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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > International economics > General
This volume, the fifth instalment of the classic Report on the European Union series, offers at once an economic and intellectual historical perspective on the creation of the euro and its 20 first years, a comprehensive review of the current and future challenges of the euro area, including a critical look at the different options for the reform of its governance and institutional architecture and finally a close look at the "new euros", i.e. the ambitious projects that could instil a new life into the stalled European project. It covers a wide range of key economic and social topics such as monetary and fiscal policy, tax competition, the EU budget, structural policy, inequality, gender equality, post carbon economy, well-being advancement and democracy. Weakened by a decade of economic crisis and shaken by the awakening of populism, the European project faces three disintegrations: democratic disaffection, monetary and financial fragmentation and territorial dislocation. If EU member states want to escape those looming risks, they must, as they always have in the last five decades, reinvent Europe in order to save it.
The rapid integration of global governments, businesses and capital has faced a dramatic and often hostile backlash in recent years. As populist agendas worldwide gain momentum, Deglobalization 2.0 explores the key drivers of reactionary movements. From the 'Make America Great Again' movement in the US, to Continental European populism, Peter van Bergeijk explains the critical catalysts of anti-globalization sentiment. Through a historical lens, this book draws out similarities and differences between contemporary developments and the economic crises of the 1930s, offering a unique understanding of the political and economic drivers of deglobalization. Focusing on wealth inequality, social uncertainty and international competition for economic supremacy, van Bergeijk examines and offers answers for the lacunae in the globalization debate. Provocative, insightful and accessible, this book confronts the deglobalization issue as a matter of real urgency and is thus vital reading for policy makers and managers working in international affairs and economic relations. It also offers guidance for academics in international economics and relations moving into the uncharted territory of deglobalization processes.
The Mexican economy is a contemporary political flashpoint, and not just in Mexico, but in the United States, as well. Yet few people understand it in its full complexity, and fewer still understand the social, cultural, and historical factors that have helped to make it what it is today and that will continue to affect its future. In Understanding the Mexican Economy, Roy Boyd, Maria Eugenia Ibarraran, and Roberto Velez-Grajales offer a comprehensive overview of these factors. They provide a full, historical, economic, and political context through which to understand the actions of the people and government of Mexico, and they give insights into how those actions impinge -- and might continue to impinge -- on the United States. They conduct a wide-ranging examination of the Mexican economy and investigate the causes of persistent problems such as economic stagnation, high poverty levels, and emigration abroad. Stressing the critical role played by economic incentives as well as Mexico's geography and political institutions, they employ a number of modeling techniques, including a specially designed computer model, to discuss a variety of topics including international trade, regional inequality, the informal economy, natural resource extraction, Mexico's "war on drugs," and the economic impact of US trade and immigration policy on both Mexico and the US. For its comprehensive overview and the new insights it provides into these crucial and yet often tragically misunderstood issues, Understanding the Mexican Economy is essential reading not only for economists, but also for practitioners with a policy interest in Mexico, for students of Latin American studies, Development Studies, geography, and sociology, and for anyone with an interest in recent events and controversies around US-Mexican relations.
This fully updated and expanded second edition of "The Field Guide to the Global Economy" presents the latest facts to help make sense of the rapidly changing international economy. Illustrated throughout with charts, graphs, and cartoons, the book documents new trends, including the foreign "outsourcing" of U.S. service jobs, as well as the increasing influence of mega-firms like Wal-Mart and labor union-free China on workers around the globe. Published in conjunction with the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent research institute based in Washington, D.C., this accessible guide explains how global institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and North American Free Trade Agreement affect communities, workers, the poor, and the environment. The book dispels the widely disseminated propaganda about current globalization policies and provides an update on the burgeoning movement that is challenging them, from Bolivian water warriors to U.S. student anti-sweatshop activists.
This book assesses the strategic significance of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) by examining the logic of international power and order, historic trends in East Asian international relations, the AIIB's design in comparison to 'rival' financial institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, recent tendencies in Chinese foreign policy, and the Chinese system of political economy. It focuses on how China 'constructs' international arrangements at a critical juncture in history compared to other great powers, especially the United States and Japan. Viewed in isolation, the AIIB does not represent a radical departure from the existing international order; it is a hybrid institution built on China's integration into the West-dominated international structure and conditioned by the global financial market. But the AIIB does draw in part from a different institutional lineage, a different historical root, and a different national system of political economy. In this context, China's greater success will constitute a partial change to the existing international order, whatever the Chinese intention.
