Offering a retrospective view of how the system operated in Communist Czechoslovakia, this book is an important voice in the discussion about the systems of central planning. The unique features of the book include in-depth research comprising both archival records and analyses of around 75 interviews conducted with period managers across a wide range of management levels. They provided evidence of pervasive inefficiency resulting in appalling economic outcomes. The book begins with a background to the politico-sociological system in Czechoslovakia and proceeds to describe the Marxist-Leninist ideological foundation of the regime, which underpinned the formal setting of the Czechoslovak model. These initial chapters set the context for the subsequent analysis of the real functioning of the system. The book explores the economic outcomes that must be understood as a natural consequence of the ways in which this system operated. The author finishes by answering the important question of why centrally planned economies trailed behind the market economies. The book's unique use of the interview research format brings a vivid, close-up view of the everyday economic life in the centrally planned system. This will be a valuable contribution to the discussion surrounding the day-to-day reality of the system, which was found to be more colourful than is generally deemed. The book will appeal to both economic historians and students of economic history. A warning against repeating past mistakes, this book will also be of interest to those seeking a greater knowledge of the realities and consequences of centrally planned economies.

The book presents and further develops basic principles and concepts in international finance and open economy macroeconomics to make them more relevant for emerging and developing economies (EDEs). The volume emphasises the necessity of greater knowledge of context as populous Asian economies integrate with world markets, as well as the rapidly changing nature of the area due to rethinking after the global financial crisis. It addresses a host of themes, including key issues such as exchange rate economics, macroeconomic policy in an open economy, analytical frameworks for and experience of EDEs after liberalisation, the international financial system, currency and financial crises, continuing risks and regulatory response. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of economics, especially in macroeconomics, business and finance and development studies.

This book examines the critical themes of employment, growth and development to focus on challenges and opportunities, both old and new, in the contemporary world economy. The essential theme that runs through the book is that there is a strong relationship not only between employment and growth, but also between employment and development, where the causation runs in both directions. The author shows how employment transforms economic growth into meaningful development by providing livelihoods and incomes to people. While the book is primarily concerned with developing countries, it considers industrialized countries as points of reference or comparison, since the latter are a large part of an interdependent world, in which problems faced by the two sets of countries are frequently connected and sometimes common. The ten essays in this volume also provide a macroeconomic analysis of development problems situated in the wider context of a changing world economy, exploring possible solutions, to understand the implications for countries and for people. A timely collection by an eminent economist, this book will be useful to teachers, students and researchers in economics, especially those interested in macroeconomics, political economy and development studies.

China 's spectacular growth and poverty reduction has been accompanied by growing inequality which threatens the social compact and thus the political basis for economic growth. Chinese policy makers have realized the importance of the problem and have launched a series of investigations and policy initiatives to address the issues. The regional dimension of inequality rural/urban and inland/coastal dominates in a country as large as China, and especially with its particular history. Not surprisingly, regional inequality has come to loom large in the policy debate in China.

The policy debate has been informed by, and to some extent instigated by, a parallel analytical literature which has quantified the magnitude of the problem and identified recent trends, offered explanations based on rigorous analysis, and proposed policy interventions in light of the facts and understanding. Through a series of articles which have been published in leading journals, the editors have been involved in a systematic investigation into the nature and evolution of regional inequality in China for over a decade.

China's economy, which continues to grow rapidly, is having an ever greater impact on the rest of the world. This impact is likely to be felt increasingly in the financial sector where China's foreign currency reserves, fuelled by the huge trade surplus, are a very significant factor in world financial markets. This book, based on extensive original research by a range of leading experts, examines many key aspects of current reforms in China's financial sector and China's increasing integration into the international economy. Subjects covered amongst many others include: the derivatives market in China; stock market liberalisation; the internationalization of accounting standards in China; the impact of international foreign direct investment by Chinese firms; and a discussion of the likely long-term economic effects of the Beijing Olympic Games.

China's economy continues to grow at a great rate, with important consequences for China's society and environment, as well as for the wider world economy. Reforms are being undertaken in many areas within China, both to encourage continued economic growth and also to mitigate the adverse effects of growth on society and the environment. This book, based on extensive original research by a wide range of leading experts, examines many key issues connected to China's economic growth and its impact. Subjects covered amongst many others include: growth and inequality; labour market reforms; technological innovations and their impact; employment, unemployment and training; and the search for economic development that is ecologically sustainable.

General Equilibrium Theory, which became the dominating paradigm after the Second World War, is founded on the postulated existence, uniqueness, and stability of equilibrium in economic processes. Since then, the concept has come under sustained attack from all points of the heterodox compass, from Austrian economists to Marxists.

