European integration has come a long way since the fIrst steps in the aftermath of the Second World War. At that time, the neutral European countries chose to stay outside the European Economic Community. Those countries that wanted less ambitious cooperation formed the European Free Trade Association. Increasing trade dependence between the two groupings was institutionalised when they signed free-trade agreements with each other, creating thus a wider European free-trade area in manufactures. The strong push towards deepening integration among EC countries, manifested in the Single European Act in 1985, and the dismantling of non-tariff barriers to trade and factor flows in the EC by 1993, made it necessary for EFTA countries to secure access on equal conditions to their most important export market and thus prevent trade diversion. The ensuing agreement on the European Economic Area responded to these demands, but did not resolve the apparent asymmetry in EEA decision-making. This emanated from the supremacy ofEC legislation over EEA rules, thus making EFTA countries passively adjust to EC norms. Consequently, Finland applied for membership in the EC in March 1992, with effect from 1995. The latest phase in the integration process, the Treaty on European Union, has an aim to further deepening, e. g. the formation of the economic and monetary union by 1999.

Development assistance, long seen as a giveaway to developing countries, is, according to Berrios' assessment, actually a giveaway to large for-profit U.S. contractors. Berrios shows that a small but influential number of contractors continue to be awarded most of the contracts, both in value and number, despite their average or substandard performance.

Berrios documents the commercial considerations that drive U.S. development assistance. The increasing delivery of development aid in the form of contracts has led contractors to increase their weight and influence on USAID's programs. As Berrios contends, the reasons for giving aid often have little to do with helping other countries, because, instead, it ends up mainly helping U.S. firms.

Little is known about contracting for development. The contracting process is often neither open nor competitive. Despite the talk of restructuring, USAID continues to award contracts that are unfavorable to the agency. Berrios documents the practices of private sector contracting, how they compete for USAID contracts, how they fit into the stated aims and needs of the agency, and what their performance evaluations say upon completion of contracts. Berrios also provides a sweeping review of U.S. development assistance policies, the trend toward privatization, the rhetoric about reinventing government, and the issue of past performance. A controversial assessment, this will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with U.S. developmental strategies.

In the last decade, regionalism appears to have emerged as a major new force in the world. This book puts it in its historical context. Regions have emerged before; few are old because they either evolve into federal systems or break up. The current regions are less dominant than their critics fear, but imply more integration than a simple view that they are about liberalizing trade. All go beyond trade to other linkages, and all enduring ones have political as well as economic agendas.

In recent years, economic prognosticators have pondered whether the U.S. economy has entered a new era. This "new economy" is generally characterized as having technological innovations that have raised productivity and, accordingly, removed pricing power from the world's producers on a more lasting basis. Although the 2001 recession quelled the discussion about whether the United States, and perhaps even the world, had entered a period characterized by sustained high levels of economic growth, researchers continue to investigate the effects of technological change on the economy. This volume examines the underpinnings of the new economy - technology and its effects on macroeconomic growth and the labor market.
Technology, Growth, and the Labor Market brings together research by economists from academia and the Federal Reserve System. The first section of the volume includes discussions by monetary policymakers with firsthand experience in determining how technology affects productivity, inequality, and macroeconomic growth. Papers in the second section discuss the sources of the surge in labor productivity growth during the latter half of the 1990s and present forecasts of labor productivity growth rates during the next few years. In the third section, the papers focus on the role of technological advances in changes in earnings inequality in the labor market. The authors examine whether inequality should be viewed as a causal result of skill-biased technological change or whether there is a missing link - or perhaps no link - between changes in technology and changes in wage inequality. The final section explores the relationships between computer investment, worker skills, human resource practices, and productivity at the industry and firm levels.

More than half the world's sovereign states are small economies. The majority are developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean Basin. The globalization process poses special challenges for small economies because of their vulnerability and lack of diversification. How should they overcome the limitations of smallness and become better integrated into the world economy? How should they take advantage of the opportunities resulting from globalization while avoiding the pitfalls? Opening the economy is widely recommended, but there are important risks for which policy-makers need to define a balanced response. This book discusses the main strategies or options for small developing economies towards better integration into the world economy. They include membership of the World Trade Organization and unilateral economic liberalization. Another important strategy is regional integration among developing countries. Many small states also continue to rely heavily on special trade arrange-ments with industrial countries. Recently a lot of attention has been paid to quite a different strategy: North-South integration with reciprocal obligations. In practice, the strategies are not mutually exclusive, but must be combined into a coherent policy package for maximum advantage.