"Fifteen years after Toyota announced it would build a manufacturing plant in the heart of the Bluegrass, Kentucky crafts are being used to help sell Camrys at car dealerships in Japan and sushi and Japanese condiments are widely stocked on grocery shelves in a number of cities across Kentucky. In early 2000, the state boasted more than 100 Japanese companies representing a total investment of more than seven billion dollars, employing more than 33,000 Kentuckians. Japan in the Bluegrass is the first book to focus on the regional and local impact of the globalization of Japanese businesses, particularly Toyota, in the United States. Fourteen American and Japanese contributors include geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and an economist, urban planner, and environmental scientist, and their essays go beyond the traditional exploration of politics and economics to examine the social, cultural, and environmental effects of Japanese investment in Kentucky. The authors examine the factors that brought these companies to this part of the United States, which range from a well-developed system of highways to cooperation from state and local governments to hefty incentive packages. They discuss the significant influence of Toyota and its suppliers on local communities in Kentucky as well as in Toyota City, Japan. Essays also cover the social and cultural shifts that have resulted from Japanese investment, including educational activities in public schools, the relationship between business and local media, and the integration of Japanese managers and their families into Kentucky communities.
Financializations of Development brings together cutting-edge perspectives on socio-political, socio-historical and institutional analyses of the evolving multiple and intertwined financialization processes of developmental institutions, programs and policies. In recent years, the development landscape has seen a radical transformation in the partaking actors, which have moved beyond just multilateral or bilateral public development banks and aid agencies. The issue of financing for sustainable development is now at the top of the agenda for multilateral development actors. Increasingly, development institutions aim to include private actors and to lever in private money to support development projects. Drawing on case studies conducted in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, this book examines the ways in which these private finance actors are enrolled and associated with the conception and implementation of development policies. Beginning with a focus on global actors and private foundations, this book considers the ways in which development funding is raised, managed and distributed, as well as debates at the center of global forums where financialized policies and solutions for development are conceived or discussed. The book assembles empirical research on development programs and demonstrates the social consequences of the financializations of development to the people on the ground. Highlighting the plurality of processes and outcomes of modern-day relations, tools, actors and practices in financing development around the world, this book is key reading for advanced students, researchers and practitioners in all areas of finance, development and sustainability.
Revised and updated for the 2nd edition, this textbook guides the reader towards various aspects of growth and international trade in a Diamond-type overlapping generations framework. Using the same model type throughout the book, timely topics such as growth with bubbles, robots and involuntary unemployment, financial integration and house price dynamics, policies to mitigate climate change and the persistence of religion in a globalized market economy are explored. The first part starts from the "old" growth theory and bridges to the "new" growth theory (including R&D and human capital approaches). The second part presents an intertemporal equilibrium theory of inter- and intra-sectoral trade, investigates innovation, growth and trade and limits to public debt as well as nationally and internationally optimal climate policies. The debt dynamics of the Euro Zone and the origins of intra-EMU and Asian-US trade imbalances are also explored. The book is primarily addressed to upper undergraduate and graduate students wishing to proceed to the analytically more demanding journal literature.
This book analyses the potentials and consequences of a change from production-based to consumption-based approaches in international climate policy. With the help of an analytical model, the author investigates the effects of different policy variants on environmental effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, carbon leakage, competitiveness and the global distribution of income. The economic, legal and political background and the often contradictory findings on consumption-based approaches are reviewed in great detail. In the final chapters, options for practical policy design are developed. The book concludes that a switch to consumption orientation is not a policy tool whereby industrialized countries can unilaterally improve climate policy effectiveness, but should rather be seen as a possible intermediate step on the way to a fully multilateral mitigation strategy.
