This book provides researchers, students, and practitioners with a methodology to evaluate the impacts of a wide diversity of development projects and policies on local economies. Projects and policies often create spillovers within project areas. LEWIE uses simulation methods to quantify these spillovers. It has become a complement to randomized control trials (RCTs), as governments and donors become interested in documenting impacts beyond the treated, comparing the likely impacts of alternative interventions, and designing complementary interventions to influence program and policy impacts. It is also a tool for impact evaluation where RCTs are not feasible. Chapters 1-4 motivate and present the basics of impact simulation, including how to design a LEWIE model, how to estimate the model, and how to obtain the necessary data. The remaining chapters provide a diversity of interesting real-world applications and extensions of the basic models. The applications include evaluations of the impacts of cash transfers for the poor, ecotourism, global food-price shocks, irrigation projects, migration, and corruption. Each chapter provide readers with the tools they need to conduct their own local economy-wide impact evaluations. All models and data used in this book are available on-line.

America and China are the two most powerful players in global affairs, and no relationship is more consequential. How they choose to cooperate and compete affects billions of lives. But U.S.-China relations are complex and often delicate, featuring a multitude of critical issues that America and China must navigate together. Missteps could spell catastrophe. In Debating China, Nina Hachigian pairs American and Chinese experts in collegial "letter exchanges" that illuminate this multi-dimensional and complex relationship. These fascinating conversations-written by highly respected scholars and former government officials from the U.S. and China-provide an invaluable dual perspective on such crucial issues as trade and investment, human rights, climate change, military dynamics, regional security in Asia, and the media, including the Internet. The engaging dialogue between American and Chinese experts gives readers an inside view of how both sides see the key challenges. Readers bear witness to the writers' hopes and frustrations as they explore the politics, values, history, and strategic frameworks that inform their positions. This unique volume is perfect for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of U.S.-China relations today.

The Economics of Immigration summarizes the best social science studying the actual impact of immigration, which is found to be at odds with popular fears. Greater flows of immigration have the potential to substantially increase world income and reduce extreme poverty. Existing evidence indicates that immigration slightly enhances the wealth of natives born in destination countries while doing little to harm the job prospects or reduce the wages of most of the native-born population. Similarly, although a matter of debate, most credible scholarly estimates of the net fiscal impact of current migration find only small positive or negative impacts. Importantly, current generations of immigrants do not appear to be assimilating more slowly than prior waves. Although the range of debate on the consequences of immigration is much narrower in scholarly circles than in the general public, that does not mean that all social scientists agree on what a desirable immigration policy embodies. The second half of this book contains three chapters, each by a social scientist who is knowledgeable of the scholarship summarized in the first half of the book, which argue for very different policy immigration policies. One proposes to significantly cut current levels of immigration. Another suggests an auction market for immigration permits. The third proposes open borders. The final chapter surveys the policy opinions of other immigration experts and explores the factors that lead reasonable social scientists to disagree on matters of immigration policy.

This second edition of Understanding Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows explains these two concepts and outlines strategic responses to deal with them. The book explores the forms of money laundering and illicit financial transfers; mechanisms used to launder money; measures to curb, investigate and monitor these crimes; and asset forfeiture.

Understanding Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows also considers new strategic approaches to combating these crimes. It touches briefly on the funding of terrorism, which is seen as closely connected to laundering and illicit transfers. The book includes clear illustrations, useful statistics, explanations of frequently used terms, a comprehensive bibliography and recommendations for further reading.

Understanding Money Laundering and Illicit Financial Flows provides the reader with an easy entry into these complex subjects. The book will be useful not only for role players in the public sector – such as policy makers, politicians, law enforcement officials and regulators – but also for businesses and managers in the private sector. Written in an accessible way, the book is aimed at both professionals and a broader audience.

