This study provides an overview of how the Bangladeshi leather value chain is organised and governed. It analyses how the leather processing and leather goods/footwear subsectors are integrated into the global market and to what extent informal arrangements including illicit practices are conducive to global market entry. Power relations are dissected along the value chain, in order to analyse how local producers adapt to upholding competitiveness. The results of the work show the need to devise upgrading strategies which pay heed to the reality of informal dynamics in a global value chain (GVC) to improve the local producers' competitiveness. The GVC perspective was combined with considerations on upgrading, subcontracting, middlemen and informality to adequately analyse the complexity of the transactions in the chain. The data of this study are drawn from empirical field studies in Dhaka, Bangladesh and other sections of the international leather value chain during the time period of 2010 to 2014. A qualitative research approach was complemented with quantitative methods.

The integration of the Central and Eastern European transition countries into the European Union is one of the most exciting economic policy issues of today. The book provides a detailed analysis of the economic effects which EU integration has on accession countries. It shows that these countries have already managed to fully remove the anti-trade bias with the EU that existed before the fall of the iron curtain. Benefits from further integration into the EU could result in particular from the fact that full membership in the European Community will increase the credibility of government policy in accession countries. The study explores in depth how these credibility effects can be quantified. The author develops a novel approach to model the transformation process within a dynamic computable general equilibrium framework. Furthermore, he estimates the potential income and welfare effects of EU integration for Poland, the largest transition country with EU candidate status.

The creation of Monetary Union marked a major step in the evolution of the European Union. Is the EU now taking the next step of deeper integration towards a fully-fledged economic government? The book seeks to answer this question by studying the evolution, execution and performance of new modes of economic policy co-ordination as potential stepping-stones towards more institutionalized forms of economic governance.

The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 shook the foundations of the global economy and what began as a localised currency crisis soon engulfed the entire Asian region. What went wrong and how did the Asian economies long considered 'miracles' respond? How did the United States, Japan and other G-7 countries respond to the crisis? What role did the IMF play?. Why did China, which suffers many of the same structural problems responsible for the crisis remain conspicuously insulated from the turmoil raging in its midst?. What explains the remarkable recovery now underway in Asia? In what fundamental ways did the Asian crisis serve as a catalyst to the current thinking about the "new international financial architecture"?. This book provides answers to all the above questions and more, and gives a comprehensive account of how the international economic order operates, examines its strengths and weaknesses, and what needs to be done to fix it. -- .

This book explores the Arctic as a rapidly evolving phenomenon in international affairs of a rising number of stakeholders. For decades, Arctic studies used to be an affair of a relatively narrow group of experts from northern countries. This time is over due to a new Chinese Arctic policy, as well as growing regional interests from South Korea, Singapore, India and Japan. Contributors reflect on new roles for the Arctic region: both as a playground for the old school nation state competition and even confrontation, and a new source for international cooperation in energy, logistics and natural sciences. Climate change, political tensions and economic competition make Arctic a hotter venue of international relations. This new Arctic fever, studied through a comparative analysis of different regional agendas, especially with a focus on the US-China-Russia triangle, represents the main subject of our book, which will be of interest to scholars of geopolitics, of climate change, and of 21st century energy economics.

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This book demonstrates exact scholarship (and an) understanding of the way in which business works...(it has) a capacity to reduce a mass of apparently unrelated facts into the neat shape of theory."The Economist Describing and analyzing the part played by Western firms and governments in the economic development of Indonesia and Malaysia, the period covered by this survey extends from the early decades of the nineteenth century to the 1950s. Special attention is given to the changes that have taken place since the Second World War. The intricate economic relations between Westerners and Asians, and the results of changes in those relations are fully discussed. Comparisons and contrasts with the economic activities of Westerners in the development of China and Japan are also examined.

The key arguments and debates about globalization have raised searching questions about the significance of national and regional borders for the competitive strategies of individuals, firms and industries." Global Competitiveness and Innovation" seeks to address these issues by exploring four key topics: The status of economic agents in the emerging global economy; the limits of path dependence and the scope of agent action; the relationship between agents' decision-making and their environments; and agents' learning capacities in a world of information and knowledge creation.

Creating a Eurasian Union offers a detailed analysis of the economies of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan and the proposed Eurasian Union. The authors employ econometric analysis of business cycles and cointegration analysis to prove the fragility of the union's potential economic success. By providing a brief description of the economic integration of the former Soviet republics, this pioneering work analyses the on-going trial and error processes of market integration led by Russia. Vymyatnina and Antonova's distinctive argument is the first consistent analysis of the emerging Eurasian Union. They incorporate both a non-technical summary of the integration process and previous research and analytical comments, as well as a thorough empirical analysis of the real data on the economic development of the participating countries, to caution that the speed of integration might undermine the feasibility of the Eurasian Union.

