The last two and a half decades witnessed China's epoch-making economic growth and great social changes, which indicates the commence of China's national rejuvenation after a near two-centuries-long stagnant or backward period. In exploring the causal dynamics of China's rejuvenation, Jianrong Huang's book examines the internal and external elements from various sides, in both the comprehensive way and the separate way, thus providing a convincible explanation about the driving force of China's marvellous development.

The process of globalization has had a dramatic impact on the lives of women in developing countries. In the past decade, they have been increasingly drawn into insecure flexible employment working for the world market. This book explores the experiences of women in diverse local contexts within different cultures and faiths, drawing on case studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America. It draws out the contradictory and fragmented impact of globalization at the local level on the lives of women in the developing world.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org.
This book examinesthe significance of networks among the firms operative in the contemporary Russian software industry in the St. Petersburg region.It focuses on the kind of resources that are transmitted through the personalnetworks of Russian business managers and directors.

Gunnar Myrdal was a Nobel Memorial Prize Laureate in Economics in 1974. This study examines the manner in which his intellectual style left an impact on the shaping of Sweden's welfare state, on race relations in the United States, and on post-World War Two economic cooperation in Europe.

This volume examines the regional and global contexts of the political economy of illegal narcotics operations in the Caribbean. It assesses some of the political economy connections and discusses measures adopted to contend with the region's illegal drug challenge.

The financial crisis prompted financial supervisors to take a critical look at their own performance.The "toolkit" available to supervisors is considerably more varied than it was a few years ago. Supervision has become more forward-looking, taking into account also soft controls, such as conduct and culture, corporate governance, and business models of financial institutions.This collection of essays discusses several significant changes in supervision methods and supervisory organisations and examines what methods contribute to good supervision and what can reasonably be expected of supervisors. The authors are experts in the field and most of them are affiliated to organisations responsible for financial supervision.

'It is a serious piece of scholarship. Integrating economic history, economic thought, patent-hoarding, venture capital and the changing global economy, Kingston asks if modern capitalism might be an internally inconsistent system. Like Schumpeter, he is concerned that creative innovation might be stagnating into institutional ossification. It is an interesting argument, well presented, cross-disciplinary and thought-provoking.' - David Reisman, University of Surrey, UK and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Capitalism has been sustained by inherited moral values that are now all but exhausted. A unique combination of a new belief in individualism and a long tradition of property rights had traditionally ensured that self-interested action also produced public benefit. However, these rights, including the laws underwriting economic and financial innovation and parliamentary democracy, were gradually captured and shaped by those who could benefit most from them. This fascinating book shows that the outcome is a reduced ability to generate real wealth combined with exceptional inequality, as well as a worldwide breach of the vital trust between voters and their representatives. Capitalism's injuries are both self-inflicted and fatal. William Kingston uniquely deals with capitalism from a property rights standpoint, providing the first convincing explanation of economic cycles in terms of changes to these rights. The lucid exploration of the historical evolution of property includes a remarkable precursor of modern capitalism in medieval culture and pays particular attention to intellectual property. The book also calls attention to the harm that inaccurate measurement of economic activity can cause, both at the micro-level (auditing of corporations) and macro-level (the Kuznets GDP/GNP system). In conclusion, it argues that the exceptional levels of inequality today have been caused primarily by allowing financiers to escape from the laws that traditionally prevented them from 'generating money from nothing'. Challenging the orthodox thinking, this is an essential book for economists and political scientists in academia, the public sector and industry. It offers an imperative warning that capitalism's next crash is coming sooner rather than later.

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.

This book aims to provide comprehensive coverage of the field of air transportation, giving attention to all major aspects, such as aviation regulation, economics, management and strategy. The book approaches aviation as an interrelated economic system and in so doing presents the "big picture" of aviation in the market economy. It explains the linkages between domains such as politics, society, technology, economy, ecology, regulation and how these influence each other. Examples of airports and airlines, and case studies in each chapter support the application-oriented approach. Students and researchers in business administration with a focus on the aviation industry, as well as professionals in the industry looking to refresh or broaden their knowledge of the field will benefit from this book.

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.

The economic and political transition in Central and Eastern Europe has now entered its second decade. Although the post-communist countries shared many similarities at the outset of the transition, their economic and political experiences have been strongly divergent. Some countries succeeded in stabilizing their economies and are now set on course toward rapid growth, convergence, and accession to the European Union. Others, however, experienced severe and protracted recessions and their prospects for sustained recovery are still doubtful. On the political front, the past decade was marked similarly by important achievements but also grave setbacks. While democracy became firmly embedded in a number of post-communist countries, other transition countries reverted to authoritarian rule and/or experienced breakdowns of law and order, inter-ethnic conflicts, or even outright civil wars.
Political Economy of Transition and Development collects the proceedings of an international conference that brought the leading thinkers in this field to the Center for European Integration Studies of the University of Bonn in May, 2002. The contributions analyze the various interactions between institutions, policy choices, economic developments, and political outcomes in transition and developing countries. The first five chapters give a relatively broad assessment of the various reform paths and outcomes in the transition and developing countries. The remaining eight chapters proceed to analyze important aspects of transition such as voting behavior, political-regime choice, corruption, social capital, growth and inequality, and EU enlargement. The resulting volume thus combines a bird's eyeperspective with a relatively narrow focus on selected key issues pertaining to the ongoing transition process in Central and Eastern Europe.