The era of economic liberalization, spanning 1978 to 2008, is often regarded as a period in which government was simply dismantled. In fact, government was reconstructed to meet the needs of a globalized economy. Central banking, fiscal control, tax collection, regulation, port and airport management, infrastructure development-in all of these areas, radical reforms were made to the architecture of government.
A common philosophy shaped all of these reforms: the logic of discipline. It was premised on deep skepticism about the ability of democratic processes to make sensible policy choices. It sought to impose constraints on elected officials and citizens, often by shifting power to technocrat-guardians who were shielded from political influence. It placed great faith in the power of legal changes--new laws, treaties, and contracts--to produce significant alterations in the performance of governmental systems. Even before the global economic crisis of 2007-2009, the logic of discipline was under assault. Faced with many failed reform projects, advocates of discipline realized that they had underestimated the complexity of governmental change. Opponents of discipline emphasized the damage to democratic values that followed from the empowerment of new groups of technocrat-guardians.
The financial crisis did further damage to the logic of discipline, as governments modified their attitudes about central bank independence and fiscal control, and global financial and trade flows declined. It was the market that now appeared to behave myopically and erratically--and which now insisted that governments should abandon precepts about the role of government that it had once insisted were inviolable.
A sweeping account of neoliberal governmental restructuring across the world, The Logic of Discipline offers a powerful analysis of how this undemocratic model is unraveling in the face of a monumental--and ongoing--failure of the market.

The collapse of the financial markets in 2008 and the resulting 'Great Recession' merely accelerated an already worrisome trend: the shift away from an employer-based social welfare system in the United States. Since the end of World War II, a substantial percentage of the costs of social provision--most notably, unemployment insurance and health insurance--has been borne by employers rather than the state. The US has long been unique among advanced economies in this regard, but in recent years, its social contract has become so frayed that is fast becoming unrecognizable. Despite Obama's election, the burdens of social provision are falling increasingly upon individual families, and the situation is worsening because of the unemployment crisis. How can we repair the American social welfare system so that workers and families receive adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages of the market?
In Shared Responsibility, Shared Risk, Jacob Hacker and Ann O'Leary have gathered a distinguished group of scholars on American social policy to address this most fundamental of problems. Collectively, they analyze how the 'privatization of risk' has increased hardships for American families and increased inequality. They also propose a series of solutions that would distribute the burdens of risks more broadly and expand the social safety net. The range of issues covered is broad: health care, homeownership, social security and aging, unemployment, wealth (as opposed to income) creation, education, and family-friendly policies. The book is also comparative, measuring US social policy against the policies of other advanced nations. Given the current crisis in America social policy and the concomitant paralysis within government, the book has the potential to make an important intervention in the current debate.

Few studies of globalization have analyzed its impact on African societies from the viewpoint of sustainable development. This volume answers that need. The essays here contribute to the store of knowledge about globalization in sub-Saharan Africa by documenting the affect of this global force on the continent's growth -- economic, political, and cultural. This interdisciplinary collection provides comprehensive analyses at the international, national, and local levels of the theoretical issues revolving around the complex process of globalization, while offering detailed examinations of new models of economic development that can be implemented in sub-Saharan Africa to enhance economic growth, self-sufficiency, and sustainable development. These models are accessible to politicians, public policy analysts, scholars, students, international organizations, nongovernmental actors, and members of the public at large. Finally, the essays here provide insightful case studies of African countries that already demonstrate creative, indigenous-based models of entrepreneurship and discuss efforts to achieve sustainable development and economic independence at the grassroots level. Contributors represent the disciplines of law, history, political science, economics, sociology, anthropology, business and management, African studies and art history, criminal justice, and education. Bessie House-Soremekun is the Public Scholar in African American Studies, Civic Engagement, and Entrepreneurship, Professor of Political Science and Professor of Africana Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. Toyin Falola is the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

This book reviews the three most popular methods (and their extensions) in applied economics and other social sciences: matching, regression discontinuity, and difference in differences. The book introduces the underlying econometric/statistical ideas, shows what is identified and how the identified parameters are estimated, and then illustrates how they are applied with real empirical examples. The book emphasizes how to implement the three methods with data: many data and programs are provided in the online appendix. All readers--theoretical econometricians/statisticians, applied economists/social-scientists and researchers/students--will find something useful in the book from different perspectives.