This text is about transformation in the framework of European integration. The Balkan countries have acquired particular importance since the 1990s due to their domestic destabilisation and have been looking for good examples and ideas to pursue development in ethnically complex and conflicting areas.

EU membership involves political and economic reforms
which influence financial markets in the new member states.
This study empirically explores and quantifies the effects of
EU accession on the risk and return of equity markets in eight
Central and Eastern European markets joining the EU in 2004.
The study also incorporates a review of how the influence of
macroeconomic variables and the level of integration with
global and European markets change as a result of
EU membership.
Based on empirical tests using weekly data over ten years,
this study concludes that EU membership results in a
significant decline in equity market volatility and a
significant increase in risk-adjusted, but not absolute,
equity returns. Furthermore, the study suggests that equity
markets in new EU member states become increasingly
influenced by global rather than local macroeconomic
factors after the EU accession and that the level of integration
with global markets increases.

Written by a distinguished group of Third World and American scholars, this book investigates the political, economic, cultural, and religious dynamics of the Third World. Both highly topical and extremely timely, the volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to the subject, employing analytical tools drawn from political science, history, economics, and sociology. The papers included serve to facilitate a new understanding of the complex nature of Third World nationalism, explore critical issues facing the Third World such as widespread hunger in Africa and the mounting debt crisis, and offer new perspectives on the role of religion and ethnicity in Third World politics.

In his introduction, Ali sets the context for the papers that follow. He notes that the new nations of the Third World cannot be political and economic equals of the developed nations. Thus, aware of their weaknesses, the overriding concern of Third World leaders is to preserve themselves from foreign encroachment. The 14 subsequent papers define, explain, and analyze the myriad issues and problems that today confront policy-makers in both the Third World and the developed nations, including: the economic impact of OPEC; the political and economic origins of hunger in Africa; the West and Third World Religion; open economics and repressive policies in the Third World; the influences on and effects of U.S. policies towards the Third World. Students of political science as well as policy-makers and diplomats will find "Third World At the CrossroadS" enlightening and provocative reading.

The world's financial markets experienced a strong globalization trend in the 20th century. With the removal of barriers to cross-border flow of capital, financial markets have become truly global during the last two decades of the century. The research papers included in this book study a number of important issues in the world's financial markets. The recent emerging markets crisis, which started in South-Eeast Asia and affected all the world's developed and emerging financial markets, is studied in detail. Another important issue, which receives considerable coverage in the book, is the European financial integration. The financial markets in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America are studied extensively and the linkages between them are analyzed. The objective of the book is to provide the reader with a comprehensive and balanced overview of the world's financial markets at the end of the 20th century.

Every year, every Alaskan gets paid. They receive a small dividend financed by returns on a fund created from the state's resource revenues - what the authors have called the 'Alaska model.' This timely book examines how the model can be adapted for use elsewhere, examining issues of implementation and showing that this model can be employed even in resource-poor areas in the industrialized and in the industrializing world.

This text offers detailed analysis and informed comment on the future of emerging economic policies. It is essential reading for all postgraduates and scholars looking for expert discussion and debate on the issues surrounding economic policy.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on bloomsburycollections.com. In Retooling Global Development and Governance a team of UN experts debate new ideas about how to overcome deficiencies in the ongoing process of globalization and in the existing mechanisms for global economic governance. They do not claim to offer a blueprint, rather a set of ideas that could become the basis for a coherent "toolbox" designed to guide development policies and international cooperation. Promising directions for reform discussed in the book include: - Strengthening government capacities for formulating and implementing national development strategies - New strategies for ensuring that official development assistance is aligned with national priorities - Enhancing international trade and financial systems so that countries with limited capabilities can successfully integrate into the global economy - Creating new mechanisms for dealing with deficiencies, such as specialized multilateral frameworks through which to govern international migration and labour mobility, international financial regulation, multinational corporations and global value chains regulation and sovereign debt workouts. Above all, the book highlights the need for a strong mechanism for global economic coordination to establish coherence across all areas of global economic governance.

The essays in this book examine the role of education and the university in economic development. It is the contention of the contributors that knowledge--ideas and skilled and educated people--are increasingly important for economic development. How to promote inclusive development--the process of development that includes every citizen in any country--has become a wide-ranging puzzle.