The financial crisis that hit a number of economies of Asia in 1997 shocked the world. Financial Liberalization and the Asian Crisis rejects conventional explanations of the crisis as the outcome primarily of inefficient and corrupt economic systems in the countries concerned. It argues that the crisis was the result of premature and overly rapid financial liberalization in a world of increasing liquidity and volatility, and calls for a more cautious approach to financial liberalization, and reform of the international financial architecture.

Countries in Latin America have only recently begun to liberalize their economies and move towards free trade. However, non-traditional barriers to trade threaten this new direction of development. This collection of papers uses the point of view of a developing country to analyze the effects of new forms of protection. Four cases examine the global effects on Latin American trade, specifically: environmental standards, labor standards, consumer protection, and the problems facing Latin American cross-border investment.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world financial markets, and institutions have new features, and are working in different environments and conditions. These are increasing the role of the financial sector in the world economy, integration of the financial markets and institutions, liberalization of related laws and regulations, increasing linkages between sub-segments of financial markets, computerizing of financial markets and institutions, and introducing new instruments and innovative derivatives. The majority of the above changes are considered positive developments in the world economy. However, some of the negative aspects are associated along with the above new conditions. One of the most critical changes is the increased linkage, which may lead to the transmission of high price volatility of stocks, currencies, and inflation, from one economy to another, and in turn may lead to financial crises at certain events and conditions similar to those which occured in 1987, 1989 and 1997. The financial crises are not confined to a financial market or a financial institution, or a country or a region. There are at present, no generally accepted arguments or explanations for the financial crises that occurred in the last century. The financial crises moved from one market to another, across geographical locations, as well as across segments of financial systems, including both developed and emerging markets.

The above features and conditions are creating new challenges; there is an urgent need, therefore, to examine various aspects of financial markets related to stability, risk, and activity, in order to find the most relevant environment and market mechanism that maymeet the conditions of stability, liquidity, and efficiency. This volume is devoted to exploring various aspects of this issue.

The term 'structural adjustment' has been associated with rioting as angry and hungry masses protest food price increases due to subsidy cuts or due to other structural adjustment conditions prescribed by the IMF and the World Bank. Structural adjustment, and the neo-liberal paradigm that underlies it, is now the dominant economics paradigm practised by developing countries. The main purpose of the book is to rely on evidence and to go beyond rhetoric, ideology and anecdotes in assessing structural adjustment in Pakistan and the developing world more generally to examine how reform can be combined with pragmatism and social justice.

Based on a major international research project undertaken by The Institute for EastWest Studies, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of a feature of post-Cold War Europe: the emergence of subregional co-operation in areas such as the Barents, the Baltic Sea, Central Europe and the Black Sea. It analyzes the role of subregional cooperation in the new Europe, provides detailed case studies of the subregional groups and examines their relations with NATO and the European Union. This text is for departments of international relations; defence studies; Soviet and East European studies; and economics.

Peter T. Chinloy and Ernst W. Stromsdorfer I. Background to Adjustments in Labor Markets The book examines the process of adjustment in labor markets across countries arising from external shocks and shifts in international competi tiveness. The examination of specific countries and their data permits a comparison of alternative institutions for compensating and redeploying labor. Four countries are involved, whose labor markets are both competi tive and complementary: Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Both public labor market institutions, such as direct government com pensation of displaced workers and the effect of unemployment insurance, and private market arrangements, such as em loyer-employee agreements on layoffs, the work contract, and severance pay, are considered. Compara tive examination across countries of labor market and related insitutions is thus possible. The book has a common theme, namely the adjustment of labor markets to exogenous shocks, particularly those externally induced. The unifying focus in on workers whose specific skills in an industry or firm render them relatively immobile."

International Monetary Cooperation among the United States, Japan, and Germany offers a first - and overdue - book- length study of counterproductive cooperation. It takes to task the critical importance of conducting systematic theory-guided empirical research to examine the validity of arguments that international monetary cooperation could be highly counterproductive. This book combines various methods - formal, quantitative, and qualitative - to study the theories of counterproductive monetary cooperation by focusing on the cooperative episodes among the major industrial countries - the United States, Japan, and Germany. For the first time, this book presents all theories of counterproductive cooperation in one place, subjects them to systematic, empirical scrutiny in the light of the experience of G-3 (U.S., Germany, and Japanese) cooperation since the 1970s, and suggests policy recommendations in the light of the findings.

In this timely and unique study, the innovations in India's information (IT) industry are examined in detail. Globally the IT Industry has experienced phenomenal growth. The book examines the issues surrounding the analysis of the Indian IT sector on a global, national, regional, firm, and product level and the significance of national policies to sustain the competitiveness of the Indian IT sector.