Soviet foreign policy in the Stalin era is commonly assumed to have been a direct product of either Marxist ideology or the leader's whims. Both assumptions, however, oversimplify the complex and subtle factors involved in its creation and implementation. Kyung-Deok Roh provides an alternative, more nuanced, explanation and demonstrates the key role played by Stalin's economic advisors. The so-called 'Varga Institute' , a 'think tank' led by Evgenii Varga, developed a unique scholarly discourse on the capitalist economy and international politics, based on an amalgam of Marxist economics and, notably, the work of American economist W. E. Mitchell. The institute's scholarship, which suggested the resilience, adaptability and stability of the capitalist economy, created the discursive space within which decisions were made, and influenced Stalin to move increasingly from aggressive strategies towards more cautious international policies. Roh's account, the first comprehensive study of this pivotal group, demonstrates the many complex ways that Soviet foreign policy was created and sheds new light onto the controversial relationship between Soviet academia and the party. Based on extensive archival research into previously untouched material, Stalin's Economic Advisors is essential reading for all researchers seeking to add nuance to their conception of Stalinist foreign policy, economic thought and politics.
This book argues that mainstream economics cannot explain the underdevelopment and poverty of Nepal, neither can it be explained in terms of economics alone nor capital inadequacy even, as is conventionally believed. The author asserts that Nepal's underdevelopment needs to be located in the nature of the state which has been shaped by the collusion of interest among politicians and the resulting bureaucracy, triggering the growth of crony capitalism. The book presents a critical and radical analysis of factors that have kept Nepal in a state of underdevelopment and poverty, with huge section of the society in underprivileged and deprived socio-economic conditions, despite six decades of planning, seven decades of dependence on foreign aid, and numerous political regime changes, from the Rana regime for over a century from 1846-1950 through to the republic regime from 2007 onwards. To support this argument, the book delves into an exploration of growth performance in Nepal, government attempts at poverty alleviation, foreign aid and its effects in the economy and the nature of the state, with a focus on Maoists' 10-year rebellion. Each chapter presents the existing picture and examines the possible reasons for the failure in achieving the desired results. A comparative analysis of Nepal's position with respect to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries is also presented in a number of chapters. The audience for the book will be students, academics and researchers, and within Nepal itself, intellectuals, politicians, and officials of the National Planning Commission, the central bank and other banks and financial institutions.
ASEAN’s real gross domestic product (GDP) had declined sharply due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The economic downturn and the uncertainty about the future reduced the new investments in green projects drastically. Besides this, many governments rolled back environmental regulations and taxes and increased fossil-fuel intensive infrastructure and electricity to stimulate economic growth. Post-Pandemic Green Recovery in ASEAN consists of several empirical studies using fresh data, with regional and country-level perspectives on ways to keep the greenness of the economic recovery plans. The chapters look at various aspects and sectors, including tourism, infrastructure, energy, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), employment, and livelihood, by assessing the effectiveness of various tools and instruments, including green finance, carbon taxation, green Sukuk, credit guarantee, cash transfer payment, power purchase agreements, and the related policies. They also provide practical policy recommendations useful for the ASEAN member states and other developing regions for the green recovery in the post-pandemic. Reiterating the importance of green and low-carbon mechanisms and climate change tackling policies besides the usual economic recovery strategies, this book is a precious resource for the researchers of economics, finance, ASEAN and Asian studies, and policymakers.
Financializations of Development brings together cutting-edge perspectives on socio-political, socio-historical and institutional analyses of the evolving multiple and intertwined financialization processes of developmental institutions, programs and policies. In recent years, the development landscape has seen a radical transformation in the partaking actors, which have moved beyond just multilateral or bilateral public development banks and aid agencies. The issue of financing for sustainable development is now at the top of the agenda for multilateral development actors. Increasingly, development institutions aim to include private actors and to lever in private money to support development projects. Drawing on case studies conducted in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, this book examines the ways in which these private finance actors are enrolled and associated with the conception and implementation of development policies. Beginning with a focus on global actors and private foundations, this book considers the ways in which development funding is raised, managed and distributed, as well as debates at the center of global forums where financialized policies and solutions for development are conceived or discussed. The book assembles empirical research on development programs and demonstrates the social consequences of the financializations of development to the people on the ground. Highlighting the plurality of processes and outcomes of modern-day relations, tools, actors and practices in financing development around the world, this book is key reading for advanced students, researchers and practitioners in all areas of finance, development and sustainability.
