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.

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.

In the contemporary business world, international is the default setting. Most organizations operate globally on some level which adds value but brings complexity and challenges. This textbook provides an introduction to understanding how businesses create value in global settings. In this updated edition, the authors cover the traditional key themes including multinationals, internationalization and international market entry, as well as contemporary issues. New topics analyzed in this edition include risk, business models and hyperglobalization. With dedicated chapters on the role on non-market actors in international business, the book provides a multi-disciplinary world-view for readers. A comprehensive and engaging text, supplemented by online resources, this book is the ideal accompaniment to international and global business learning.

'The Recalcitrant Rich' is a collection of sharp and fairly short sketches and explanations of the responses to developing-country demands by seven West European countries, the European Community, the United States of America and the U.S.S.R. It aims to analyse the responses of the North to the demands from the South for those political and economic changes that collectively constitute the 'New International Economic Order' package.

Technology is a key driver behind the effects of contemporary globalization on business and other organizations worldwide. Understanding this phenomena in connection with the impact of cultural variations can help improve business and product life cycles in an era in which corporate capital and liquidity buffers must be increased for unexpected developments in global markets. Cultural and Technological Influences on Global Business is a leading publication in its field emphasizing the importance of deeply exploring the effects of cultures and technologies on the global business sector. This reference source is beneficial for professionals, researchers, and practitioners who wish to broaden their understanding of the direct relationship between culture and technology in the international business realm.

Face the new world of modern macroeconomics, in a thought-provoking and sincere interpretation of the globalization of markets in an easy-to-read, real life application of how the social media platform is changing economic development worldwide. Today macroeconomics is being approached by international business professionals, economists, and corporate multinational decision makers through social media, emerging markets and the demographics in various countries worldwide. The "new normal" in international business consists of new opportunities in markets that are rapidly growing and engaging the developed world through technology and social media. Emerging and frontier markets are becoming more attractive in cultivating the next generation of labor force and scholars in order to participate in economic advancement and multinational market entry worldwide. Advanced economies are taking notice of building economic capacity through social media. They are also actively participating in the creation of new, innovative approaches to market entry. Alas, the world has truly become global---entertainment, education, cultural exploration, language, and marketing. Faceconomics presents an avenue to be explored in the twenty-fi rst century. It refl ects how economies of scale can be multiplied and technology can lift societies worldwide. Face the new business normal and face the world of Faceconomics.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This book integrates important milestone cases with new analyses to provide comprehensive coverage of environmental law and economics. It covers important international topics, including interactions of global environmental features and public/private health, economics of the institutions for optimal environmental management, extension of the Polluter Pays Principle to the global arena (including international trade), improved approach to the usage of cost-benefit analysis methods, economic or environmental decision-making under risk aversion and uncertainty, integration of operations in world trade and finance with the ecology and economics of the environment, objective treatment of methods of compliance, and dispute settlement procedures in the international environmental disputes arena.

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.

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.

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.

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 distribution of technology among enterprises and nations lies at the heart of international economic relations, affecting trade, investment, finance and economic policies, and is affected in turn by the political relations between nations. The need for effective transfer of technology to developing countries has acquired renewed urgency in recent years as production becomes increasingly knowledge-intensive and competition is determined more and more by the ability of enterprises to learn, to acquire and use knowledge, and to innovate. Access to knowledge has become key to economic success in the marketplace. This text discusses the background, objectives, approaches and progress achieved in the decade-long negotiations on an International Code of Conduct on the Transfer of Technology which took place under the aegis of UNCTAD. It examines the impact and continued relevance of the Code negotiations to subsequent policy and legislative instruments on international technology transfer, both at domestic and international levels, and identifies and examine emerging trends and negotiating agendas that will help to shape the future of international technological co-operation. The central question posed by the initiators of the Draft Code of Conduct is still relevant today - how can we facilitate a just and mutually beneficial system of technology flow in a world of rapid change and increasing gaps in the technological capability of developed and developing countries? The need for marginalized countries to access knowledge in order to learn, adjust and integrate effectively into the world economic system must be balanced with the vital need to reward inventors and innovators to ensure the continued generation of knowledge. It is these issues that will continue to dominate any future discussion on the international transfer of technology. This book will be a valuable work of reference on the evolution of international technological cooperation in the last quarter of the 20th century, as well as a useful guide to policymakers, scholars and international negotiators dealing with these and related issues of international economic cooperation.

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.

This insightful book explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese. Would Japan's remarkable post-World War II economic success enable the East Asian nation to overtake the United States? Or could Japan's globe-trotting corporations serve as a model for battered U.S. industries, pointing the way to a future of globalized commerce and culture? While popular films and literature recycled old anti-Asian imagery and crafted new ways of imagining the ""yellow peril,"" and formal U.S.-Japan relations remained locked in a holding pattern of Cold War complacency, a remarkable shift was happening in countless local places throughout the United States: Japanese goods were remaking American consumer life and injecting contemporary globalization into U.S. commerce and culture. What impact did the flood of billions of Japanese things have on the ways Americans produced, consumed, and thought about their place in the world? From autoworkers to anime fans, Consuming Japan introduces new unorthodox actors into foreign-relations history, demonstrating how the flow of all things Japanese contributed to the globalizing of America in the late twentieth century.

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.