This Open Access book offers a novel view on the benefits of a lasting variation between the member states in the EU. In order to bring together thirty very different European states and their citizens, the EU will have to offer more scope for variation. Unlike the existing differentiation by means of opt-outs and deviations, variation is not a concession intended to resolve impasses in negotiations; it is, rather, a different structuring principle. It takes differences in needs and in democratically supported convictions seriously. A common core remains necessary, specifically concerning the basic principles of democracy, rule of law, fundamental rights and freedoms, and the common market. By taking this approach, the authors remove the pressure to embrace uniformity from the debate about the EU's future. The book discusses forms of variation that fall both within and outside the current framework of European Union Treaties. The scope for these variations is mapped out in three domains: the internal market; the euro; and asylum, migration and border control.

The purpose of this book is to discuss the relationship between information and distribution, with special reference to the role of the merchant in a market economy under conditions of risk and uncertainty. By working with simple models of the market economy and conducting a sequence of comparative analyses, the authors shed new light on an important yet rather neglected area in economics. In a historical perspective, the merchants of Ohmi, the former name of Shiga Prefecture in western Japan, are known to have put great faith in the principles of Sampo Yoshi or the all-around advantages of trading. It is hoped that the results presented in this book will provide some solid ground for such an old principle that can be seen in a new light. Applications to regional and many related problems are also discussed here. A distribution system is broadly defined as the systematic mechanisms and structures that regulate business operations, and its function is to maximize corporate value. Some of the following functions have previously been identified as distinguishing features of the Japanese distribution system compared with distribution systems in Europe and the United States: not only transactions, transportation, and storage, but also information, risk-bearing functions, and other characteristics. This book provides an overview of the distribution system in Japan, including changes that its practice have undergone and its current state; identifies current problems; and considers how these problems should be addressed.

Sneaker Wars is the fascinating true story of the enemy brothers behind Adidas and Puma, two of the biggest global brands of athletic footwear. Adi and Rudi Dassler started their shoe business in their mother's laundry room and achieved almost instantaneous success. But by the end of World War II a vicious feud had torn the Dasslers apart, dividing their company and their family and launching them down separate, often contentious paths. Out of the fires of their animosity, two rival sneaker brands were born, brands that would revolutionize the world of professional sports, sparking astonishing behind-the-scenes deals, fabulous ad campaigns, and multimillion-dollar contracts for pro athletes, from Joe Namath to Muhammad Ali to David Beckham.

A BBC History Magazine Best Book of the Year A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year The history the Chinese Communist Party has tried to erase: the dramatic political debates of the 1980s that could have put China on a path to greater openness. On a hike in Guangdong Province in January 1984, Deng Xiaoping was warned that his path was a steep and treacherous one. "Never turn back," the Chinese leader replied. That became a mantra as the government forged ahead with reforms in the face of heated contestation over the nation's future. For a time, everything was on the table, including democratization and China's version of socialism. But deliberation came to a sudden halt in spring 1989, with protests and purges, massacre and repression. Since then, Beijing has worked intensively to suppress the memory of this era of openness. Julian Gewirtz recovers the debates of the 1980s, tracing the Communist Party's diverse attitudes toward markets, state control, and sweeping technological change, as well as freewheeling public argument over political liberalization. The administration considered bold proposals from within the party and without, including separation between the party and the state, empowering the private sector, and establishing an independent judiciary. After Tiananmen, however, Beijing systematically erased these discussions of alternative directions. Using newly available Chinese sources, Gewirtz details how the leadership purged the key reformist politician Zhao Ziyang, quashed the student movement, recast the transformations of the 1980s as the inevitable products of consensus, and indoctrinated China and the international community in the new official narrative. Never Turn Back offers a revelatory look at how different China's rise might have been and at the foundations of strongman rule under Xi Jinping, who has intensified the policing of history to bolster his own authority.

This book uses facts and data to prove that socialist public sectors are still in a predominant position in China. Based on previous research and studies, a set of methods for measuring the structure of public or non-public owned economy is offered in this book. As is remarked by the authors, China's basic economic system, namely the system with the public sector remaining dominant and diverse sectors of the economy developing side by side, represents an efficient approach towards mutual benefit, common prosperity and peaceful co-existence.

