This is a groundbreaking volume of theory and strategy on political economy and polity of the twenty-first century, which unites domains of economics, politics, international relations, and the environment in an organic whole. Distilled in concrete terms, it elucidates the enigma of oil in view of the centrality of global social relations and with respect to two major exigencies of our time, namely, world peace, and defense of our ecosystem. A Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy also highlights the need for detachment of US foreign policy from dependence on oil, to reveal rather vividly the illusion of America's power and leadership. This book is a wakeup call to the altered reality in which we live.

The deregulation of domestic financial markets and the capital account in developing countries has frequently been associated with financial turmoil and macro volatility. The book analyzes the experience of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, and Thailand, and draws implications for building development-friendly domestic and international financial architectures. The recommendations are made in light of the key challenge: to design and implement policies able to control macro volatility while building the rules of the financial game that will ultimately contribute to mitigating the sources of aggregate risk.

In its latest Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) projects that without further action the global average surface t- perature would rise by a further 1. 8-4. 0 DegreesC until the end of this century. But even if the rise in temperature could be limited to the lower end of this range, irreversible and possibly catastrophic changes are likely to occur. Consequently, the protection of the earth's atmosphere requires substantial efforts to reduce CO and other green- 2 house gas emissions - especially in countries with very high per capita emissions. To limit the imminent rise in temperature, in the Kyoto-Protocol, the European Union has committed itself to reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases by 8% up to 2008-2012 compared to 1990 levels. Within the EU burden sharing agr- ment, some countries have to achieve even higher emissions reductions. Germany was assigned a reduction target of 21%. The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005 marks a first step towards meting global climate targets, but more ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is needed after 2012, when the Kyoto targets expire. Under German presidency, the EU has committed itself to unilaterally reduce its greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 by 20%. In case a Post- Kyoto agreement can be reached, the EU reduction target would be 30% (CEU, 2007).

This study was motivated by an awareness of the ever-growing importance of technology on productivity and power in the information age. It examines the relationship among national security, economic competition, and technology. An underlying premise is that in an era of diminished military confrontation, economic and technological power are acquiring enhanced importance in national security considerations. Green believes that this is bound to promote closer coordination between government and private industry, but not without tensions. Using both a public policy and an economic focus, his work seeks to clarify the debate on high technology industrial policy and to address the policy question of whether and how government should respond to competitive assaults in strategic industries.

Major theoretical approaches stress the superiority of privately-owned over state-owned companies without addressing how corporate performance should best be measured. This book investigates performance of both private and state-owned, applying factor analysis to compare the two states.

Structural change, economic growth and adequate exchange rate adjustment are key challenges in the context of EU eastern enlargement as are consistent macroeconomic policies. The authors focus on sectoral adjustment across industries in catching-up countries and explain changes in the composition of output this includes new aspects of the Chenery model. They describe and analyze the spatial pattern of specialization and adjustment in many countries. Theoretical and empirical analysis of foreign direct investment, innovation and structural change shed new light on economic dynamics in Old Europe and New Europe. As regards exchange rate dynamics both traditional aspects (such as the Balassa-Samuelson effect) and new approaches to understanding exchange rate developments are presented. Links between exchange rate changes and innovation are particularly emphasized.

Children play a crucial role in today's economy. According to some estimates, children spend or influence the spending of up to $500 billion annually. Journalists, sociologists, and media reformers often present mass marketing toward children as a recent fall from grace, but the roots of children's consumerism -- and the anxieties over it -- date back more than a century. Throughout the twentieth century, a wide variety of groups -- including advertisers, retailers, parents, social reformers, child experts, public schools, and children themselves -- helped to socialize children as consumers and struggled to define the proper boundaries of the market. The essays and documents in this volume illuminate the historical circumstances and cultural conflicts that helped to produce, shape, and legitimize children's consumerism. Focusing primarily on the period from the Gilded Age through the twentieth century, this book examines how and why children and adolescents acquired new economic roles as consumers, and how these new roles both reflected and produced dynamic changes in family life and the culture of capitalism. This volume also reveals how children and adolescents have used consumer goods to define personal identities and peer relationships -- sometimes in opposition to marketers' expectations and parental intentions.

Financial education offers definite and profitable rewards.

Numerous readers of "GOLD AHEAD" have reported unexpected and valuable results from things learned which they had the opportunity to use at once to their financial betterment.

Such results are important. They show that the clearer our insight, the better we take advantage of our opportunities. But, after all, far greater results will come later. Such knowledge can be carried through life always available to help promote the owner's financial welfare.

