The world economy is at a cross road: it can either widen and deepen international integration, within and between different areas, or be tempted by neo-protectionism. Which road should the international economy take? Which way will it take? The need to reform the present international monetary system has been almost continuously discussed since the collapse of the Bretton Woods System in August 1971, and even earlier, and it has found renewed interest since the Mexican financial crisis in early 1995. Despite the successful completion of the Uruguay Round in December 1993, many international trade problems remain: many sectors were not included in the agreement, antidumping action and safeguards are still possible, and many trade problems of developing and former communist countries have not been fully addressed. This book analyses this situation by first focusing on the problem of international financial stability and the relationship between national economic policies. It then focuses on the European monetary union within the context of the international monetary system. Finally, the development of international trade is examined within an endogenous growth framework.

This book studies the impact of different sources of external finance on growth and development in different country contexts. An important finding of the study is that 'success' or 'failure' in the productive use of external and domestic financial resources cannot be explained on the basis of single factors such as external shocks or 'bad' versus 'sound' policies. Rather, they are outcomes of complex interactions between changes in exogenous factors (such as fluctuations in external finance and trade shocks), existing economic structures and the responses to shocks by domestic public and private sector agents. This finding also implies that there are no recipes in economic policy-making which are generally applicable; the 'best' policy has to be designed specifically for each country.

Providing an empirical look at the Jamaican economy, this careful study examines the impact of the (International Monetary Fund) approach to economic management in the 1980s and compares it to the non-IMF policies of the 1970s. Opening with an overview of the structure of Jamaica's economy, the book discusses the results of the economic policies of the 1970s and 1980s. Demonstrating that Jamaica's income is among the most unequally distributed in the world, the author explores how the policies of various governments affected income distribution, focusing on whether non-IMF policies had a different effect than IMF policies. He concludes with a discussion of how inflation and fiscal policies influence particularly vulnerable groups, which include children, the elderly, and much of the labor force.

Unemployment is growing. Crime is on the increase. The currency has fallen. The initial euphoria following South Africa's transition to democracy is waning as people become disillusioned with the state of the economy and government's lack of delivery on polices and promises. Where does South Africa go from here? It is not all doom and gloom and there is hope for the future. Anthony Ginsberg offers solutions to the fundamental problem of rising unemployment, crime, homelessness and poverty, all excerbated by high taxes, draconian tariffs and stagnant foreign investment. He encourages us to become informed and aware before we criticise. This book is aimed at everyone interested in contributing to South Africa' s future as a prosperous nation in the benefit of all her citizens.

In 2000, the European Union adopted an overall strategy to effect transition to a knowledge economy. After coordinating the preparation of the Lisbon European Summit which launched this ten year strategy, Maria Joao Rodrigues provides a unique insight into the renewal of European economic and social policies. European Policies for a Knowledge Economy explores the information society and research and education policies which are being combined to build a stronger knowledge base, and enhance the growth potential of Europe via economic reforms, enterprise and innovation policies. The author ascertains that the European social model should be reformed by investing in people, improving welfare provision and fighting new forms of social exclusion. She goes on to argue that macroeconomic policies will help to advance these structural changes. The critical issues and underpinning debates that are highlighted include, amongst others: * reforms targeting the creation of more growth potential * macroeconomic policies which vitalise employment and structural change * policies for the information society aimed at improving standards of living * new priorities for national education policies towards lifelong learning * reforms of the labour markets for more and better jobs * implications of the Lisbon Strategy for the institutional reform of the European Union. Illustrating the challenges of a new strategic goal for European policies, this highly accessible book will be essential reading for a wide-ranging audience - scholars, public administrators, business people and anyone else with an interest in European policies and their implications for national agendas.

