This volume focuses on current problems in banking that have the potential not only for disrupting the smooth provision of banking and other financial services, but also for adversely affecting domestic and even international macroeconomic activity. Because serious banking problems have been experienced in most countries in recent years, the papers both focus on fragility and regulation in different countries and are authored by leading financial economists in six different countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. By providing an international perspective, the papers provide insights into the commonality of banking problems in different countries and the role of regulation both in attempting to prevent and in potentially, albeit unintentionally, encouraging bank crises. As such, the papers add to our storehouse of knowledge on the causes, symptoms, and consequences of banking problems across countries.

This book explores the hypothesis of the emergence of a 'dependent capitalism' in Central and Eastern Europe. In a first theoretical part, this book presents the main approaches that structure the field of comparative capitalism and then examines this model shaped by the inflow of foreign capital. In an original way, it proposes to integrate the form of the monetary regime into the dependent capitalism analysis and to extend it to Balkan countries. The monetary regime is seen as complementary to the other elements of the institutional configuration of dependent capitalism. In the second part, the authors adopt a historical and empirical perspective. First, they demonstrate how dependent capitalism has emerged in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic States over the last 30 years as part of the process of socio-economic transformation that began in 1990. The crisis of 2008 was an indicator of this dependence on Western capital. Secondly, they extend the analysis to the Balkan countries and show that dependence is even stronger for them, particularly in the monetary area, as evidenced by the implementation of currency boards or euroization phenomena.This book is of interest to academics and students, as well as to business and economic policy makers.

There is no shortage of opinion about the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Some see it as the agent of austerity, being manipulated by wealthy nations and forcing poorer countries to pursue economic policies that suppress growth and development. A sharply contrasting view regards it as bailing out such countries with large amounts of soft finance, allowing them to avoid necessary adjustment. The challenge is to evaluate the alternative arguments and to distinguish reality from rhetoric.In this book, the authors undertake a careful and detailed empirical analysis of the underlying issues, covering participation in IMF programs, their implementation and effects on economic growth, and on the willingness of international capital markets to lend. Blending research methodologies and crossing conventional disciplinary boundaries, what emerges is a balanced and nuanced assessment of the IMF's operations that confronts many commonly held views. Unique in its broad scope, this careful examination of the IMF will be of great interest to students and academics in the fields of international economics and international relations. Those involved in international financial institutions and national monetary institutions will also find it to be an impartial and illuminating study.

Working at the intersections of cultural anthropology, human geography, and material culture, Tina Harris explores the social and economic transformations taking place along one trade route that winds its way across China, Nepal, Tibet, and India.
How might we make connections between seemingly mundane daily life and more abstract levels of global change? Geographical Diversions focuses on two generations of traders who exchange goods such as sheep wool, pang gdan aprons, and more recently, household appliances. Exploring how traders "make places," Harris examines the creation of geographies of trade that work against state ideas of what trade routes should look like. She argues that the tensions between the apparent fixity of national boundaries and the mobility of local individuals around such restrictions are precisely how routes and histories of trade are produced.
The economic rise of China and India has received attention from the international media, but the effects of major new infrastructure at the intersecting borderlands of these nationstates--in places like Tibet, northern India, and Nepal--have rarely been covered. "Geographical Diversions" challenges globalization theories based on bounded conceptions of nation-states and offers a smaller-scale perspective that differs from many theories of macroscale economic change.

The accords and protocols that underlie the Arab and Israeli peace agreements set into place economic policies and political processes so flawed that they are bound to fail. The chapters in this volume look at the diplomatic and historical precedents that have led to this situation and they debate - some cynically and some sympathetically - the reasons why the institutional structures and trade regimes the process has created are so weak. But for whatever reason, the structural flaws built into the Middle East peace process are not only biased toward the dominant players but against the people who most want peace.

Innovation is of critical value in the modern global economy, as it performs several important economic functions. The first is related to supporting the sustainability of socio-economic systems, preventing the emergence of crises and, if they do occur, providing solutions to overcome their consequences. Secondly, innovation allows for the activation of economic growth and social progress through the rationalization of economic activities. Thirdly, innovation supports the global competitiveness of economic systems, allowing for the specialization of production and sales of unique goods that are in high demand in both domestic and global markets. At the same time, innovational development in economic systems is required to mitigate the high levels of risk and requires both effective management and a reliable normative and legal foundation. This book studies the economic and legal foundations of managing the innovational development of economic systems from an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together the thoughts of international scholars in management, economics and law.