After framing the problems associated with globally integrated learning processes from the perspective of science and technology policies, the essayists look at the role of the university in the knowledge economy drawing examples from the United States, Japan, and Portugal. They then review the role of innovation in the industrial policies of a variety of countries, look at systems of knowledge creation and diffusion, and conclude with commentary on the roles of public planning and policy in the achievement of sustainable development. This wide-ranging examination of knowledge and development issues will be of value to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with economic growth and development.

China's emerging financial markets reflect the usual contrast between the country's measured approach toward policy, regulatory, and market reform, and the dynamic pace of rapid economic growth and development. But they also offer unusual challenges and opportunities. In the past five years, the pace of opening and reform has accelerated sharply. Recapitalization and partial privatization of the largest banks, and the allowance of some joint venture and branch operations for foreign financial institutions, are making rapid headway in developing and expanding financial services and improving access to domestic business and households. This book provides the most extensive look available at the evolving Chinese financial system. It begins with alternative perspectives on the evolution of the financial system and the broad outlines of its prospects and potential contribution to economic growth. Three articles review broad aspects of the financial system. Franklin Allen, Jun ''QJ'' Qian, Meijun Qian, and Mengxin Zhao lead off with overviews of the banking system and performance of the equity market and other institutions.

This book examines fiscal policy coordination in EMU and the required adjustments to national fiscal policies by EMU member states. It presents a coherent view of German fiscal policy following the creation of the Stability and Growth Pact in 1995-97 and the implementation of the Stability Pact in 1997. The book shows that, in the process of Europeanization, national interests have had a major impact on the formation of fiscal policy coordination. It also shows how European fiscal policy coordination has affected national fiscal policies and policy implementation in EMU, and how changes in national interests have finally launched the reform process of the original Stability Pact and a new phase or Europeanization.

Inspired by the experience of some advanced economies, a number of emerging market economies have recently adopted rules limiting the budget deficit, expenditure level, or indebtedness of the public sector, while others consider them for eventual adoption. This volume brings together policy analysts to discuss the rationale, suitability, and usefulness of fiscal policy rules in emerging market economies. Grouped under three main parts (political economy and macroeconomic setting; design issues at the national level; design issues at the subnational level), the chapters have a practical orientation, based on conceptual grounding. FABRIZIO BALASSONE Bank of Italy, Italy OLAV BJERKHOLT University of Oslo, Norway MIGUEL BRAUN University of San Andres, Colombia MARCO BUTI European Commission, International ANDRES CONESA Secretariat of Finance, Mexico FABRIZIO CORICELLI University of Siena, Italy ALLAN DRAZEN Tel Aviv University, Israel VALERIO ERCOLANI University of Siena, Italy DANIELE FRANCO Bank of Italy, Italy GABRIELE GIUDICE European Commission, Italy ILAN GOLDFAJN Central Bank of Brazil, Brazil CHRISTIAN Y. GONZALEZ Georgetown University, USA EDUARDO R. GUARDIA State of Sao Paulo

A challenging and informed examination of the links between the general business environment and the operations, decisions, and organizations of firms. O'Sullivan explores the links between the two 'hot' issuesDScorporate governance and innovationDS.

This book investigates dynamic regions in the context of greater global interaction in a world economy increasingly driven by knowledge and innovation. It offers novel empirical evidence on the underlying factors of the growth performance of these spaces. In particular, the following questions are addressed: What role is there for research, education and innovation in the development strategies of the dynamic growth regions? What are the risks and consequences of dynamic growth on patterns of world growth and development, competitiveness, inequalities, and convergence? What development strategies should be promoted at national and international levels to promote a growing and more sustainable world economy? What are the implications of the emerging new competitors for Europe's competitiveness? Using an innovative, integrated framework of analysis, the contributions in this book combine a wide array of complex theoretical and methodological approaches.

Approaches economic sanctions as a form of statecraft in order to study the oft used but not well understood policy from a different perspective. The chapters examine a variety of cases involving the use of economic threats and promises. Their authors come from both academic and policy making fields, as well as different disciplinary backgrounds (political science and economics). They apply different research approaches (case studies, statistical analysis, formal economics) to increase our understanding of the sanction puzzle.

Economic sanctions have become an increasingly popular instrument of foreign policy. They have been used with increasing incidence to discourage or punish a variety of objectionable practices--such as terrorism, ethnic cleansing, nuclear proliferation, human rights abuses--by states and multilateral organizations such as the UN and NATO. Yet much controversy characterizes the debate about both the motivations behind the initiation of economic sanctions and the consequences following from their imposition. This collection of essays seeks to illuminate this debate through a combination of different methodologies and cases.