There are many proposals for stimulating economic growth and lowering unemployment, and though they sometimes make full employment a goal, none of them except the plan highlighted in this well-researched book can make it a promise. John Pierson's Economic Performance Insurance (EPI) plan is the fruit of his lifelong campaign to tackle the New Deal's unsolved problem - involuntary unemployment. EPI avoids the pitfall of relying too heavily on government as the employer of last resort by guaranteeing a continuously adequate market for the products of private enterprise. The budget costs that may be incurred from insuring such a guarantee would be offset by the budget savings resulting from the drastic reduction in the burdensome social costs of welfare, drugs, and crime, which are directly linked to the problem of unemployment. Pierson cogently argues that EPI, or some similar plan, is not only desirable but necessary in the coming century. Eliminating unemployment is the key to tackling a host of other pressing issues, such as welfare reform, poverty, job discrimination, disarmament, and balancing our aid-and-trade relationship with Third World countries. EPI is not a utopian scheme but an eminently practical solution which, with political leadership and vision, could be enacted almost immediately.

Since World War II, America's economic landscape has undergone a profound transformation. The effects of this change can be seen in the decline of the traditional industrial heartland and the emergence of new high tech industrial complexes in California, Texas, Boston, and Florida. The Rise ofthe Gunbelt demonstrates that this economic restructuring is a direct result of the rise of the military industrial complex (MIC) and a wholly new industry based on defense spending and Pentagon contacts. Chronicling the dramatic growth of this vast complex, the authors analyze the roles played by the shift from land and sea warfare to aerial combat in World War II, the Cold War, the birth of aerospace and the consequent radical transformation of the airplane industry, and labor and major defense corporations such as Boeing, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas. Exploring the reasons for the shifts in defense spending--including the role of lobbyists and the Department of Defense in awarding contracts--and the effects on regional and national economic development, this comprehensive study reveals the complexities of the MIC.

The Marxist theory of capitalist growth and transformation has often been shrouded in obscurity, either by endless recapitulation of Marx's texts or by excessive use of mathematical formalism. This short book presents an integrated and rigorous view of capitalist development - technical change, class relations, trends in the profit rate and share, cyclical and long-term crisis - in a form that is accessible to serious readers with or without prior training in economics or familiarity with Marxist thought.

After the transition to free economy, governments of the former Soviet republics realized that in spite of becoming a part of the shaky international economic order, their individual economic success can be assured by rational national economic policies that in addition to the fundamental law of supply and demand govern the economic mechanism sensitive to both external and internal phenomena. Originally published in Russian and now translated in English, this book by Dr. A. Ashimov and his colleagues offers a novel theory providing a numerically-justifiable approach to the solution of major economy control problems that are faced by virtually every government in the world. First, they developed and validated numerous mathematical models describing complex interactions between economic and social factors thus enabling the decision makers to foresee the outcomes of their decisions. Second, on the basis of these models the authors formulated the appropriate control problems that could be interpreted as achieving the transition to the desirable economic regimes and maintaining these regimes in spite of initial conditions and both external and internal perturbations. It should be noted that due to the inherent uncertainty introduced by the use of statistical models, the nonlinearity of the underlying phenomena and the intention to obtain the optimal solutions, the solution process becomes quite intricate and calls for the application of the most sophisticated techniques offered in advanced control theory. The authors utilized the most instrumental statistical model validation techniques; they established sufficient conditions for the existence of optimal solutions of the relevant control problems; and they skillfully combined the applications of the phase space formalism, system stability analysis, and the methods of functional analysis. Finally, they developed algorithms resulting in the optimal problem solutions, thus offering economic policy makers a dependable decision support tool. Macroeconomic Analysis and Economic Policy Based on Parametric Control offers a novel, highly mathematical approach to the solution of very realistic economy control problems. It presents a good example of the application of mathematical modeling, advanced control theory, and model-based decision making that could be adopted by researchers and graduate students specializing in economics, control, and relevant areas of research, addressing their own research problems.

This book examines the numerous aspects of exchange rates and the dynamics of macroeconomics, focusing on the PPP puzzle, volatility, levels, with an exploration of the real exchange rate misalignment of the Central European countries single equation approach, an examination of the real equilibrium exchange rate in China, exchange rate dynamics and pass-through effects in Russia and Hungary, and structural shocks on economies.

This book traces the growth of capitalism in South East Asia between 1870 and 1941, a crucial element in understanding contemporary economic and political developments in the region. It focuses on three questions. Why was indigenous capitalism so weak in colonial South East Asia? What were the institutional weaknesses in an otherwise dominant Chinese capitalist class, and why did it fail to transform itself into a modern industrial elite? What was the impact of western colonialism and Japanese economic penetration on South East Asia's prospects for achieving sustainable economic growth?