Partly in response to these pressures, mainstream economics has changed and moved away from the rigid framework of GET. Nonetheless, economists are continually arguing in terms of equilibrium and the existence of a variety of equilibrium concepts continues to stir controversy.

The contributions in this book, which include articles from Tony Lawson, Ivor Grattan-Guinness and Roger Backhouse, highlight current notions of equilibrium in economics and provide a guide to understanding the links between economic theory and economic reality.

This book is the result of a workshop on the effects of globalization on Asian and European countries, organized by Marc Uzan and the Austrian Ministry of Finance in April 2006. Bringing together key academics, policy makers and private market participants, these chapters cover the current debate of global imbalances and the way to resolve the disequilibrium in the international monetary system and understand the need for international cooperation among the different monetary areas of the world. Various important points come out of the book; firstly there is an emphasis on the difficulties for Europeans and Asians to find common positions vis-a-vis global imbalances due to different exchange rate regimes throughout Asia preventing similar responses. The role of the US dollar as a world currency is also discussed, as well as EU regional monetary cooperation and an analysis of the Euro. The implementation of economic policy to redress global imbalances is also considered, as is the emergence of China on the world stage and its industrial development projects. These questions and the way the international financial community will resolve them, will have a huge impact in the functioning of the international monetary system. The current unwinding of the global imbalances that we are facing with the global market disruptions since August 2007, demonstrate that a new geography of international finance is emerging between Europe and Asia. The book addresses also the way that a dialog in the field in monetary arena needs to be structured between Europe and Asia.

This unique and comprehensive 'modern guide' presents state-of-the-art surveys covering the main areas of macroeconomics and economic policy by well-known post-Keynesian authors. The chapters explore intriguing and important issues including: - the history and methods of post-Keynesian economics - money, credit and central banks - growth and income distribution - post-Keynesian macroeconomics as an alternative to the New Consensus - the macroeconomics of unemployment and labor market issues - European economic policies - open economy models of distribution and growth - international monetary and global economics - financialisation and financial crisis. This well-documented book will prove to be the essential guide for researchers and graduate students in macroeconomics and political economy. It will also prove inspiring to a wider audience interested in modern Keynesian macroeconomics. Contributors:P. Arestis, R.A. Blecker, A.K. Dutt, G.A. Dymski, E. Hein, H. Herr, D.R. Howell, M. Lavoie, O. Onaran, E. Stockhammer

This title was first published in 2003. Korea has had considerable success in developing its high technology industries and these have become significant employers in this region. By analysing the situation in Korea, this book explores the effects of dynamic externalities on the growth of regional employment in the high-technology industries. It puts forward innovative simultaneous equation models to test three sets of hypotheses related to so-called 'Jacobs', and 'MAR' effects, differentiated by firm size, organizational type and product. Clear evidence is found for endogenous technological progress marked by positive feedback, especially for small firms in diversified high-technology enclaves. There are technological externalities associated with knowledge spillovers, and local employment has indirect effects on employment growth via dynamic externalities. The implications for local economic development policy are outlined in a concluding section. -

This title was first published in 2003. This prominent and commanding volume collates the best research available on China's agricultural trade. Critically analyzing the agricultural supply and demand factors that underlie trade patterns such as agricultural productivity and policy, it also explores China's agricultural trade and policy including implications for China and elsewhere. Long term issues and productivity growth are taken into consideration, as are specific issues such as WTO accession. The slate of authors combines the leading established scholars in the field and the best of the next generation, including those from China and the West.

Originally published in 1989. ECESIS consists of 51 regional econometric models (one for each state and the District of Columbia) and a multiregional demographic model. Its distinguishing feature is the linking of sophisticated demographic accounts with sophisticated structural econometric models. This book, looking at how strong the interactions are between population dynamics and economic activity, determines to what extent the simultaneous economic-demographic interregional model provides improved projection and simulation properties over regional economic and demographic models used independently of one another.

The Encyclopedia of Macroeconomics is an authoritative and invaluable reference source on macroeconomics, which embraces definitions of terms and concepts, conflicting ideological approaches and the contributions of major thinkers. Comprehensive in scope, it contains over 300 short entries and more than 100 specially commissioned main entries from an internationally renowned group of scholars. The alphabetically ordered entries will be useful both as a basic reference source and a provocative stimulus for further reading. The Encyclopedia will soon be established as a leading reference source on macroeconomics that will both enlighten students and be highly valued by scholars and teachers of economics.