National economies are linked through flows of capital and goods. This book addresses those linkages, analyzes their benefits for economic development, and evaluates a country's opportunities to reap the best possible rewards by influencing the linkages. The book focuses on the role of product characteristics in international economics and their impact on economic development. After an introduction to the topic, it analyzes the influence of product sophistication on growth, and offers alternative means of measuring product characteristics. In turn, the book provides evidence for the impact of foreign equity on the characteristics of the products that firms produce. Moreover, it presents empirical findings that prove that the quality of a country's legal and institutional framework is influenced by said country's predisposition to trade rule-of-law-intensive goods.

In the last half of the 20th Century, the world economy has benefited from a globalization process driven by the enlightened confluence of technology, innovation, trade, and foreign direct investment. This book broadens our understanding of that process. Opening with a review of current global economic metrics and the significant differences between advanced and developing nations, the book goes on to discuss the globalization paradigm and the forces driving it. Discussing the importance of new ideas and new technology in continued economic growth, the volume shows how the protection of intellectual property encourages innovation. Also covering the evolution of international trade, the book reviews trade distortions from both external and internal sources, comparing trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis with alternative trade practices, such as free trade and custom unions. The work also reviews the origins and functions of the new World Trade Organization. Describing the rapidly growing practice of foreign direct investment, the book shows how FDI is closely linked to international trade and concludes with a review of the important function FDI can play in the bundling and delivery of the resources required for accelerated economic development of the emerging world.

U.S. Foreign Policy and the New International Economic Order is an authoritative account of the development of U.S. policy toward the New International Economic Order (NIEO) from its inception in 1974 through the Eleventh Special Session of the General Assembly in August-September 1980. Olson concentrates on the latter stages of the North-South dialogue, analyzing U.S. policy in the context of broad foreign policy objectives pursued since the end of World War II and also in light of the events of the seventies and the 1980 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On the premise that policy is, ultimately, what happens at the negotiating table, he also specifically examines the record of U.S. negotiations on the Common Fund, UNCTAD V, and other major North-South meetings during 1979-1980. This material, together with an examination of how policy is made within the U.S. bureaucracy, who makes it, and why, provides fresh insight into a complex process. Olson seeks to determine if and to what extent U.S. policy serves basic U.S. interests and whether the negotiating process has been an effective medium for global problem solving. He concludes that althought U.S. policy and practice do serve traditional U.S. foreign policy interests, the political cost is high. He also concludes that NIEO negotiations have not been an effective means for global problem solving and that rapid change in political and economic realities has rendered obsolete the basic concepts - the very mechanisms for problem solving - on both sides.

Ideological and cultural factors do not define or influence the way labor relations are conducted in China's workplace, as many suppose they do. Oakley shows that the impact of the global market has significantly altered the way labor relations are actually practiced in China, which follows what she calls a global market paradigm. Nevertheless, Maoism and Confucianism continue to influence labor relations in China, and the ideological and cultural remnants still to be found could affect China's relations with other nations for years to come. Instead of taking a macro-level, industrial-relations approach common to other studies of Chinese labor, Oakley provides an in-depth look at the problems emerging on the shop floor, in the wake of economic reform. She provides translations of actual case histories, each of which details the causes of disputes, the various methods that were found to resolve them, and their eventual outcomes. At a broader level of analysis, her book tends to support convergence theories, of which globalization is the latest, proving that there are other features in contemporary market labor relations that have emerged in China in direct response to the demands of global competition. The result is a superbly detailed examination of a topic too little covered and seldom well understood.

Oakley begins by considering the features of market labor relations and the emergence of a globalization-friendly style, in both Western and Asian economics. She continues with an analysis of the ideological and cultural dimensions of the relationship between managers and managed. In the next three chapters, she discusses the causes, resolution methods, and labor dispute outcomes. In each case she refers to the evidence of market, Maoist, and Confucian influences. The conclusion she draws is that while Confucian ideas and traces of Maoism continue to have an impact on the development and resolution of labor disputes in post-reform China overall, Chinese labor relations conform to the demands of the global, not the provincial, marketplace.

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas. Globalisation impacts almost all aspects of life. It is often said that change is accelerating, and that the nation state is increasingly anachronistic. This book challenges that consensus, arguing that globalisation is neither an historic nor technological inevitability; rather, globalisation and technological change are as old as capitalism itself. Jonathan Michie makes the case for a new, more realistic approach to economics. He argues that the reduced power of national governments is a result of the free-market reforms of globalisation created in the 1980s era of Thatcher and Reagan, which led to the 2008 global financial crisis and recession. The free-market 'capitalism unleashed' form of globalisation is neither inevitable nor desirable - it is possible to develop a new global green deal for economic progress, being socially and environmentally sustainable. Michie demonstrates that capital has become unproductive with increased speculation and tax evasion, and that taxing wealth is necessary to create a new era of globally sustainable development. Key features include: in-depth coverage of globalisation written in a concise and accessible style disputes the consensus that globalisation is an historic or technological inevitability focus on current issues such as unproductive capital, a result of increased speculation, tax evasion and avoidance advocates policy proposals for global regulation, taxation and corporate diversity argues the need for a new global green deal for social and environmental sustainability and makes a clear case for an improved and more realistic approach to economics. The Advanced Introduction to Globalisation will be a challenging yet engaging read for policy makers, academics and advanced students of economics, management and business, politics and environmental studies. This book sets out an alternative worldview which will interest anyone concerned with our future global prospects.