A collective effort by American and North African scholars, this volume provides a comprehensive analysis of recent economic, social, and political events in North Africa. It shows how the Maghrebi states and societies are currently at a very important junction as they try to adjust to different ways of doing things in new regional and international orders. Using a political economy approach, the book focuses on a series of issues raised by the interaction between economic crisis and reform on the one hand, and political change or stagnation on the other. The author and his contributors provide a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of particular value to scholars and researchers of the Arab world in general and North Africa in particular.

This book presents a theoretically-based comprehensive analysis of macroeconomic consequences of fiscal policy using a popular economic model: the overlapping generations growth model. A wide range of essential public finance issues is analyzed, including the effects of tax reform on dynamic efficiency, positive and normative effects of public spending, considerations of taxes on fixed assets and monetary holdings, and sustainability of deficits. A unique approach is applied in the study of public finance: one expected to generate substantial interest among current graduate students and active researchers.

On an unprecedented scale, nations at all income levels and across the political spectrum have initiated privatization programs over the past twenty years. In the course of this privatization movement, microeconomic efficiency arguments have become the standard justification for the divestment of public assets. This book presents an alternate view and argues that short-term macroeconomic considerations are often the true motive behind privatization programs. Why Do Government Divest? The Macroeconomics of Privatization is a comprehensive treatment of the macroeconomic issues of privatization. In addition to reviewing topics in economic growth and efficiency, this book explores the fiscal, monetary, balance-of-payments, and employment aspects of privatization. Several diverse case studies illustrate how the pursuit of such short-term political objectives can reduce the benefits of privatization.

The primary objective of this book is to advance the state of the art in specifying and ?tting to data structural multi-sector dynamic macroeconomic models, and empirically implementing them. The fundamental construct upon which we build is the Ramsey model. A most attractive feature of this model is the insights it provides into the dynamics of an economy in tr- sition to long-run equilibrium. With some exceptions, Ramsey models are highly aggregated - typically single sector models. However, interest often lies in understanding the forces of e- nomic growth across multiple sectors of an economy and on how policy impacts likely play out over time. Such analyses call for moredisaggregatedmodelsthatcanbe?ttocountryorregional data.Thisbookshowshowto: (i)extendthebasicmodeltom- tiple sectors, (ii) how to adapt the basic model to account for policy instruments, and (iii) 't the model to data, and obtain equilibrium values both forward and backward in time from the data points to which the model is initially 't

"Managing the World Economy," while recognizing how much has been achieved since the start of the Industrial Revolution, challenges the view that much better results could not have been attained. It argues that faster economic growth and much better use of the available human talent could have been in the past, and should be in the future, achievable targets. The reasons for the performance of the world economy over the past 200 years being well below the achievable optimum stem mainly from misconceptions about macroeconomic policy, which the book sets out to explain and correct.

The International Papers in Political Economy (IPPE) series explores the latest developments in political economy. This eighth volume focuses on the financial crisis currently gripping the eurozone, examining the root causes and outcomes and the uncertain future of the euro. The volume provides an overview of the crisis and its possible solutions, with a sharp focus on debt sustainability. Individual countries are also analysed in great depth, with four more detailed studies of the economic climate in Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Greece, exploring the implications of the crisis for economic policies of these countries.

This book examines the many economic and budgetary aspects of aging, and of an aging population, exploring the welfare state and incentives to retire, the macroeconomic and fiscal implications of aging and the long-run effects of government spending on the elderly. There is also an examination of the changing patterns of retirement behaviour, economic well-being and gender disparities among the elderly, the interaction between private and public provisioning, and aspects of retirement security.

The essays in this book examine Zimbabwe's macroeconomic and structural adjustment experiences since independence. Part One analyzes the impact on economic growth, inflation, employment and labor markets. Part Two deals with financial liberalization, and the financial turmoil and currency crisis experienced in the wake of reforms. Part Three examines trade liberalization and its impact on investment and income distribution. Part Four gives sectoral perspectives on the agricultural, manufacturing, and health sectors.