The speed with which business has become globally integrated is impressive and almost frightening. Much of this change has come from the Pacific Basin. At the same time, however, the Taiwanese, Chinese and Southeast Asians have also suffered from these rapid changes. The paranoia associated with rapidly escalating rates of foreign investment in China by a small country like Taiwan, for example, may provide an index of the anxiety that such change can engender. The studies in this collection of research articles provide a considered, rational approach to some of these changing patterns of world business--economic growth, regional trade, foreign direct investment, capital markets, and trade restrictions. The patterns of changing interlocking global business systems revealed in these articles are fascinating and reassuring. It is interesting and enlightening to see how these Asian business systems interlock where the parallel political systems may be in conflict.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique event demonstrating the risks associated with global value chains as well as ways in which they are a source of resilience in trade. Efforts to reshore production would make all countries worse off and increase the number of people in extreme poverty.
Civic engagement is a concept of action that has become part of common vocabulary, not only in the West but also in many other regions of the world as well. A growing, yet still small number of scholarly works has recently emerged showing how in Japan citizen activism, volunteering, and social action for a public cause are dev- oping. This present volume is another, and in my view, important addition to the body of knowledge on civic engagement in Japan. The majority of books on related issues in Japan take on the perspective of organized civic life, in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or nonprofit organizations (NPOs): we know quite a number of things about the quantitative trends in these organizations, on their positioning, on their difficulties, and on the institutional contexts in which they have to work. We know relatively little - except for a small number of topical qualitative case studies - on broad issues that relate to civic engagement in Japan, inside or outside these formal organizations. This volume is the first to offer a wide scope of broad variety of forms of civic engagement in contemporary Japan. The volume is quite forceful in counterbalancing oversimplified ideas on an "ideal" civil society in which state, market, and civil society organizations are in- pendent and at best take on oppositional stances.
Today, by many accounts, China is the world's foremost purveyor of foreign aid and foreign investment to developing countries. This is the product of China's miracle economic growth over a period of more than three decades, together with China's drive to become a major player in world affairs and accomplish this through economic rather than military means. This three-volume work is the first comprehensive study of China's aid and investment strategy to trace how it has evolved since Beijing launched its foreign aid diplomacy at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Volume III offers an analysis of China's foreign aid and investment to countries outside of Asia: in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Oceania. Africa was and is the most important of these regions and it is given special treatment. In the concluding chapter, Copper reviews the findings of previous the volumes, delineates China's most important victories and setbacks, and notes opposition to and criticism of China's aid and investment diplomacy. Copper gives evidence that will be shocking to some of the reality that China's financial help to developing countries is one of the most salient trends in international politics and constitutes a formidable challenge to the United States, Japan, and Europe, as well as international financial institutions.
This book is a comprehensive economic and legal study of the theoretical and practical aspects of the problems of increasing energy efficiency; self-motivation of energy saving by business entities within the framework of their corporate responsibility; regulatory mechanisms to stimulate energy conservation in the economy; civil-law regulation of foreign trade turnover of energy resources between economic entities of the Russian Federation and companies of member states of international integration associations - the CIS, EEMP, the EU and BRICS. It argues that technological energy saving plays a key role in reducing the energy intensity and increasing the energy efficiency of the economy, and substantiates the need for institutional support - including legal support for the participation of the Russian Federation - in various forms of international cooperation. Lastly, based on an analysis of current legislation, programs and recommendations, judicial and contractual practices, customs and trade procedures, it offers proposals for the developing, improving and unifying civil law regulation of obligations in the sphere of international trade in energy resources, as well as methodological recommendations for drafting foreign trade contracts in the energy sector.
The devastating effect of Covid19 on the Indian economy is by now well-known. The growth rate of the economy slumped to a negative figure in the year 2020-21. What is less talked about, however, is the fact that growth slowdown in India had started several years before the pandemic struck. The two questions that naturally arise are: what explains the long economic slowdown and what can be done about it. This book is an in-depth analysis of the economic slowdown in India in recent years and the reasons behind the persistent slowdown in the growth rate of the Indian economy in the 2010s, especially in the latter half of the decade. While discussing both macro- and microeconomic policies, the volume examines how the perspective on economic policy has evolved over time in consonance with experience by investigating major instances of such slowdowns in the past. Three global slowdowns (viz. the Great Depression of 1929, the stagflation induced by the oil crisis of the 1970s and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007) and the industrial deceleration in India in the late 1960s and early 1970s are discussed. The author also probes into the problems of inequality, poverty, inflation in the Indian economy pre- and post- pandemic and policies targeted towards development, manufacturing, and distribution of vaccines. The book further discusses possible economic impacts of the Ukraine War and the long-term problem of global warming. Concise and thoroughly researched, this book will be of interest to beginners, scholars, research students and teachers interested in economics, policy making and development studies.
