic theories of regulatory development, public actors have controlled institutional development. Based on extensive field research in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Beijing and over forty interviews with regulators and market players, The Development of China's Stockmarket provides the first detailed academic analysis of the country's stockmarket. With a comprehensive review of Chinese language literature available on the subject, this book is essential reading for all scholars with an interest in Asian Business and China's transition from socialism.

The current dynamics of world economy show remarkable changes in the socio-economics of credit provision and entrepreneurship. If the emergence of the sharing economy is fostering innovative models of collaborative agency, networking and venture business, economic actors are also looking for a more sustainable development, able to foster profitability as well as community welfare. This book investigates Islamic social finance as a paramount example of this economy under change, where the balance between economic efficiency and social impact is contributing to the transformation of the market from an exchange- to a community-oriented institution. The collected essays analyse the social dimension of entrepreneurship from an Islamic perspective, highlighting the extent to which the rationales of "sharing," distribution and cooperation, affect the conceptualization of the market in Islam as a place of "shared prosperity." Moving from the conceptual "roots" of this paradigm to its operative "branches," the contributing authors also connect the most recent trends in the financial market to Shari'ah-based strategies for community welfare, hence exploring the applications of Islamic social finance from the sharing economy, FinTech and crowdfunding to microcredit, waqf, zakat, sukuk and green investments. An illuminating reference for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers dealing with the challenges of a global market where not only is diversity being perceived as a value to be fostered, but also as an important opportunity for a more inclusive economy for everybody.

This is an innovative collection of papers written by a panel of highly respected academics and financial experts. Whilst providing an insight into the phenomenology of the financial crises of the 1990s in Asia and Latin America, the book also explores possibilities for their solution.

Based on a mixture of primary historical research and secondary sources, this book explores the reasons for the failure of the state in England during the twentieth century to regulate, tax, and control the market in land for the common or public good. It is maintained that this created the circumstances in which private property relationships had triumphed by the end of the century. Explaining a complex field of legislation and policy in accessible terms, the book concludes by asking what type of land reform might be relevant in the twenty-first century to address the current housing crisis, which seen in its widest context, has become the new land question of the modern era.

The ever-changing nature of the business world and government policies makes continuing research on the capital markets model vital to our complete and current understanding of how corporate governance affects business and economies throughout the world. There is an abundance of empirical and theoretical research on the topics of corporate control and governance, however, most research in this area has been concentrated in countries where the capital markets are the main source of corporate financing - the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This volume, organized into four components, is designed to analyze the issues affecting corporate control and governance from a global perspective. The first three sections - North America; Europe and Australia; and Emerging Markets - offer theoretical and empirical studies from these respective regions of the world. The countries/regions studied in these sections include the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Continental Europe, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Chile, South Korea, and Sri Lanka. The fourth section, Clinical Studies, provides case studies that analyze individual events and may also be used for classroom instruction.

The Economic Gulag: Patriarchy, Capitalism, and Inequality is a trenchant critical analysis of the devastating ravages of capitalist patriarchy in our modern society and its pervasive and increasingly destabilizing negative influence on our views and values regarding power, gender, wealth, and inequality. It extends the investigation begun in The Democratic Gulag (2015) that argued that we live in a social and ideological gulag dominated by the meta-ideology of patriarchy that has defined and circumscribed every aspect of the social experience of humanity for millennia to the detriment of all. The Economic Gulag explores how patriarchy is infused within capitalist theory and practice. It offers a socially democratic critique and alternatives to reform its dominance. Through the lens of critical theory and the use of current empirical and statistical research, The Economic Gulag deconstructs the modern neoliberal capitalist wealth myth and its underlying theory of homo economicus. This book exposes a system rife with deception, inequality, human exploitation, and misery that is touted as the unchallenged champion of democratic individualism and success. The Economic Gulag makes a powerful case for the pressing need to dismantle the democratic and economic gulags in which we live and replace them with a new ideal social democracy based on true economic equality and fairness in a post-patriarchal and post-capitalist world. It concludes with fifteen radical, powerful, and transformative recommendations for change that will provide the "shock therapy" required to usher in a new socially democratic order liberated from patriarchy and all its vestiges.