The contributors to this edited volume explore the effects of various development strategies and associated macroeconomic policies on women's well-being and progress towards gender equality. Detailed analyses of major UN reports on gender reveal the different approaches to assessing absolute and relative progress for women and the need to take into account the specifics of policy regimes when making such assessments. The book argues that neoliberal policies, especially the liberalization of trade and investment, make it difficult to close gender wage and earnings gaps, and new gender-sensitive policies need to be devised. These and other issues are all examined in more detail in several gendered development histories of countries from Latin America and Asia.

The book explores whether fiscal policies can secure full employment without inflation, one of the key questions in economics after Keynes.
Part 1, General Theory of Public Finance and Fiscal Policy, discusses Ends and Means in economic policy. The results of this ends-means analysis are applied to fiscal policy. Part 2, Microeconomics, deals with the impact of fiscal measures on the behaviour of the individual household, firm and other organization, concentrating on the effects on consumption and saving. Part 3, Macroeconomics, considers how the problem of keeping the price-level constant and the labour market in equilibrium at full employment may be solved by means of fiscal and monetary measures. Problems connected with the volume of investments and the balance of payments are considered simultaneously.

Erudite, accessible and lucidly written, this book provides a stimulating introduction to the careers and main published works of the Nobel Memorial Laureates in Economics. It will prove to be an invaluable reference book on key figures in economics and their path-breaking insights. The vignettes should also encourage the reader to sample some of the Laureates' original works and gain a better understanding of the context in which new ideas were first put forward. Original features of the book include: * a foreword by Professor Mark Blaug * a review of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, including a biographical guide to potential future winners * a table summarising the Laureates': year and country of birth; university and year of their first and higher degrees; their affiliation at the time of the award; broad field of study; and Prize citation * comprehensive individual entries on each of the Laureates (including their photographs), covering their careers and main published works * a glossary of selected associations, awards, institutions and societies. Written primarily for undergraduate and postgraduate students, this is also a book that many teachers and lecturers will want on their shelves. It will prove to be an invaluable reference tool for anyone wanting to understand how past events and individuals have helped mould contemporary economi

This two-volume set offers an extraordinary precis of classic articles on the general equilibrium theory of incomplete markets.The first volume presents the contributions to the theory of incomplete markets over a finite horizon. Many of the papers focus on two-period economies. This setting provides the simplest version of the incomplete-market model. However, the study of incomplete markets has evolved from finite to infinite horizon economies. The second volume examines the interesting new technical and conceptual issues that arise from the exploration of incomplete market economies over an open-ended future. The editors have written new, authoritative introductions to each volume, which provide a comprehensive overview and informative discussion of the issues.

First published in 1998, this volume focuses on the special category of countries popularly referred to as 'transition economies' through an analysis of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and their role in Asian economies, with a view to assessing whether they could or should provide a model for African countries. The present volume explores the institutional peculiarities displayed by 'transition economies'. These are economies which are undergoing a comprehensive and fundamental societal transformation with a view to creating a utopian communist society within the frame of a centrally administered economy, then a pluralistic society based on a market economy and the rule of law. Much of the debate on the economic performance of African LCD's has focused on informal sector activities or on the imperative to achieve structural adjustment. By highlighting instead the challenges facing two of the least successful among the African economies - Ethiopia and Tanzania, both of which share a socialist past - this book moves beyond the above issues. It argues that institutional adjustment is critical to the prospects for success in developing transition economies. As such the book investigates the transaction costs environment within which small-scale industrial activities are set. By drawing extensively on the Asian experience, (predominantly China and Vietnam but also India and Taiwan), it identifies sources of transaction costs by examining not only the transactional disadvantages of small-scale production, but also the past and present sources of institutional inefficiency.

First published in 1943, this work contains five interconnected essays presenting the author's renowned additions to the business cycle theory. Written by one of the most distinguished economists of the 20th century, this work will be essential reading for students and scholars of the history of economic thought, monetary theory and macroeconomics.

This impressive collection from some of todaya (TM)s leading distributional analysts provides an overview a wide range of economic, statistical and sociological relationships that have been opened up for scientific study by the work of two turn-of-the-20th-century economists: C. Gini and M. O. Lorenz.

The authors include such figues as Barry Arnold and Frank Cowell and the resulting book deserves its place on the bookshelf of serious mathematical economists everywhere.