The word village has the evocative power of ancient shared social values based on solidarity, equality, and common expectations for the betterment of life. The book's title is borrowed from McLuhan's apt metaphor, but questions its underlying assumptions. The contributors recast some of the basic elements of the complex phenomenon of the so-called globalization. Trade laws, industrial relations, economic and political systems are analyzed in a critical perspective. Moreover, environment and sustainable development, languages' rights, education, mobility and migrations are discussed in view of contemporary changes that societies are undergoing throughout the world. The vulnerability of societies caught up in new networks of interdependence due to reduced distances also are put to the fore, in the context of the new accelerated circulation of information, ideas, goods, and human beings. Provacative reading for scholars interested in a multinational, Euro-Atlanticist perspective on globalization.

The international discourse is most recently focused on some negative outgrowths of world economy, especially after the Seattle Round (December 1999) and its unexpected uprising of protests. The researches of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (University of Genoa), in cooperation with scholars from Europe, Canada and the United States, offer in this collection of essays a multinational contribution which is part of their work in progress on the multifaceted issue of the contemporary global village. The book features some optimistic outcomes, and some worries about what the new millennium will not achieve, despite the common and transnational efforts, that is to say a fair re-distribution of resources to reach what R. W. Fogel defines a post-modern equality, based on values as well as on material wealth. In sum, the essayists wonder if some of the hidden promises of globalization will develop in a better new century.

With the bursting of the econmic bubble in the early 1990's Japan's public and private sectors have undergone dramatic change. William Farrell analyzes the economic superpower's turmoil in the political, bureaucratic and business arenas and offers a candid look at opportunities and strategies now open to U.S. business in Japan. A practical compendium of useful and up-to-date information, this book cuts through the stereotypical fog and is a valuable resource for business people, policy makers, and academics.

Despite the recent economic crisis, Japan still accounts for two-thirds of the entire Asian economy. However, in 1998, unemployment reached an historic high, the stock market plummeted, financial institutions were failing, and bankruptcies were a daily occurrence. William Farrell analyzes the discord in the political, bureaucratic, and business arenas and offers a candid look at opportunities and strategies now open to U.S. business. This timely book allows the reader to comprehend and act upon these public and private sector changes taking place in one of the world's largest economies.

Former Vice President of the United States and Ambassador to Japan, Walter F. Mondale, provides a foreword. The book also includes a comprehensive chronology of key events from 1994 through to the present. The connections between Japanese business and government are shown in graphic form. The recent history of the Japanese economy is revealed with a fascinating look at the inner working of the nation's most influential organizations. Additionally, U.S. and Japanese leadership and decision-making styles are compared, and the myth of a never-changing Japan is challenged. After reviewing and analyzing these key issues, the concluding chapter discusses how one becomes a participant in the process and identifies emerging opportunities. As a practical resource of useful and current information, this book cuts through false predictions of doom and demystifies the complexity of the Japanese bureaucracy.

The inclusion and factoring of political risk into accounting and non-accounting decisions is crucial if multinational firms are to avoid negative consequences ranging from unprofitable business environments to the outright expropriation of their assets. In a work that will be of particular value to professionals and academics in international and domestic finance, accounting, and management, the authors examine the characteristics of environments that give rise to political risk, explore the relationship between low economic growth and high political risk, and differentiate between definitions and forecasting models of political risk. They also provide a unique forecasting model to explain and predict risk, and they suggest alternative strategies for managing political risk.

Providing an insider's examination of China's economic reform and its political implications, this text uses wide ranging primary materials, including interviews, surveys and author's own recollections of Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang. It aims to shed new light on the Chinese approach to reform, including its dual goal, dynamic gradualism and reform leadership. It assesses the vast social and political changes set forth by the reform, especially multiplying socio political problems, and the international ramifications of China's rise.

This very readable book is aimed at both ordinary concerned citizens and people with a bit of sophistication about economics. It is a systematic examination of why free trade is slowly bleeding America's economy to death and what can be done about it. It explains in detail why the standard economic arguments free traders use all the time are false, and what kind of economic ideas - well within the grasp of the average American - justify protectionism instead. It examines the history and politics of free trade and explains how America came to adopt its present disastrous free trade policy. It looks at the breakdown of specific industries and how we can rebuild them and bring millions of high-paying jobs back to this country. It examines what's wrong with NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. It is sharply critical of the current establishment, but from a bipartisan point of view, so it should satisfy progressives, conservatives, and everyone in between. Unlike many past critiques of free trade, it is economically-literate; it also explains New Trade Theory, the hot new area of economics that critiques free trade.