Plans of study recommended for self development groups, school and college classes, families and individuals follow. A detailed study of each tale with the questions prepared for this purpose is recommended.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, central banks created trillions of dollars of new money, and poured it into financial markets. 'Quantitative Easing' (QE) was supposed to prevent deflation and restore economic growth. But the money didn't go to ordinary people: it went to the rich, who didn't need it. It went to big corporations and banks - the same banks whose reckless lending caused the crash. This led to a decade of stagnation, not recovery. QE failed. In this book, Frances Coppola makes the case for a 'people's QE', in which the money goes directly to ordinary people and small businesses. She argues that it is the fairest and most effective way of restoring crisis-hit economies and helping to solve the long-term challenges of ageing populations, automation and climate change.

This book focuses on the concepts of social capital, corporate social responsibility, and economic development in relation to economic theory of institutions and behavioural economics. It also takes a macroeconomic and empirical approach, on the relationship between social capital, ethical behaviour and economic development.

This is a sequel to the book by Dr. A. Ashimov and his colleagues, Macroeconomic Analysis and Economic Policy Based on Parametric Control. The authors have expanded both the developed mathematical apparatus and the scope of problems and applications stemming from the practice of steering a national economy of a small country in the dynamic environment of the international economic order. The developed theoretical foundation is used in Chapter 1 to suggest a decision support system operating in the framework of state economic policy making. Chapter 2 presents various mathematical models built on the basis of the available statistical data and provides quality assessment of these models. Parametric control problems are being formulated on the basis of these models as problems of mathematical programming, and the obtained solutions are subjected to analyses and interpretations. This is demonstrated by the analysis of the effect of uncontrollable factors on the problem solutions. Chapter 3 is aimed at the modelling and analysis of cyclic phenomena in economics and their structural stability. Chapter 4 presents solutions of specific problems of national economy and analysis and interpretation of their solutions. In summary, the authors formulate comprehensive mathematical models of some critical mechanisms in micro economics previously known only on a qualitative level. They provide vigorous mathematical analysis of the models that justifies their applicability for the formulation of parametric control problems, and the existence of model-based solutions. The complexity of the resultant problems is addressed by the formulation of the appropriate algorithms. The described methodology leads to the development of computer-based decision support systems.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. This book examines the emergence of both financial markets and carbon markets, and provides an in-depth investigation on the fundamental determinants of financial development.

This book shows how the realistic foundations and stylized facts of Post-Keynesian economics give rise to macroeconomic implications that are different from those of received wisdom with regards to employment, output growth, inflation and monetary theory, and offers an alternative to neoclassical economics and its free-market economic policies.

This book assesses the performance of the first Lula government (2002-06) from different perspectives, especially economics, and also politics, history and social policy. While the focus is on Brazil, it also refers to the experiences of similar countries both for comparative purposes and for evidence of the success or otherwise of this 'new' era for Brazil. The contributors include some of the most prominent economists in Brazil, making this book a valuable resource for both macroeconomists and specialists on Latin America.

Government Deficit And Fiscal Reform In Japan presents a theoretical-based comprehensive analysis of economic consequences of government deficits and fiscal reform in Japan. Particular emphasis is directed at developing tools that can be applied to theoretically and empirically clarify essential economic concerns in Japan such as generational incidence of fiscal reform and a growing dependence on government bonds for covering financial deficits. This book evaluates the recent movement of Japanese fiscal reform and government deficit.

The authors first summarize fiscal policy in 1990's. Then, they move on to investigate the macroeconomic impact of government dept and the sustainability problem, and then discuss benefits and costs of public investment. The political aspect of fiscal reconstruction movements in Japan is also examined. Finally, the authors investigate the behavior of central government's control on local governments' debt issuance and its effect on the real activities of local governments. This book points out that the long-run structural fiscal reform is more important than the short-run Keynesian fiscal policy in Japan.

The impacts of climate change on economic development have the potential to be unevenly distributed around the globe. This book focuses on South East Asia with respect to the economics of climate change and the relationship between climate change and economic development. The book examines the region's vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, forecasts the environmental and economic outcomes for the region arising from its vulnerability and also the opportunities these factors provide for policy actions towards alleviating climate change vulnerability, particularly through adaptation.

