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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > International economics > General
Over the past fifty years, crisis management has become essential to achieving and maintaining national security. This book offers a comparative analysis of the preconditions and constraints nine European states place on their participation in international crisis management operations and the important consequences of such decisions, and provides a theoretical framework to help the reader understand this complex decision-making process.
Even after half a century of work and much criticism, the driving
importance of foreign aid shows no sign of abating. Widespread and
acute poverty still ravages many countries of the world, and the
understanding of how aid affects the economies of the recipient
countries is still far from perfect. These two factors alone
warrant the examination offered in this book.
Issues relating to the size of firms in manufacturing are central to the discussion of development strategies. This book offers an interpretation of growth trajectories in selected Asian economies in terms of the size-structure of enterprises in the manufacturing sector of these economies. The book presents a comparative survey of distribution of enterprises by size across Asia, including India, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Bangladesh and Vietnam. A broad survey of official data on the size structure of manufacturing helps to identify three distinct patterns of manufacturing sector development and makes the connection between enterprise development and the overall impact on the economy. The book goes on to investigate the problem of the peculiar dual size structure of manufacturing in India, with its two modes at the low and high end of the size distribution and conspicuous 'missing middle', and the effect that this has on the economy. This pattern is contrasted with the 'East Asian, model with a more even size distribution, and the more recent experience of the newly developing countries of Asia with size distribution skewed to the right. It is an important contribution to studies on Asian Economics and Manufacturing Industries.
Experiences with Financial Liberalization provides a broad spectrum of policy experiences relating to financial liberalization around the globe since the 1960s. There is a sizable body of theoretical and aggregative empirical literature in this area, but there is little work documenting and analyzing the experiences of individual countries and/or sets of countries. This book is divided into four parts by geographical region - Africa, Asia and Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Aggregative econometric studies cannot substitute for country-wide studies in allowing the researcher to draw lessons for the future, and this volume adds to this relatively small body of literature.
Edward M. Graham, Nina Oding and Paul J. J. Welfens Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have achieved sustained economic growth in first half of the new decade in the 2V DEGREES century. EU ac cession countries which have joined the EU have benefited mainly from high capital inflows, a reduced risk premium - with shadow effects of this already occurring in the years before explicit membership - and growing trade. While system transformation has undermined trade between Eastern Europe and Russia for several years there are medium prospects for grow ing trade in the whole of Europe. Russia's case, however, is different from the EU accession countries as a major driving force of economic dynamics is the oil and gas sector which has considerable backward and forward linkages. At the same time this sector apparently is politically quite sensi tive. The Transatlantic Transformation and Economic Development Re search Group has organized several workshops within a major interna tional research project. The project is devoted to analyzing the internatio nalization of the Russian economy and the associated changes in major policy fields. This book contains the revised analytical papers from the St. Petersburg conference in 2003 when the city celebrated its 300 year anniversary. We are very grateful to the Leontief Center for excellent organization of the conference. The paper by Paul J. J."
One consequence of China's economic growth has been a massive increase in migration, both internal and external. Within China millions of rural workers have migrated to the cities. Outside China, many Chinese have migrated to other parts of the world, their remittances home often having a significant impact within China. Also, China's increasing links to other parts of the world have led to a growth in migration to China, most interestingly recently migration from Africa. Based on extensive original research, this book examines a wide range of issues connected to Chinese migration.
Over the past decade India has been undertaking a programme of economic reform, and at the same time the economy has been growing at a high rate. As part of the reform programme, and in line with prevailing economic thinking, India has been privatising its large, ungainly public sector. One assumption underlying this programme is the dogma that public sector enterprises are doomed to inefficiency, and that competitive market forces can be relied on to make firms more efficient once they are privatised. But is this really true? Combining rigorous data analysis with case studies to provide a balanced evaluation of the process of deregulation and privatisation within the overall context of economic reforms, the author demonstrates, remarkably, that, contrary to the prevailing view, private sector firms do not outperform public sector firms across all sectors. He also shows that revenue-raising considerations have weighed more heavily with the government than efficiency objectives. Overall, this study of the reform process in India, with its unique longstanding mix of private and public sectors, will be of great interest to all those studying reform and transition worldwide.