Today's financial system is considerably more complex than in years past, as new financial instruments have been introduced that are not well understood even by the people and institutions that invest in them. Numerous high-risk opportunities are available, and the number of people who unwittingly wander into such ventures seems to grow daily. There is also the realization that people's lives are affected by the financial system without their overt participation in it. Despite no active participation, pensions can be emasculated by a sudden decline in interest rates, or a rise in rates can increase the monthly payments on a mortgage, credit cards or other debt. This book looks at the history of the American banking system, including the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, the implementation of deposit insurance, along with certain other provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Bretton-Woods agreements, the forces of technological innovation and the Dodd-Frank Act, passed by Congress in 2010 for regulatory reform. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate level students that want to gain a broad understanding of how the financial system works, why it is important to the economy as a whole, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Also, readers should gain an understanding of what the Federal Reserve, other regulators and other central banks are doing, and will be in a position to critique their actions and say with some depth of understanding why they agree or disagree with them.

This book sheds new light on how lobbying works in the European Union. Drawing on the first-hand professional experience of lobbyists, policymakers, and corporate and institutional stakeholders, combined with a sound academic foundation, it offers insights into successful lobbying strategies, such as how alliances are formed by interest groups in Brussels. The authors present key case studies, e.g. on the shelved EU-US trade deal Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), lobbying scandals, and the role of specific interest groups and EU Think-Tanks. Furthermore, they highlight efforts to improve transparency and ethical standards in EU decision-making, while also underscoring the benefits of lobbying in the context of decision-making. Understanding the tools and techniques of effective lobbying, as well as the dynamics and trends in EU lobbying, will allow professionals involved in the lobbying process, such as policymakers and corporate and institutional stakeholders, to improve their performance and achieve better results when pursuing their respective interests.

Beginning in 2010, there has been a consolidating cooperation among existing powers in the Euro-Mediterranean in face of the rapid de-stabilization of the Arab region. This fact alone accelerated the hesitant responses by the EU towards emerging hegemons, particularly Russia and China, who in-turn applied traditional mechanisms of increasing regional economic influence to bolster their political influence, but with the difference that a normative influence is missing, in contrast to the EU's and US' influence, which is strongly centered on universal norms pertaining to political, economic and social-cultural norms. This book examines the Arab Spring not only from its intra but also inter-regional geo-political and strategic implications by analyzing the Euro-Mediterranean region following the onset of the Arab Spring. It aims to connect the broader economic and political strands of power shifts that have taken place since the Arab Spring, making it of interests to political scientists and policy-makers concerned with the Mediterranean and Euro-Arab relations.

The author discusses the nature of the Social Conscience and the moral values that it embodies. Seeking to do what is right, motivated by a sympathetic awareness of others, driven by the instinct to care and acknowledging the necessity to share, the Social Conscience expresses innate moral values. In these troubled times, satisfactory solutions to economic and social problems will not be found through either capitalism or socialism. The Social Conscience is the third way to defining social policy that reconciles economic progress, social justice and individual freedom. Glautier poses the two questions above in the context of: - The social effects of globalisation - Rapid scientific and technological changes and their impact on society worldwide - Moral values, family values and shareholder value - Problems of identity and social cohesion - The role of education in a society that seems to have lost a sense of purpose and direction - A market economy with a value system that affronts the Social Conscience - Freedom that rejects authority and is surrendered to permissiveness - The widespread loss of confidence in government. He argues that, driven by profit seeking and emphasising shareholder value as the primary objective of business, the market economy undermines traditional values of caring and sharing. By identifying family values as those that explain, sustain and justify a caring society, he reaches out to man's fundamental nature and to what is common to all beliefs.

Presenting a concise overview of the post-war decline in popularity of the Austrian school of economics and its subsequent revival in the late twentieth century, this updated second edition offers a theoretical and historical introduction to the ideas of the Austrian school and its intellectually distinguishing qualities. Featuring fresh and insightful comparisons between the Austrian school and other schools of thought, this enhanced second edition includes an expanded discussion on the evolution of the Austrian school in the 21st century. The Advanced Introduction considers the field's key originators and proponents and reflects on the acceleration in interest in the last two decades. Key features include: An illustration of the key arguments that have defined heterodox economics, including the Austrian school's role in the socialist calculation debate In-depth discussions of entrepreneurship and the role of the firm in the scholarship of the Austrian school New material relating Austrian economics to other schools of thought. Undergraduate and graduate students in economics and political science will find this Advanced Introduction indispensable for understanding the revival of the Austrian school. Policymakers will also benefit from its concise and sharp overview of the school and its insights into the key features and debates.

Throughout the 1990s, Russian households experienced a dramatic fall in their traditional sources of subsistence: wages and social benefits. Many commentators have argued that households have adopted 'survival strategies' that enable them to make ends meet, particularly taking second jobs, growing their own food and calling on the help of family and friends. This book reviews the available data to analyse the forms, scale and incidence of these phenomena. The author finds that so-called 'survival strategies' merely represent a continuation of traditional soviet practices. He demonstrates that they disproportionately benefit the better off and that they do not provide a means by which those who have suffered misfortune can compensate for a fall in their earnings. Instead, he illustrates that most Russian households have adapted simply by cutting expenditure rather than by finding new sources of income. The author concludes by arguing that the notion of a 'household survival strategy' is inappropriate for the study of post-soviet society. Based on the analysis of a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, Making Ends Meet in Contemporary Russia provides a comprehensive analysis of the means by which Russian households have secured their subsistence in the face of a collapse in wages and employment since the end of the soviet system. It will be required reading for all students, scholars and researchers of transition studies, development studies and human geography.