Structural Funds: Growth, Employment and the Environment is a book on the role of transfers designed for assisting sustainable development of less developed regions within the European Union. The book places special emphasis on the future path of the Greek economy and discusses likely outcomes -related directly to the impact of these transfers- in: Growth and macroeconomic convergence Employment in key sectors of the economy Energy demand and its environmental aspect The book uses macroeconomic modelling and modern applied econometric techniques to analyze these issues, thus offering a coherent methodological framework for their presentation. To this extent, Structural Funds: Growth, Employment and the Environment can serve to: Academic researchers and economists in recipient countries who can gain a better understanding of how national authorities can best design and implement the strategic allocation and utilization of these funds to maximize the benefits for the domestic economy Policymakers in the European Union by offering a sound and rigorously elaborated treatment which can be applied as an estimation and comparison tool for the effects of Structural Funds both at the national and the international level Economists in Eastern European countries which are at the pre-accession stage and will be eligible for this type of transfers in the near future.

Simulation methods are revolutionizing the practice of applied economic analysis. This volume collects eighteen chapters written by leading researchers from prestigious research institutions the world over. The common denominator of the papers is their relevance for applied research in environmental and resource economics. The topics range from discrete choice modeling with heterogeneity of preferences, to Bayesian estimation, to Monte Carlo experiments, to structural estimation of Kuhn-Tucker demand systems, to evaluation of simulation noise in maximum simulated likelihood estimates, to dynamic natural resource modeling. Empirical cases are used to show the practical use and the results brought forth by the different methods.

This volume contains new important research on banking institutions and performance in transition economies, economic growth and inequality and exchange rate economics and international finance. Topics include exchange rate exposure of firms, the relationship between monetary policy and house price shocks, economic interdependence of south-eastern European countries, China's exchange rate policy and economic growth, inequality and financial sector. Among the questions answered are: Is exchange rate volatility a significant determinant of average firm level exposure? Can we identify shocks that can be interpreted as loose monetary shocks, low inflation shocks, banks credit shocks and house price shocks? What are the main factors driving the relationship between banks and companies in transition economies? Does it matter for forecasting GDP growth whether the economy is in tranquil times or during a period of turbulence? Has economic growth played any role in reducing inequality in South Africa? Are global bilateral investment holdings characterized by strong persistence? And finally, Is China's international competitiveness fluctuates in consistency with PPP equilibrium?

EU membership involves political and economic reforms
which influence financial markets in the new member states.
This study empirically explores and quantifies the effects of
EU accession on the risk and return of equity markets in eight
Central and Eastern European markets joining the EU in 2004.
The study also incorporates a review of how the influence of
macroeconomic variables and the level of integration with
global and European markets change as a result of
EU membership.
Based on empirical tests using weekly data over ten years,
this study concludes that EU membership results in a
significant decline in equity market volatility and a
significant increase in risk-adjusted, but not absolute,
equity returns. Furthermore, the study suggests that equity
markets in new EU member states become increasingly
influenced by global rather than local macroeconomic
factors after the EU accession and that the level of integration
with global markets increases.

"Reverse Licensing" evaluates the transfer of technology to the U.S. as an alternative growth strategy for both small- and medium-sized U.S. manufacturing firms which need new and competitive technology and for foreign firms which are anxious to enter the U.S. market but lack the required resources for export and/or foreign direct investment. The first theoretical research on international technology licensing from the U.S. licensees' standpoint, this book examines reverse licensing as an alternative to reverse investment. In addition, a sample of 120 U.S. manufacturing firms which have actually utilized reverse licensing is used for empirical and statistical analysis.

Globalizing Responsibility: The Political Rationalities of Ethical Consumption presents an innovative reinterpretation of the forces that have shaped the remarkable growth of ethical consumption. * Develops a theoretically informed new approach to shape our understanding of the pragmatic nature of ethical action in consumption processes * Provides empirical research on everyday consumers, social networks, and campaigns * Fills a gap in research on the topic with its distinctive focus on fair trade consumption * Locates ethical consumption within a range of social theoretical debates -on neoliberalism, governmentality, and globalisation * Challenges the moralism of much of the analysis of ethical consumption, which sees it as a retreat from proper citizenly politics and an expression of individualised consumerism

This text offers detailed analysis and informed comment on the future of emerging economic policies. It is essential reading for all postgraduates and scholars looking for expert discussion and debate on the issues surrounding economic policy.

Dealing with economic issues related to income and wealth among individuals, regions and countries, this book presents a general theory with endogenous capital, knowledge and preference changes for an economic system with heterogeneous households, multiple sectors, multiple regions and multiple countries.

Research in Labor Economics 44 takes another in-depth and focussed look at Inequality. This time however it is tied in with well-being of the workforce. Research in Labor Economics volume 44 contains new and innovative research on the causes and consequences of inequality and well-being of the work force.