Currency Crises in Emerging Markets, prepared by Warsaw-based Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE), discusses various aspects of currency crises in emerging-market economies: The definitions and theoretical models of currency crises, the causes, management and propagation (contagion effect) of crises, their economic, social and policy consequences, the role of international financial institutions, and crisis prevention. In addition, five case studies of currency crises in Central and Eastern Europe are presented.

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.

The author captures the evolution of Indian industrial capitalism by extending the 'models of capitalism' and 'regulation framework'. Using principally the auto industry and anchoring the analysis to the expansion of markets, he demonstrates that the Indian state and businesses have been important institutions for creating markets. He acknowledges significant market growth, but also underscores several contradictions arising from such capitalist development. There is a wealth of data, which scholars, policymakers, and businesses will find very useful.

Transition and Growth in Post-Communist Countries documents the first ten years of economic transition in Central and Eastern Europe. It examines economic growth, stabilization policies and the reformation of social safety nets in the formerly communist countries. The analysis is presented by prominent architects of the economic transition who have been directly involved in both designing and implementing the programme of economic reforms. Using theoretical and empirical analyses the volume concludes that the countries which have successfully implemented major programmes of macroeconomic stabilization and institutional restructuring have experienced a much faster growth of national income and wealth than the non-reformers. This authoritative volume will be compelling reading to those interested in emerging market economies, the economics of transition, and international political economy. Researchers, lecturers and students of international macroeconomics and international political relations will also find the book useful.

Lack of coordination of fiscal and monetary policies, disregard for the high degree of inflation persistency, unstable relations and bilateral causality between money supply and inflation, all imply an inappropriateness of money-based stabilizations for the transition economy of postcommunist Russia conducted under the auspices of the IMF. As a representative of the West, the IMF pretended to aid Russians through stabilisation. The IMF promised loans while the Russian government promised reforms. This turned out to be a pseudo lending for pseudo reforms with disastrous consequences for the Russian economy as explored and scrutinized in this volume.

The analysis in this book reflects various aspects of financial sector transformation in selected Central European countries that are expected to join the EU in 2004. The authors are Central European financial experts who provide, among other things, a detailed overview of the following main topics: Banking Regulation and Supervision; Concentration and Efficiency of the Banking Sectors; Financial (banking) crises in selected Central European countries; and Monetary and Exchange Rate Development. The results of the research done by these authors reflect an interesting fact: that there exist important differences in the financial sector development even in the relatively homogeneous group of selected Central European countries, namely the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.

This book sets the experiences of former communist countries as they head towards capitalism against the 'varieties of capitalism' paradigm, and provides a framework for comparing transformation processes, demonstrating how differing heritages of communist and pre-communist pasts are leading to different kinds of capitalist economies.

Government and Markets is the first book to tackle systematically and in a multidisciplinary fashion the role of democratic governments during and after the transition from plan to market. The role of governments during the transformation is important for eliminating the obstacles and putting into place the conditions for the emergence of a viable market economy. Moreover, governments need to play a key role in establishing a political-legal order that promotes political liberties and economic freedom. In contrast to other literature on the transformation process in formerly planned systems, this volume focuses also on the creation of autonomous and accountable governments as part of the liberal economic order. Finally, the volume analyzes the role of the legal state in creating a competitive market economy. Government and Markets addresses itself to scholars, politicians policy makers interested in the establishment of a democratic, competitive order in formerly planned political economic systems.

How is it that the modest pace of change which typified the French economy a century ago gave way after 1945 to a new, revived capitalism and a superior economic performance? Mairi Maclean argues that the new French capitalism of the 21st century is the product of an ideological struggle in which the forces of modernization triumphed over the old guard of French nationalism.

This book addresses three big economic challenges from a dynamic perspective: European integration, economic growth, and global climate change. In the light of the recent crises of the European Union (EU), the first part of the book deals with challenges to the real, monetary and fiscal integration of the EU and required institutional adjustments. The second part of the book addresses fundamental challenges of advanced market economies like economic growth and changes of technologies. The final part focuses on the global challenge of climate change from an economic perspective and discusses policy strategies for a successful mitigation of climate change.

Volume 33 contains articles on the economic history of Europe, America and Asia and brings new analysis, and newly created datasets to address issues of interest. Two papers focus on the US and contribute to our understanding of the Great Depression. In "Reexamining the Origins of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act", Beaudreau argues industrialists used the plight of farmers to raise tariffs on manufactured goods. And Jalil and Rua show in "Inflation Expectations in the U.S. in Fall 1933" that shifts in inflationary expectations could be responsible for the patterns in output witnessed in 1933: an expansion in the early part of the year which stalled by the Fall. Two papers present new data. "First Cabin Fares from New York to the British Isles, 1826-1914" by Dupont, Keeling and Weiss extends their work on understanding early tourism by creating a new series to examine the time path of first class travel over the 19th century. "Reforms and Supervisory Organizations: Lessons from the History of the Istanbul Bourse, 1873-1883" by Hanedar, Hanedar, Torun and Celikay data newly collected from the Istanbul Bourse to better understand how investors respond to different types of reforms. And finally, Field in "The Savings and Loan Insolvencies and the Costs of Financial Crisis" gives a reinterpretation of the Savings and Loan Crises of the late 1980s and early 1990s in light of the subsequent, much more severe crisis of 2007/08.