This book offers a collection of studies on various organizations' efficiency, criteria for evaluating efficiency, together with tools and methods for measuring efficiency. The articles included present an interdisciplinary look at efficiency, its essence and the principles of its measurement. They represent an attempt to seek the conceptual boundaries of efficiency, i.e. to clarify this abstract and multidimensional concept including its relation to innovation, competitiveness and intellectual capital. The contributions also identify a broad spectrum of conditions for achieving efficiency in various types of organizations and systems (e.g. health care, hybrid organizations, non-profit organizations), representing various industries (e.g. insurance, banking, tourism, agriculture).

Seeing the 1980s as a period when the rich grew richer but the poor poorer, the essays in this volume explore the disparities in wealth and income, comparing the fortunes of American households with those in other industrialized nations. Demographic and structural changes, saving behaviour, earning gaps, gender, education and race are analyzed in these essays, and methodological and measurement issues explored. The book also discusses policies to counteract growing inequality and proposes remedies.

Since opening to foreign investment in 1979, China has emerged as the leading investment site for multinational corporations. Remade in China looks beyond the macroeconomic effects of China's investment boom to analyze how foreign investors from the US, Japan, and other nations are shaping China's legal, labor, and business reforms. Wilson draws on interviews with nearly 100 foreign and local managers, attorneys, workers, and members of the business community to explain why Chinese laborers and firms have gravitated toward foreign models, especially US businesses and their institutions.
Wilson uses the term "state-guided globalization" to describe how China has used foreign engagement to advance its domestic reform objectives and to enhance its role in international society. Rather than undermining state power, globalization actually has allowed China's state to push through difficult labor and legal reforms. Wilson concludes that Chinese policy makers drew lessons from foreign investors and foreign legal experts on how to introduce difficult labor market reforms in its state-owned enterprises and how to promote rule of law.
Remade in China examines globalization and foreign investment in a different light, showing how these developments have helped to chart China's entry into international society. China's WTO accession agreement and international norms have established parameters by which to judge Chinese legal and business reforms. Although China's rise is a grave concern to the world, Remade in China asserts that Chinese leaders now see compliance with international rules as a means to secure more investment and to enhance their international legitimacy. Wilson provides a lucid and insightful analysis of how foreign and domestic actors, from political leaders to average laborers, have contributed to remaking China's institutions.

The process of globalization can be seen in the increase of: trade interdependence, the importance of global multinational corporations, mobility and volatility of capital flows (with dangers demonstrated by the recent Mexican crisis). This globalization creates both dangers and new opportunities, both winners and losers. The parallel growth of regional blocs is equally hazardous, particularly for countries left outside the regional blocs. The book, with contributions by eminent experts, describes the impact of both globalization and regionalization and the relationship between these two dominant trends.

The rising importance of China and its impact on the world economy has attracted massive interest worldwide. This book examines a wide range of issues related to China and its relationship with the world economy, focusing on its succesful development experiences and how its rise may affect the rest of the world in the coming decades.

Can the experience of the 1980s in Latin America be analyzed and evaluated to shed light on prospects for the 1990s? The central objective of this volume is to survey the development experience of the Latin American region in the 1980s and explore prospects for the coming decade. In this context, themes of crucial importance for the region are examined, including democratic consolidation, income distribution, the environment, hyperinflation, and the debt problem. Although socioeconomic and political aspects are emphasized, issues of equity and the environment are of special importance. Case studies of Peru, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, and Cuba provide fresh information on these issues in specific countries. The book focuses on the problem of development at a critical juncture in the evolution of the region. Not surprisingly, the contributors express differing points of view, but have in common the sense of the urgency of development problems that face Latin America.

Central issues concerning the region's economy are the focus in the first part of the book. In the second part, key issue areas for the future are discussed. Of central concern in an exploration of the prospects for Latin America is the sustainability and improvement of democratization which proceeded in the 1980s. On the whole, the authors are not optimistic. The immense economic difficulties faced by the region--the debt overhang, the large and continuing overflow of financial and real resources, hyperinflation in some countries--will not be easy to manage. Although there are no guarantees that income distribution will be improved, among the positive developments foreseen for the 1990s are improved economic management, the addressing of environmental issues, and greater attention to issues of women's rights. This book should serve as a useful and timely guide to a complex region for both students and policymakers.