This book has a dual purpose. First, it analyses the concept of economic crises within economic theory, showing the various theoretical foundations and controversies amongst different schools of economic thought. Second, it presents an empirical analysis of the Great Recession in Spain, addressing the growth period of 1995 to 2007-08, the subsequent depression until 2013-14 and the recovery that followed. It also shows the way in which the inner contradictions of capital manifests itself in an European peripheral economy under a real estate bubble, emphasizing the role of the Spanish economy in European capitalism. This theoretical and empirical heterodox approach will be of interest to students and scholars in political economy, and those with an interest in the Eurozone.

This book offers a detailed, critical account of the economic transformation of the Czech Republic since 1989. It follows the development and implementation of a reform strategy based on 'shock' therapy and rapid privatisation, set against the background of turbulent political change and conflict. The aim of the government in the mid 1990s was the creation of a 'Czech' capitalism, with Czech-owned business empires and banks. A detailed analysis of developments in banking and industrial enterprises shows how the chosen strategy led instead to continuing inefficiency, flawed management decisions and uncontrolled profiteering. These combined factors contributed to serious economic difficulties in the latter part of the decade, with success stories largely confined to foreign-owned firms. After 1998, a new government attempted to encourage economic revival based upon a fresh strategy which emphasised the sale of banks and industrial enterprises to foreign owners. Even with this new reform strategy, the author concludes that the results were, at best, mixed. Throughout the analysis, the author provides in-depth commentary on a variety of topics including the sources of economic growth, the role of the central bank, developments in banking and industrial enterprises and the impact of inward direct investment. It is rare to find such a comprehensive book which assesses the economic transformations of a single country. The detailed analysis and pertinent conclusions will be welcomed by academics and researchers with an interest in transition economies, European integration, international finance and political science.

Volume 39C of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, features a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the publication of Frank H. Knight's Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit. The symposium features contributions from Per Bylund, Richard E. Wagner, our own Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak and his co-author, Thiago Oliveira, as well as an essay from guest editor Ross B. Emmett. The Volume also includes general-research essays from David C. Coker, J. Patrick Higgins, and Charles R. McCann, Jr.

This unique book - informed by ten years' research - focuses on intellectual property and charts the global transition towards intellectual capitalism with technology-based corporations as prime movers. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the history and fundamentals of intellectual property as well as a textbook introduction to the field. The book sheds new light on the economics and management of intellectual property in large corporations in Europe, Japan and the US. Special emphasis is given to strategies for the acquisition and commercialization of new technologies, patent strategies and strategies for secrecy and trademark, technology intelligence and corporate management of intellectual property. It includes an in-depth study of leading large corporations in Japan - including Canon, Hitachi, Toshiba and Sony. In conclusion, it explores the possible evolution of intellectual property management towards a distributed intellectual capital management in the context of a wider transition to intellectual capitalism, fueled by new technologies in general and new infocom technologies in particular. The book will have particular appeal to practitioners such as managers, economists, engineers and lawyers as well as students and scholars of industrial organization, economics of innovation and technical change, and management of technology.

Capitalism has been a controversial concept. In the second half of the 20th century, many historians have either not used the concept at all, or only in passing. Many regarded the term as too broad, holistic and vague or too value-loaded, ideological and polemic. This volume brings together leading scholars to explore why the term has recently experienced a comeback and assess how useful the term can be in application to social and economic history. The contributors discuss whether and how the history of capitalism enables us to ask new questions, further explore unexhausted sources and discover new connections between previously unrelated phenomena. The chapters address case studies drawn from around the world, giving attention to Europe, Africa and beyond. This is a timely reassessment of a crucial concept, which will be of great interest to scholars and students of economic history.

Now in its second edition, Global Capitalism and Climate Change: The Need for an Alternative World System examines anthropogenic climate change in the context of global capitalism, a political economy that emphasizes profit-making, is committed to on-going economic growth, results in massive social inequality, fosters a treadmill of production and consumption, and is heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Looking ahead, Hans A. Baer explores the systemic changes necessary to create a more socially just, democratic, and environmentally sustainable world system capable of moving humanity toward a safer climate. This book is recommended for readers interested in anti-systemic efforts, including eco-anarchism, eco-feminism, the de-growth perspective, Indigenous voices, and the climate justice movement.