Migration of workers within and across national boundaries is an important issue in an age of increasing levels of innovation and invention which economizes cost and helps large scale production. This book analyses the implications of migration for the levels of unemployment and distinguishes between unemployment which can be attributed to government policy and that which can be generated by a particular behavior of employers and workers. The discussion also includes the issue of foreign workers' effects on unemployment levels - a salient issue in today's climate. With impressive clarity and a scholarly approach, Bharati Basu succeeds in explaining and analysing and important yet complicated topic. This book will be of use to students, academics and professionals interested in labor economics, industrial studies and international business.
Amidst the continued debate surrounding the foundations of IPE, coupled with recent methodological and theoretical divides this book argues that an attempt should be made to re-visit the notion of the 'critical'. The challenge posed by contributors to this volume is to assess the development of so-called critical IPE and interrogate whether the theoretical foundations it was built upon have reached their potential. The essays in this volume take up this challenge in a number of different ways but all share a common concern - to re-assess the purpose of critical approaches, reflect on why certain social theorists have been favoured as a point of departure, yet others have largely been ignored. In light of recent debates on the notion of a 'trans-Atlantic divide' within IPE the collection the contributors aim demonstrates how the distinction between the 'critical' and the 'orthodox' (or 'empirical') is only significant if the 'critical' is geared towards a larger, more substantial body of critical social enquiry and engages with what it means to conduct such enquiry.
by Peter Coffey THE BACKGROUND Once again, Europe finds itselfata majorcrossroads. In January, 1999, the Euro, the European currency, was launched. This major undertaking does reaffinn the EuropeanUnion'scommon international monetarypersonality whilst further deepening the integration process in Western Europe. The launch of the Euro has gone hand-in-hand with an intensification of the negotiating process between the European Union (EU) and a number of countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus which are seeking membershipofthe EU. These countriesare divided into two groups, i. e. the so-called "frontrunners" (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia), and the "others" (Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Romania). The accession negotiations with the first group have pro- ceeded rather swiftly. Now, the second group ofcountries wishes to move into the first one. PRINCIPLES AND CRITERIA FOR MEMBERSHIP Basicallyspeaking,countries fulfilling the following criteria may apply for membershipofthe EU: 1. they mustbe (geographically speaking) Europeancountries, XIV Europe - Toward the Next Enlargement 2. theymust have a multi-party parliamentary democracy, 3. they must have a market-type economy, and, 4. they must respect human rights. These are obviously very basic criteria, thus at the Copenhagen Summitof 1993, they were further refined with an eye to the future enlargement - eastwards - of the EU. In some ways, this listofcriteria obscures someofthe real basic problems which future Member States face in the process of the negotiations for membership. Basically, these countries must accept the three fundamental treaties, i. e. , the Rome, Maastricht and AmsterdamTreaties.
An attentive reader embarking on this book might wonder what "the" economic transition to which the title refers might be. In this century almost all countries have gone through periods of economic transition; but which period of economic history can claim to embody the notion or to represent the era of "the" transition? Definitely, no country or group of countries has experienced anything comparable to the economic upheavals that the fall of communism has brought about in a large portion of the world in just three years (1989 to 1991). No other "transition" to date has prompted more interest and more studies among economists, academics and policy-makers than has the transformation of centrally planned economies into market-based systems. It is this transformation that has come to define "the" transition. Early in the transformation process (in November 1990), with the support of the Centre for Co-operation with the Economies in Transition (CCET), I launched a conference to examine the challenges faced by these countries. About six years have gone by and a new economic landscape has emerged in that part of the world. The difficulties in transforming these economies have exceeded all expectations, and economic performances have varied considerably across countries. The time has come, therefore, to make a first evaluation of progress and problems, with a view to extracting useful policy lessons to guide policy-makers in successfully completing the transition in the near future.