Recent years have seen a lively debate over the role of tacit knowledge and interactive learning in privileging the local over the global. Yet, our continuing inability to answer questions such as 'when and why is the local important in production and innovation processes?' indicates that our understanding of the firm and the forces that shape its managers' choices remains weak. Such a theory ought to be able to answer fundamental questions like: why do firms in particular places adopt particular production and innovation practices, and not others? What forces determine what a firm 'knows' and when it is able to act upon this knowledge? How easy is it to transfer this knowledge between places? This book presents a new conception of industrial practice and firm behaviour. It explains how the cultures that shape the practices of firms and the trajectories of regional and national economies are actually produced. The analysis shows how the internal and inter-firm organization of production, use of technologies, and the industrial knowledge underpinning these practices are strongly influenced by their social and institutional context. Routine forms of behaviour are not simply inherited from past practice. Instead, they are shaped and constrained - though not wholly determined - by a set of institutions that govern how work is organized, workers are deployed, and technology is implemented. Because of the slowly evolving nature of these institutions, distinctive national 'models' are not converging around a single global norm.

This thoroughly revised, extended and updated edition of a critically acclaimed textbook provides an accessible and cohesive introduction to the burgeoning discipline of institutional economics. Requiring only a basic understanding of economics, this lucid and well-written text will be essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students wanting to understand the problems of the real world - such as entrepreneurship, innovation, the cost of the welfare state, international financial crises, and economic development. As institutional economics is now revolutionizing policymaking, the book can also serve as a guide to the pressing problems facing policymakers in mature and emergent countries alike. Key features include: - A short 'Primer' at the beginning of each chapter to highlight the main issues and their relevance. - Key Concepts such as 'institutions', 'economic order', 'coordination costs', 'competition' and 'public policy' are highlighted and clearly defined. - International coverage is ensured as the three authors, experienced academic teachers, work in the US, Europe and the Asia Pacific.

Russia is one of the world's largest emerging economies. With economic development come technological revolution, growth, and change at every level of society. In Tech, Smart Cities, and Regional Development in Contemporary Russia, editor Bruno S. Sergi brings together expert contributors to explore, and explain, these changes. With chapters on FinTech, the cost of technological growth, and innovation risk management, the contributors grapple with ideas about technology and the intertwined issues that Russia faces in the 21st Century. It includes a wealth of information on today's Russian technological revolution, the overall roles of regional capitals and smart cities, and the role of Russian growth at the regional and international level. Looking across modern Russian development and growth strategies, constraints, and challenges, these chapters follow on from two volumes by the same editor: Exploring the Future of Russia's Economy and Markets: Towards Sustainable Economic Development (2018), and Modeling Economic Growth in Contemporary Russia (2019). Together, the trilogy is essential reading for students and researchers of contemporary international economics, Russian economic affairs, and emerging economies' development.

The emergence of a world economy depends on the reorganization of agriculture and food systems to provision the work force and the industries associated with the division of labor. This work emphasizes the central role played by food and agriculture in the world economy. The book includes a historical dimension along with the formulation of the challenges that face the world today. Social scientists of all kinds, but especially economists, sociologists, environmentalists, and political scientists, should be interested in this volume.

This book is the result of recent research by contemporary scientists on topics which were discussed at the conference of the same name in Volgograd, Russia in April 2017. The global economic system is currently in a stage of active formation and development: its boundaries and conditions of existence are constantly changing, which is accompanied by crises that influence the economic systems of its member countries. In order to solve problems emanating from global economic crises, a new direction was formed in modern science - global crisis management. Development of this direction requires the formation of the accompanying categorical apparatus, the development of a corresponding scientific and methodological basis, and the engagement in extensive practical research.

The concept of an information economy is considered by some to be a new branch of economic theory, and by others as the next stage of development for an economy post-industrialization. Leading and developing economies are seeking to quickly develop a functional information economy in order to help overcome the consequences of the global financial crisis and ensure high global economic competitiveness. This book analyzes modern conceptual models of information economies, highlighting and examining their systemic contradictions and failings. It explores the disconnection between the readiness of the technical infrastructure for forming and developing the information economy, and an unprepared institutional and societal structure that is therefore unable to implement these processes and models. The editors present different approaches to solving these methodological and practical contradictions and lay out future models across different international contexts. They also provide recommendations for optimizing their theoretical model and improving its implementation in modern economic systems.