The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over the same region, now one of the most volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir.
In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected international relations scholars, explores the dynamics of the new competition for control of the region since 9/11. All three great powers have crafted strategies to increase their power in the area, which includes Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Each nation is pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians.
However, overlooked in all of the talk about this new great game is fact that the Central Asian governments have proven themselves critical agents in their own right, establishing local rules for external power involvement that serve to fend off foreign interest. As a result, despite a decade of intense interest from the United States, Russia, and China, Central Asia remains a collection of segmented states, and the external competition has merely reinforced the sovereign authority of the individual Central Asian governments. A careful and surprising analysis of how small states interact with great powers in a vital region, Great Games, Local Rules greatly advances our understanding of how global politics actually works in the contemporary era.

The definitive survey of the countries and territories of Western Europe, comprising expert analysis and commentary, up-to-date economic and socio-political data and extensive directory information. General Survey Essays by leading experts on the area cover issues of regional importance. Country Surveys Individual chapters on each country, comprising: an introductory survey, containing essays on the geography, history and economy of each country, including a chronology and map. an extensive statistical survey of economic and demographic indicators, including area and population, health and welfare, agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, industry, finance, trade, transport, tourism, communications media and education. a comprehensive directory of names and contact details covering the most significant political and commercial institutions. Regional Information a directory of research institutes specializing in the region bibliographies of books and periodicals covering the region.

Goodstadt brilliantly weaves a tapestry that resolves major puzzles about Hong Kong's growth as an international financial centre during this pivotal fifty-year period. This is a devastating expose of the consequences of the British colonial government's failure to effectively regulate banking and manage monetary policy."--David Meyer, Washington University. St. LouisLeo F. Goodstadt is adjunct professor in the School of Business Studies at Trinity Colletge, University of Dublin. He was formerly deputy editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review.

Africa has been and continues to be a significant source of medicinal and aromatic plants and botanicals to the world's food, drug, herb and dietary supplement market, and in the past decade numerous African plant materials have established a strong international market presence. This book provides an excellent opportunity to delve into the current and future contributions that African plants can and will continue to make both internal to Africa and on the global stage. This book expertly covers various medicinal plants of African origin and the some of the latest basic and clinical research supporting their ongoing and potential uses in self-care and healthcare. This work also examines various issues and trends in medicinal plants from their uses in Traditional Medicine and ethnobotany, to our modern understanding of the plants chemistry and pharmacognosy, natural products chemistry and applications of medicinal plants, quality control, and models of benefit sharing.

One of the key scientific challenges is the puzzle of human cooperation. Why do people cooperate? Why do people help strangers, even sometimes at a major cost to themselves? Why do people want to punish others who violate norms and undermine collective interests? Reward and punishment is a classic theme in research on social dilemmas. More recently, it has received considerable attention from scientists working in various disciplines such as economics, neuroscience, and psychology. We know now that reward and punishment can promote cooperation in so-called public good dilemmas, where people need to decide how much from their personal resources to contribute to the public good. Clearly, enjoying the contributions of others while not contributing is tempting. Punishment (and reward) are effective in reducing free-riding. Yet the recent explosion of research has also triggered many questions. For example, who can reward and punish most effectively? Is punishment effective in any culture? What are the emotions that accompany reward and punishment? Even if reward and punishment are effective, are they also efficient - knowing that rewards and punishment are costly to administer? How can sanctioning systems best organized to be reduce free-riding? The chapters in this book, the first in a series on human cooperation, explore the workings of reward and punishment, how they should be organized, and their functions in society, thereby providing a synthesis of the psychology, economics, and neuroscience of human cooperation.

Nigeria and South Africa account for about a third of Africa’s economic might, and have led much of its peacemaking and peacekeeping initiatives over the last two and a half decades. Both account for at least 60 per cent of the economy of their respective sub-regions in West and Southern Africa. The success of political and economic integration in Africa thus rests heavily on the shoulders of these two regional powers who have both collaborated and competed with each other in a complex relationship that is Africa’s most indispensable.