In the 1980s, the Communist government in China sought to accelerate economic growth and institute economic reforms by increasing productivity and introducing free enterprises and free markets. Requiring foreign capital, a system for joint ventures was established to allow foreign companies to form partnerships with Chinese firms in a variety of business and production activities. This work examines the legal, business, and practical issues involved in undertaking and maintaining joint ventures in the People's Republic of China, offering guidance on the laws, regulations, and procedures governing such ventures, and the effect of the Tianamen Square incident on these business vehicles. The work is divided into six chapters, each addressing a different aspect of joint ventures. Chapter 1 places the subject into a historical context, tracing how these ventures emerged as a part of economic reform and what guidelines were established to ensure their value to both participants. Chapter 2 details the methods by which the government translated the ideas and policies into national and local legislation, and lists and explains a few basic statutes. The procedure for establishing a joint venture is fully described in chapter 3, from finding a Chinese firm to sharing the profits and eventually dissolving the partnership. Chapter 4 explores the nature, activities, and success of joint ventures from 1979 to 1987, while Chapter 5 focuses on the Tianamen Square incident and the shift in government policy that followed it. A final chapter provides summary observations on the investment environment in China and the impact of joint ventures on the country's economy. This book will be an essential reference source for courses in international finance and trade, Asian and Chinese studies, and development economics, as well as for finance professionals involved in multinational enterprises. Public and academic libraries will also find it to be a useful addition to their collections.
This volume represents a systematic inquiry into various regional and special aspects of Soviet foreign economic policy, particularly Soviet efforts in the underdeveloped countries.
Where do new multinationals come from? How do firms in developing economies become global players? Gita Sud de Surie provides new perspectives on internationalization and the multinational corporation by focusing on firms in emerging markets rather than established multinationals in industrialized economies. She shows that firms in developing countries are not passive recipients of technology; rather, the attempt to absorb new technologies builds capabilities and generates new aspirations propelling them from being adopters of technology to innovators and participants in the global knowledge economy. Knowledge, Organizational Evolution, and Market Creation documents the emergence of the Indian multinational by looking at data from firms in the 'old' economy, such as those in manufacturing, steel-making, automotive components and heavy machinery and the 'new economy' such as software and biotechnology. The author provides insights on knowledge transfer, innovation and capability building processes through in-depth case studies in these industries and suggests that both entrepreneurship and distributed innovation are critical for the growth of firms globally. This book will be valuable for scholars in international management, business policy and strategy, organization and management theory, economic sociology and history and technology and innovation management. Analysts, consultants and executives will find many useful insights in this book as well.
Since the end of World War II, the Japanese economy has seen rapid changes and remarkable progress. It has also experienced a bubble economy and period of prolonged stagnation. The book seeks to address three major questions: What kind of changes have taken place in the postwar years? In what sense has there been progress? What lessons can be drawn from the experiences? The book is organized as follows: It begins with an overview of the postwar Japanese economy, using data to highlight historical changes. The four major economic issues in the postwar Japanese economy (economic restoration, rapid economic growth, the bubble economy and current topics) are addressed, with particular focus on the meaning of economic growth and the bubble economy. The next chapters examine the important economic issues for Japan related to a welfare-oriented society, including income distribution, asset distribution, and the relative share of income. Another chapter deals with the household structure of Japan, the pension issue, and the importance of the effect of demographic change on income distribution. The final chapter gives a brief summary, examines quality of life as a lesson of this research, and briefly outlines a proposal for a basic design towards achieving a high satisfaction level society. This book will be of interest to economists, economic historians and political scientists and would be useful as a text for any course on the Japanese economy.
This book explores the new economics of monetary union. It carefully discusses the effects of shocks and policies on output and prices. Shocks and policies are country-specific or common. They occur on the demand or supply side. Countries can differ in behavioural functions. Wages can be fixed, flexible, or slow. In addition, fixed wages and flexible wages can coexist. Take for instance fixed wages in Germany and flexible wages in France. Or take fixed wages in Europe and flexible wages in America. A special feature of this book is the numerical estimation of shock and policy multipliers. Further topics are inflation and disinflation. Take for instance inflation in Germany and price stability in France. Then what policy is needed for disinflation in the union? And what will be the dynamic effects on Germany and France?
This fascinating book offers up a window on one of today's key areas relating to globalization. The matter in question is to what extent national competition policy has to be regarded as a factor of international competitiveness. Should national antitrust policy be given priority over international antitrust rules?
This innovative new text brings together the disciplines of economics and social anthropology to provide a refreshing and unique perspective on international business. The bridge building nature of transaction cost economics is utilised to provide coherence for a dialogue of ideas, concepts and methods of analysis. The unique approach spanning both theory and practice, provides new insights into some of the central issues in international business including international joint venture strategy, the internationalization process and organizing for innovation in multinational companies.