The book deals with both the short and the long-run effects of the Uruguay Round: the reduction in the obstacles to trade, the enlargement of the multilateral system, the new institutional framework and the balance between regionalism and multilateralism in world trade relations. Its conclusions are based on theory, political economy and empirical analysis.

This book, first published in 1967, presents a concise picture of the demand and supply trends of timber around the world. Zivnuska provides a keen analysis of plans, prospects, and opportunities in the areas covered, and an interesting look at the North American forest economy. This book will be of interest to students of environmental studies and forestry.

As the world economy becomes more integrated, products become more globalized. Airplanes, automobiles, computers, watches, and garments are among products whose constituent parts are made all over the world. This volume presents arguments and evidence showing that this process is benign: it raises competitiveness, creates jobs, and enhances economic welfare.

More and more Third World countries are providing development assistance to other developing countries. This book examines a range of these "South-South" aid projects sponsored by such countries as China, Korea, Cuba and Brazil.

The US is slowly recovering from the aftermath of the burst of the "new economy" bubble--which was one of the worst in monetary history. Philip Arestis and Elias Karakitsos examine the causes and consequences of the burst of the "new economy" bubble and investigate the impact on financial markets. The risks and long-term prospects for the economy and financial markets are also examined.

One of the most troubling developments of the past two decades has been the dramatic rise in inequality among nations and within nations. This book examines the nature of this development in a variety of countries and contexts - China, Russia, Australia, Latin America, Italy - where the rise of inequality has not been studied as intensively as the US or UK. It also presents analyses of some potential causes and consequences of the rise in inequality.

Erik Banks, responsible for global risk management at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, has written another text on the derivatives field covering innovation in these instruments in Asia Pacific. The text acts as a detailed reference on the nature of these markets and the prospects for the Asian derivative markets, both listed and OTC. He also includes an analysis of the Australian, New Zealand and Japanese markets to fit the emerging markets into context.

Independently commissioned by IAI, the three studies comprising this book examine inter-Arab industrial and economic cooperation. The first chapter analyses the industrial strategies, economic policies and attempts at harmonisation and cooperation of the Arab countries, providing a detailed picture of the convergences and divergences, the potential and the difficulties faced by the region. The second chapter examines the importance of coordinating economic polices if economic integration is to be sustained, and considers the implications to the world economy. Lastly, the third chapter examines Arab labour flows, a key factor in the development of the Arab countries. First published in 1979.

This book presents a detailed account of the development of strong and substantive economic relations that existed between Singapore and China since the time when the two countries established diplomatic ties in October 1990. The chapters provide a comprehensive discussion of the main areas of cooperation, such as the institutional framework for pursuing economic links, the Suzhou Industrial Park, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City, investments, trade, finance, tourism and education. The economic opportunities and challenges in these economic sectors in the two countries are examined in the context of the profound political and social changes taking place in mainland China and the globalization of the world economy.

The book will be invaluable to policy-makers, academics and students specializing in Chinese studies, as well as businessmen and the general public interested in seeking a greater understanding of the complex economic relations between the two nations.

In the new global economy, more countries have opened up to international competition and rapid capital flows. However, in the triad the process of globalization is rather asymmetric. With a rising role of multinational companies there are favorable prospects for higher global growth and economic catching-up, respectively. Theoretical analysis suggests key ingredients of sustained growth, but there is also a new concept of a long-term equilibrium income gap in which convergence is rather unlikely. The analysis also picks up European and US labor market issues in the context of economic globalization and raises the question of which EU policies in the field of labor market reform and of innovation policies are adequate.

Challenging the prevailing view of privatization, this book analyzes the state of privatization around the world and offers policy suggestions. It includes original material of an analytical, empirical, and case study nature on the theory and practice of privatization, its relationship with the globalization of capital, its political and ideological underpinnings, its political, social, and economic consequences around the world. Its originality, currency, and critical perspectives make it a unique source for a wide variety of audiences.

The book's opening chapters deal with an extensive theoretical introduction followed by discussions on contracting out, public enterprise reform, and UN-led evaluations of contracting performance. In part two, the book turns to privatization and its flaws in major industrialized nations, including the United States, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Australia. Part three analyzes privatization and its effects on policy and administration in Asian and Middle Eastern countries, including Post-revolutionary Iran, India, Singapore, Hong Kong-China, and Arab developing countries. Arguing that privatization is a poor policy with many dangers, the book offers suggestions for serious reform of public enterprise management and for alternatives to privatization.