Nigeria remains among South Africa’s largest trading partners in Africa, while both countries have cooperated in building the institutions of the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Nigeria and South Africa have also sought to give Africa a stronger global voice, while competing as rivals on issues such as peacemaking in Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Guinea-Bissau. While Nigeria is the most ethnically diverse country in Africa, South Africa is the most racially diverse state on the continent. Both countries have had a tremendous cultural impact on the continent in terms of Nollywood movies and South African soap operas.

The first three chapters of this book assess Nigeria/South Africa relations in the areas of politics, economics and culture. The second section has three essays that examine the issue of hegemonic leadership in relation to Nigeria and South Africa. The third section consists of four essays on the contributions to the bilateral relationship and leadership roles of four prominent South Africans and Nigerians: Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Sani Abacha. The final section of the book analyses three technocratic Nigerian and South African ‘visionaries’: Adebayo Adedeji, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Introduction to International Trade Finance covers the complete cycle of international trade and explains the roles of the specialist operators.

Introduction to International Trade Finance aims to:
*Guide the reader through every phase of typical trade transactions, examining in detail the relationships between the various parties involved and explaining the facilities employed.
*Demonstrate the range of banking instruments and techniques available to exporters and importers which enable them to enter into contracts, confident that whichever method of settlement they agree upon can be provided with the minimum of risk.
*Provide a firm understanding of when to apply a particular form of finance, what risks are involved and how they can be counteracted
Now updated to include the UCP600.
*Inspired from the basic entry level training courses that have been developed by major international banks worldwide.
*Will enable MSc Finance students, MBA students and those already in the finance profession to gain an understanding of the basic information and principles underlying the topic under discussion
*Questions with answers, study topics, practical "real world" examples and text with an extensive bibliography and references ensure learning outcomes can be immediately applied
Now updated to include the UCP600.

Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments presents the elements of statistical time series analysis while also addressing recent developments in research design and causal modeling. A distinguishing feature of the book is its integration of design and analysis of time series experiments. Drawing examples from criminology, economics, education, pharmacology, public policy, program evaluation, public health, and psychology, Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments is addressed to researchers and graduate students in a wide range of behavioral, biomedical and social sciences. Readers learn not only how-to skills but, also the underlying rationales for the design features and the analytical methods. ARIMA algebra, Box-Jenkins-Tiao models and model-building strategies, forecasting, and Box-Tiao impact models are developed in separate chapters. The presentation of the models and model-building assumes only exposure to an introductory statistics course, with more difficult mathematical material relegated to appendices. Separate chapters cover threats to statistical conclusion validity, internal validity, construct validity, and external validity with an emphasis on how these threats arise in time series experiments. Design structures for controlling the threats are presented and illustrated through examples. The chapters on statistical conclusion validity and internal validity introduce Bayesian methods, counterfactual causality and synthetic control group designs. Building on the earlier of the authors, Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments includes more recent developments in modeling, and considers design issues in greater detail than any existing work. Additionally, the book appeals to those who want to conduct or interpret time series experiments, as well as to those interested in research designs for causal inference.

Transnational Cooperation: An Issue-Based Approach presents an analysis of transnational cooperation or collective action that stresses basic concepts and intuition. Throughout the book, authors Clint Peinhardt and Todd Sandler identify factors that facilitate and/or inhibit such cooperation. The first four chapters lay the analytical foundations for the book, while the next nine chapters apply the analysis to a host of exigencies and topics of great import. The authors use elementary game theory as a tool for illustrating the ideas put forth in the text. Game theory reminds us that rational actors (for example, countries, firms, or individuals) must account for the responses by other rational actors. The book assumes no prior knowledge of game theory; all game-theoretic concepts and analyses are explained in detail to the reader. Peinhardt and Sandler also employ paired comparisons in illustrating the book's concepts. The book is rich in applications and covers a wide range of topics, including superbugs, civil wars, money laundering, financial crises, drug trafficking, terrorism, global health concerns, international trade liberalization, acid rain, leadership, sovereignty, and many others. Students, researchers, and policymakers alike have much to gain from Transnational Cooperation. It is a crossover book for economics, political science, and public policy.