This book assesses the 2008-2009 financial crisis and its ramifications for the global economy from a multidisciplinary perspective. Current market conditions and systemic issues pose a risk to financial stability and sustained market access for emerging market borrowers. The volatile environment in the financial system became the source of major threats and some opportunities such as takeovers, mergers and acquisitions for international business operations. This volume is divided into six sections. The first evaluates the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis and its impacts on Global Economic Activity, examining the financial crisis in historical context, the economic slowdown, transmission of the crisis from advanced economies to emerging markets, and spillovers. The second section evaluates global imbalances, especially financial instability and the economic outlook for selected regional economies, while the third focuses on international financial institutions and fiscal policy applications. The fourth section analyzes the capital market mechanism, price fluctuations and global trade activity, while the fifth builds on new trends and business cycles to derive effective strategies and solutions for international entrepreneurship and business. In closing, the final section explores the road to economic recovery and stability by assessing the current outlook and fiscal strategies.
This monograph is the first book-length study of foreign direct investment in Southeast Asia during both the late colonial period and in the contemporary period. It examines the leading Southeast Asian countries receiving foreign investment this century. The arrival of today's Asian investors, from Japan and the four Asian NICs, is described after a brief discussion of the transitionary period of warfare, decolonization and assertion of newly independent states. Special attention is given to the impact of foreign investment on the economic development of the host country.
The stagnation of the Japanese economy and the ageing of Japanese society has led to major changes in the labour market in Japan. This comprehensive study looks at how the Japanese employment system is adapting to its new economic environment. Using the latest statistical evidence, the book focusses on the growing use of part-time and other forms of atypical employment relationships and illustrates how this is expressed in several different parts of the labour market. Particular attention is given to the changing situation of women, the decline of the family enterprise, the problems faced by older workers and the poor prospects for recent high school graduates. The recent rise in unemployment, including hidden unemployment is analysed. Relations between management and employees in Japanese corporations are also becoming more individualistic with the introduction of performance-related pay and the declining importance of enterprise unions. As a result of these changes, the future may see rising levels of income inequality. The Japanese labour force is declining with the ageing of the population and Japan's ability to cope is examined with special attention given to immigration policy. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in what is happening today in Japan and what the possibilities are for the future.
This is the first book to explain the expansion of multinational enterprises (MNEs) into a transition economy from a technology accumulation perspective. The author provides a theoretical alternative to accepted wisdom regarding technology transfer, and discusses the policy implications of this new approach for economic development.
The rapid integration of global governments, businesses and capital has faced a dramatic and often hostile backlash in recent years. As populist agendas worldwide gain momentum, Deglobalization 2.0 explores the key drivers of reactionary movements. From the 'Make America Great Again' movement in the US, to Continental European populism, Peter van Bergeijk explains the critical catalysts of anti-globalization sentiment. Through a historical lens, this book draws out similarities and differences between contemporary developments and the economic crises of the 1930s, offering a unique understanding of the political and economic drivers of deglobalization. Focusing on wealth inequality, social uncertainty and international competition for economic supremacy, van Bergeijk examines and offers answers for the lacunae in the globalization debate. Provocative, insightful and accessible, this book confronts the deglobalization issue as a matter of real urgency and is thus vital reading for policy makers and managers working in international affairs and economic relations. It also offers guidance for academics in international economics and relations moving into the uncharted territory of deglobalization processes.
This book examines the process of Poland 's accession negotiations to the European Union between 1998-2003. An empirical study based on Robert Putnam 's two-level game model, it charts the influence and role of key domestic actors and groups on the negotiations especially in three critical, controversial, areas - areas where EU accession threatened to bring about a profound transformation to Polish life - agriculture, with particular emphasis on direct payments and production quotas; the purchase of real estate by foreigners; and the free movement of labour. This book demonstrates the complex interaction between the domestic and international level of negotiations and furthermore, shows how critical this link can be to negotiation outcomes at the international level. It reveals how susceptible Poland 's negotiation process was to domestic pressure, particularly public opinion and interest groups. Drawing heavily on qualitative analysis such as press releases, news wires, policy documents, as well as quantitative analyses, such as the use of opinion polls, and supported by in-depth, unrestricted interviews with key Polish decision-makers, this book examines the dynamics of policy formation in Poland and shows how this translated into the final conditions of accession. |
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