The search for the key to economic growth has proved elusive and contentious. This book uses new empirical evidence to propose an integrated approach for achieving strong industrial and technological capabilities to form the basis for regional and national economic development.The authors use the experiences of countries in Europe and Latin America to show that socio-technical constituencies play a fundamental role in innovation based economic development at both a regional and national level. By blending insights from the industrial cluster and national innovation system approaches with the socio-technical constituencies approach, the authors successfully integrate long standing debates such as agency structure and micro-meso-macro analysis. The work is based both on a theoretical effort to build a new framework for economic growth, and on a number of concrete experiences from a number of countries in Europe and Latin America. Knowledge Flows in National Systems of Innovation will prove essential reading for scholars of innovation, technology and economic development.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other statistics based on national income accounting are ubiquitous but rarely understood today. GDP has been criticized for many reasons, including not reflecting well-being, leaving out the costs of environmental pollution, and not counting unpaid work, but on purely economic terms it has been mostly accepted as an indicator of economic performance. In recent decades, however, GDP has diverged dramatically from economic trends such as employment and median income. This book argues that GDP is flawed even as a narrow economic indicator, and traces the problem to the way financial services are measured. The first part of the book is a political history of the practice of national accounting from its beginning in the mid-17th century to present day, and explores how such income estimates were constructed for political reasons. The Financialization of GDP presents the practice of estimating national income as a historically and political contingent craft - driven by power and not only theory - culminating in the rise of the financial sector and the concomitant inclusion of financial services in GDP in 1993.. The second part of the book focuses on the treatment of financial services in national accounting and develops an adjusted measure of output (Final Domestic Product or FDP) - which treats financial revenues as intermediate inputs (or costs) to the economy as a whole. The final part of the book explores the empirical and policy implications of treating finance as an overall cost to the economy. This volume shows that the Great Moderation of volatility was a statistical artefact; Okun's Law (relating changes in output and unemployment) never died, and even provides early signs for the Great Recession which analysts using standard GDP did not see. This book is of great interest to those who study political economy and macroeconomics.

Public enterprises have played a central part in the development of all mixed economies in the post-war period, but they are now in a crisis phase. Privatisation has pushed back the level of public enterprise almost throughout the world. Where public enterprises remain, they are being brought under significant reforms. Originally published in 1991, this book presents a comprehensive critique of public enterprise, analysing why its performance has fallen far short of expectations. Part one is concerned with the establishment of public enterprises: the case for them, the circumstances in which they emerged, the extra enterprise objectives attached to them, and the decisions on their investment feasibility and capital structure. Part two looks at the working of public enterprises: the state of their financial performance, the peculiarities of pricing, the determination of targets which they should meet, the continuous monitoring and evaluation of their operations. Macro concerns are the focus of Part three. Among the issues addressed are the level of indirect taxation and subsidisation implicit in the pricing structures of public enterprises, the links between public enterprise and the public exchequer and the implications of their operations for distributional equity. In Part four the extent to which privatisation can solve the problems of public enterprise is discussed. The book ends with some broad conclusions on the future of public enterprise. Throughout, the approach is analytical, but the arguments are supported by extensive examples from both developed and developing economies.

This book examines modern consumption, focusing on concepts of autonomy and rationality. In recent years, conventional ideas of 'free will' have come under attack in the context of consumer choice and similarly, postmodernists have sabotaged the very notion of consumer rationality. Oa (TM)Shaughnessy and O'Shaughnessy adopt a moderating perspective, reviewing and critiquing these attacks in order to work towards a more nuanced view of the consumer: neither entirely autonomous nor perfectly rational.

While the first part of this book concentrates on assailing critiques of 'free-will', the second part takes issue with the postmodernist emphasis on the non-rational. The authors situate these critiques in the context of key academic debate, examining the logic and empirical bases for their claims thus leading to a deeper understanding of 'bounded' rationality and the potential of the adaptive unconscious to affect consumer choice.

Prior work has shown that there is a significant amount of turnover amongst the African poor as households exit and enter poverty. Some of this mobility can be attributed to regular movement back and forth in response to exogenous variability in climate, prices, health, etc. ('churning'). Other crossings of the poverty line reflect permanent shifts in long-term well-being associated with gains or losses of productive assets or permanent changes in asset productivity due, for example, to adoption of improved technologies or access to new, higher-value markets. Distinguishing true structural mobility from simple churning is important because it clarifies the factors that facilitate such important structural change. Conversely, it also helps identify the constraints that may leave other households caught in a trap of persistent, structural poverty. The papers in this book help to distinguish the types of poverty and to deepen understanding of the structural features and constraints that create poverty traps. Such an understanding allows communities, local governments and donors to take proactive, effective steps to combat persistent poverty in Africa. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Development Studies.