Principles of International Economic Law provides a comprehensive overview of the central topics in international economic law, with an emphasis on the interplay between the different economic and political interests on both the international and domestic levels. Following recent tendencies, the book sets the classic topics of international economic law, like WTO law, investment protection, commercial law and monetary law in context with aspects of human rights, environmental protection and the legitimate claims of developing countries. The book draws a concise picture of the architecture of international economic law with all its complexities, without getting lost in fragmented details. Providing a perfect introductory text to the field of international economic law, the book thoroughly analyses legal developments within their wider political, economic, or social context. Topics covered range from codes of conduct for multinational enterprises, to the human rights implications of the exploitation of natural resources. The book demonstrates the economic foundations and economic implications of legal frameworks. It puts into profile the often complex relationship between, on the one hand, international standards on liberalization and economic rationality and, on the other, state sovereignty and national preferences. It describes the new forms of economic cooperation which have developed in recent decades, such as the growing number of transnational companies in the private sector, and forms of cooperation between states such as the G8 or G20. This fully updated second edition covers new aspects and developments including the growing importance of corporate social responsibility, mega-regional-agreements like CETA, TTIP, and TPP, trade and investment related aspects of human rights law.

In the first decade of the 21st century, five rising powers (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) formed an exclusive and informal international club, the BRICS. Although neither revolutionaries nor extreme revisionists, the BRICS perceive an ongoing global power shift and contest the West's pretensions to permanent stewardship of the existing economic order. Together they have exercised collective financial statecraft, employing their expanding financial and monetary capabilities for the purpose of achieving larger foreign policy goals. This volume examines the forms and strategies of such collective financial statecraft, and the motivations of each individual government for collaborating through the BRICS club. Their cooperative financial statecraft takes various forms, ranging from pressure for "inside reforms" of either multilateral institutions or global markets, to "outside options" exercised through creating new multilateral institutions or jointly pushing for new realities in international financial markets. To the surprise of many observers, the joint actions of the BRICS are largely successful. Although each member has its unique rationale for collaboration, the largest member, China, controls resources that permit it the greatest influence in intra-club decision-making. The BRICS cooperate due to both common aversions (for example, resentment over being perennial junior partners in global economic and financial governance and resistance to infringements on their autonomy due to U.S. dollar dominance and financial power) and common interests (such as obtaining greater voice in international institutions, as the IMF). The group seeks reforms, influence, and enhanced leadership roles within the liberal capitalist global system. Where blocked, they experiment with parallel multilateral institutions in which they are the dominant rule-makers. The future of the BRICS depends not only on their bargaining power and adjustment to market players, but also on their ability to overcome domestic impediments to sustainable economic growth, the basis for their international influence.

Financial crises have been pervasive for many years. Their frequency in recent decades has been double that of the Bretton Woods Period (1945-1971) and the Gold Standard Era (1880-1993), comparable only to the period during the Great Depression. Nevertheless, the financial crisis that started in the summer of 2007 came as a great surprise to most people. What initially was seen as difficulties in the U.S. subprime mortgage market, rapidly escalated and spilled over first to financial markets and then to the real economy. The crisis changed the financial landscape worldwide and its full costs are yet to be evaluated. One important reason for the global impact of the 2007-2009 financial crisis was massive illiquidity in combination with an extreme exposure of many financial institutions to liquidity needs and market conditions. As a consequence, many financial instruments could not be traded anymore, investors ran on a variety of financial institutions particularly in wholesale markets, financial institutions and industrial firms started to sell assets at fire sale prices to raise cash, and central banks all over the world injected huge amounts of liquidity into financial systems. But what is liquidity and why is it so important for firms and financial institutions to command enough liquidity? This book brings together classic articles and recent contributions to this important field of research. It is divided into five parts. These are (i) liquidity and interbank markets; (ii) the public provision of liquidity and regulation; (iii) money, liquidity and asset prices; (iv) contagion effects; (v) financial crises and currency crises. The aim is to provide a comprehensive coverage of role of liquidity in financial crises.