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This book analyses the paradoxes of Pakistan's economy, meritocratic domestic policy and the role of the state and civil society. It argues that the transition in the county's foreign policy from geo-politics to geo-economic depends on a fundamental domestic policy transition from kleptocracy to meritocracy. Civil Society and Pakistan's Economy discusses how the prevalence of rent seeking practices has undermined merit-based practices by increasing the cost of doing business and converting public loss into private profit by awarding inappropriate subsidies and imposing regressive taxes. The analyses are supported by describing the instruments and mechanisms used for rent seeking practices and the creation of public awareness of options available to change these practices through citizen's action and civil society engagement. The book also shows the path of transformation and the role of participation and argues that aspiring for and capturing power is not the only way to transform Pakistan. A novel analysis depicting macro-micro linkages of encroachment of socio-economic space by the power elites and effective strategies used for its reappropriation by the people, the book will be of interest to academics researching South Asian Studies, in particular South Asian economics and politics.
Today, by many accounts, China is the world's foremost purveyor of foreign aid and foreign investment to developing countries. This is the product of China's miracle economic growth over a period of more than three decades, together with China's drive to become a major player in world affairs and accomplish this through economic rather than military means. This three-volume work is the first comprehensive study of China's aid and investment strategy to trace how it has evolved since Beijing launched its foreign aid diplomacy at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Volume II provides an analysis of China's foreign aid and investment to countries and regional organizations on the Asian continent, covering all of its major sub-regions, during the period from 1950 to the present day. Copper considers motivating factors such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and China's desire to challenge the West and later the Soviet Union. Also important to China and driving its aid and investment was China's pursuit of Communist Bloc solidarity, a search for secure borders, and competition with India for influence in the Third World. Securing its imports of energy and raw materials and markets for is products came later. Marginalizing Taiwan and defeating it diplomatically constituted another goal of China's foreign aid and foreign investment analyzed here.
This book tries to build a broad view on industrial processes of large economies and their integration in the world. It provides insight into the industrialization progresses of the quartet of USA, China, Germany and Japan, all attaining individual industrialization success by distinct trade, fiscal and industrial policy path, the underlying principles of which can be traced back to respective nation's roots in civilization. The combination of their industrial output led to the integrated formation of international industrial distribution. While being highly productive, the current distributed pattern yields benefits that are unevenly dispersed among different regions, industries and societal groups within each participating nation and among engaging economies. To address the uneven benefits distribution at both domestic and international levels, large industrial economies took a plethora of policy actions that will impact industrial ecosystem and portfolio results. The book aims to help readers to build better investment strategies and robust risk management practice under the context of uncertainty and successfully navigate through choppy waters in the years ahead.
Asia has one of the most dynamic and fastest developing economies in the world. This study assesses the current state of economic integration in Asia - in particular in East and South East Asia- and analyzes the prerequisites for a sustainable path of economic integration, using the background of the EU experience as a benchmark. The crucial notion of 'sustainable economic integration' is explored under the prism of the EU-Asia economic and business relationship. The book offers an integrated approach to the concept of economic integration by linking it to that of sustainability.In the first introductory part, the idea of 'sustainable economic integration' is clarified, and examined using a political economy perspective. The second part of the book includes a number of chapters relating to specific case studies epitomizing the current state of integration in Asia; because of its role and of its size, China features quite prominently in this part.Economic Integration in Asia provides a critical overview of economic integration in Asia, and makes indispensable reading for researchers and students of Asia and development economics, and in particle to those interested in the economy of China.
In a world in transition and an era of transformation, Mahtaney calls for reflection and an analysis of a wide canvas of global economic experience. Her new work initiates a thorough review of the strategies and policies that have been pursued over the past two decades. The economic meltdown compelled the beginning of the next phase of globalization and she contends that the future will see an increase in globalization. As crucial questions arise about the direction in which globalization is headed and the sustainability of economic growth and reform, the fundamental objective of this exciting work is to elucidate crucial insights about the next phase of development in the world economy. |
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