The problems of today's Europe can be traced directly to the rewriting of the "rules of the economic game" that has taken place over several decades under the strong influence of neoliberalism. If Europe is to return to the innovative and dynamic economy it once had-and if there is to be shared prosperity, social solidarity and justice across Europe-the rules must be rewritten once again. With the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), Joseph E. Stiglitz lays out comprehensive programmes and policies designed to relieve the suffering of Europeans and restore a prosperous and equitable European Union.

This edited volume analyzes land utilization data from farm surveys taken in China between 1929 and 1933. This data, which was the foundation for John Lossing Buck's seminal work Land Utilization in China (1937), was thought lost to history until rediscovered in 2000. The book presents the first modern analyses of agricultural economics in Republican China using Buck's micro-data, covering important topics such as nutritional poverty, tenancy issues, land productivity, surplus labor, workers' incomes, credit supply, and regional differences. Through using modern analytical methods, this book presents a more accurate picture of the agricultural economy in the Republican Era and will be of particular interest to agricultural economists, economic historians, and Chinese studies scholars.

The book evaluates the importance of constitutional rules and property rights for the German economy in 1990-2015. It is an economic historical study embedded in institutional economics with main references to positive constitutional economics and the property rights theory. This interdisciplinary work adopts a theoretical-empirical dimension and a qualitative-quantitative approach. Formal institutions played a fundamental role in Germany's post-reunification economic changes. They set the legal and institutional framework for the transition process of Eastern Germany and the unification, integration and convergence between the two parts of the country. Although the latter process was not completed, the effects of these formal rules were positive, especially for the former GDR.

This book explores the dynamics of China's new united front work in Hong Kong. Mainland Chinese penetrative politics can be seen in the activities of local pro-Beijing political parties, clans and neighborhood associations, labor unions, women and media organizations, district federations, and some religious groups. However, united front work in the educational and youth sectors of civil society has encountered strong resistance because many Hong Kong people are post-materialistic and uphold their core values of human rights, the rule of law and transparency. China's new united front work in Hong Kong has been influenced by its domestic turn toward "hard" authoritarianism, making Beijing see Hong Kong's democratic activists and radicals as political enemies. Hong Kong's "one country, two systems" is drifting toward "one country, two mixed systems" with some degree of convergence. Yet, Taiwan and some foreign countries have seen China's united front work as politically destabilizing and penetrative. This book will be of use to scholars, journalists, and observers in other countries seeking to reckon with Chinese influence.

This book by influential policymaker Chi Fulin lays out in issue-oriented and detailed chapters, at a time when China is at a crossroads, exactly how the government plans to deal with the social, political and economic issues the world's second-largest economy faces. From managing the decline of industry, to urbanization, to managing consumption, to social security and education, Chi offers a roadmap for the years ahead. This book will be particularly fascinating to Western scholars of China who speculate on the inner workings of the Chinese policymaking elite, with the ambition of China's central planners here laid out for the world to see.

The uneven geographical distribution of economic activities is a huge challenge worldwide and also for the European Union. In Krugman's New Economic Geography economic systems have a simple spatial structure. This book shows that more sophisticated models should visualise the EU as an evolving trade network with a specific topology and different aggregation levels. At the highest level, economic geography models give a bird eye's view of spatial dynamics. At a medium level, institutions shape the economy and the structure of (financial and labour) markets. At the lowest level, individual decisions interact with the economic, social and institutional environment; the focus is on firms' decision on location and innovation. Such multilevel models exhibit complex dynamic patterns - path dependence, cumulative causation, hysteresis - on a network structure; and specific analytic tools are necessary for studying strategic interaction, heterogeneity and nonlinearities.

This book addresses growing tensions in Northeast Asia, notably between North Korea and China. Focusing on China's economic participation in North Korea's minerals and fishery industries, the author explores the role of China's sub-state and non-state actors in implementing China's foreign economic policy towards North Korea. The book discusses these actors' impact on the regional order in Northeast Asia, particularly in the Korean Peninsula. The project also provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of China's cultural and economic activities in North Korea as implemented by both the historically traditional actors in Jilin and Liaoning provinces in Northeast China, and new actors from coastal areas (Shandong and Zhejiang provinces) and inland provinces (Chongqing and Henan) to Zhejiang province. It argues that in the era of economic decentralisation, Chinese sub-state and non-state actors can independently deal with most of their economic affairs without the need for permission from the central government in Beijing. A key read for scholars and students interested in Asian history, politics and economics, and specifically the East Asian situation, this text offers an in-depth analysis of recent activity concerning the Sino-DPRK economic relationship.