Trading in oil futures and options is an introduction to price risk management in the worldwide oil industry. With numerous practical examples, it requires no prior knowledge and should be read by everyone involved in the industry.
Although aimed primarily at those new to risk management it will also provide a useful theoretical background to more experienced managers and it will show those in other markets how the oil industry uses futures and other derivatives.
This book concentrates on all the risk management tools available to everyone from crude oil producer to refined product consumer and explains the theory of futures, exchange options and over the counter trading.

From an unpromising start as 'the basket-case' to present day plaudits for its human development achievements, Bangladesh plays an ideological role in the contemporary world order, offering proof that the neo-liberal development model works under the most testing conditions. How were such rapid gains possible in a context of chronically weak governance? The Aid Lab subjects this so-called 'Bangladesh paradox' to close scrutiny, evaluating public policies and their outcomes for poverty and development since Bangladesh's independence in 1971. Countering received wisdom that its gains owe to an early shift to market-oriented economic reform, it argues that a binding political settlement, a social contract to protect against the crises of subsistence and survival, united the elite, the masses, and their aid donors in the wake of the devastating famine of 1974. This laid resilient foundations for human development, fostering a focus on the poorest and most precarious, and in particular on the concerns of women. In chapters examining the environmental, political and socioeconomic crisis of the 1970s, the book shows how the lessons of the famine led to a robustly pro-poor growth and social policy agenda, empowering the Bangladeshi state and its non-governmental organizations to protect and enable its population to thrive in its engagements in the global economy. Now a middle-income country, Bangladesh's role as the world's laboratory for aided development has generated lessons well beyond its borders, and Bangladesh continues to carve a pioneering pathway through the risks of global economic integration and climate change.

The world is emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, more fragmented and further away from the more equal and equitable iteration imagined in 2015 when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceptualised. As we hurtle, at seemingly lightning speed, towards the 2030 deadline to achieve these goals, the urgency is palpable. Although we have certainly strayed further away from the targets, there is still time to act in order to ensure that we inch closer to this vision.

Tshilidzi Marwala paints a stark, and often grim, picture of our current context – one defined by monumental setbacks in the SDGs. Yet, as he carves out each developmental goal and its implications, it is apparent that there are tangible solutions that can be implemented, now. Tshilidzi’s assertion that now is the time to act is backed by intricate and actionable data with a simple mission statement: we must heal the future.

He offers a new narrative that addresses how we can translate the latent potential that exists through technology, innovation and new approaches to leadership and policy-making, to deal with, among others, poverty eradication, joblessness, an education system in crisis, declining economies and food insecurity.

Heal our World is a deep-dive into the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly relating to the African context, and looks toward securing a future in which our divisions are blurred, and our goals almost seem in reach again.

Following the end of the Cold War, the economic reforms in the early 1990s, and ensuing impressive growth rates, India has emerged as a leading voice in global affairs, particularly on international economic issues. Its domestic market is fast-growing and India is becoming increasingly important to global geo-strategic calculations, at a time when it has been outperforming many other growing economies, and is the only Asian country with the heft to counterbalance China. Indeed, so much is India defined internationally by its economic performance (and challenges) that other dimensions of its internal situation, notably relevant to security, and of its foreign policy have been relatively neglected in the existing literature. This handbook presents an innovative, high profile volume, providing an authoritative and accessible examination and critique of Indian foreign policy. The handbook brings together essays from a global team of leading experts in the field to provide a comprehensive study of the various dimensions of Indian foreign policy.

The Uses of Social Investment provides the first study of the welfare state, under the new post-crisis austerity context and associated crisis management politics, to take stock of the limits and potential of social investment. It surveys the emergence, diffusion, limits, merits, and politics of social investment as the welfare policy paradigm for the 21st century, seen through the lens of the life-course contingencies of the competitive knowledge economy and modern family-hood. Featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, the volume revisits the intellectual roots and normative foundations of social investment, surveys the criticisms that have leveled against the social investment perspective in theory and policy practice, and presents empirical evidence of social investment progress together with novel research methodologies for assessing socioeconomic 'rates of return' on social investment. Given the progressive, admittedly uneven, diffusion of the social investment policy priorities across the globe, the volume seeks to address the pressing political question as to whether the social investment turn is able to withstand the fiscal austerity backlash that has re-emerged in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.