Today the doors of China are opening to foreign investment and trade as never before, but the history of contact between China and the West goes back many centuries. Goods from China were being traded in Rome long before the birth of Christ, transported over the famous silk road that crossed Mongolia and Russia. But not until the mid-fifteenth century, when Marco Polo published his account of his travels, did China really capture the European imagination. Subsequent centuries saw missionary trips to China by Franciscans and Jesuits, a European craze for Chinese silk and porcelain, European visits to Tibet, the infamous Opium War between Britain and China, and further instances of contact, commerce, and conflict. China has shown amazing economic growth since 1949, and today it has set ambitious goals for growth in trade and technology. This book traces the history of Western exploration in and trade with China. It follows the events outlined above and touches on many other highlights, including exploration by the Russian Nikolay Przhevalsky, who traveled deep into China and today is largely remembered for the horse he discovered and identified there; the travels of nineteenth-century women explorers in China; American Roy Chapmans discovery of the first fossilized dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert; and the competition between two American explorers to be the first to capture a live panda. Also included are a chronology of Chinese history and a pronunciation guide.

For more than two centuries following its formation in 1581, the Levant Company enjoyed a monopoly of British trade with the Ottoman Empire and provided Britain's diplomatic representation at the Sultan's court and throughout the Ottoman territories. Rather than focusing on "the Turkey trade" itself, or on the merchants who engaged in it, Christine Laidlaw examines the supporting cast of Britons -- officials, clergymen, physicians and accompanying family members -- who lived and worked alongside the merchants at the Company's three principal trading posts at Istanbul, Izmir and Aleppo during the eighteenth century. This unique perspective will be invaluable for historians of the eighteenth century and the Ottoman Empire.

This book studies the complex system of trade exchanges and commerce that profoundly changed Roman society. In ancient times there were several major trade routes that connected the Roman Empire to exotic lands in the distant East. Ancient sources reveal that after the Augustan conquest of Egypt, valued commodities from India, Arabia and China became increasingly available to Roman society. These sources describe how Roman traders went far beyond the frontiers of their Empire, travelling on overland journeys and maritime voyages to acquire the silk, spices and aromatics of the remote East.Records from ancient China, early India and a range of significant archaeological discoveries provide further evidence for these commercial contacts. Truly global in its scope, this study is the first comprehensive enquiry into the extent of this trade and its wider significance to the Roman world. It investigates the origins and development of Roman trade voyages across the Indian Ocean, considers the role of distant diplomacy and studies the organization of the overland trade networks that crossed the inner deserts of Arabia through the Incense Routes between the Yemeni Coast and ancient Palestine. It also considers the Silk Road that extended from Roman Syria across Iraq, through the Persian Empire into inner Asia and, ultimately, China.

Originally published in 2004. This comprehensive collection provides an innovative analysis and a comparison between economic and financial integration in Europe and Latin America, addressed from a global, regional and country-specific perspective. It constitutes a valuable overview focusing on three topics: regional integration and monetary cooperation in Europe and Latin America, exchange rate strategies and financial sector structure. The collection is the outcome of a Workshop and high-level Seminar organized by the Banco de Espana and the European Central Bank that brought together senior European and Latin American central bankers, as well as senior representatives from international institutions. The 31 contributors presented high quality papers, allowing the reader to take advantage of a rigorous economic analysis that uses first-hand information and draws useful lessons for the future.

This volume brings together original essays by leading historians of the Atlantic World, representing recent developments in historiography of the period. These essays present the argument that coercive imperial authority has been vastly overrated. Distance, the primacy of trade over politics, and the refusal of colonized peoples to recognize European authority resulted in de-centralized "American empires".

This innovative volume brings together original essays by leading historians of the Atlantic World, representing the latest developments in historiography of the period. These essays present the argument that coercive imperial authority has been vastly overrated. Distance, the primacy of trade over politics, and the refusal of colonized peoples to recognize European authority resulted in de-centralized 'American' empires.

This edited collection explores issues surrounding the provision of collective goods within the context of post-crisis East and Southeast Asia. It includes case studies on Korea, Indonesia, China, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore among others.

Trade and the environment has become a major area of international political dispute. This study investigates the interdependencies between environmental policies and international trade policies. * Does liberalization of international goods and factor markets cause environmental disruption and welfare losses? * Will countries institute lax ecological regulations to favour their domestic producers? * Should trade restrictions be used for environmental reasons and can environmental policy instruments be used to achieve trade-related objectives? * Should there be what the author terms a `green GATT'? The approach is mainly theoretical, and uses traditional trade models like Hekscher-Ohlin as well as non-competitive models of the `new' trade theory and public choice. Some other important but often neglected aspects, such as trade in hazardous wastes and the foreign debt problem, with the possibility of debt-for-nature swaps, are also considered. Finally International Trade, Factor Movements, and the Environment addresses institutional issues on both national and international levels. The book will be essential reading for all international and environmental economists.

This well-documented book analyzes the possibilities and constraints of regulatory cooperation between the EU and the US (particularly California) with a specific focus on environmental protection, food safety and agriculture, biosafety and biodiversity. Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation features eleven original essays by leading academics of regulation on both sides of the Atlantic. They explore topics such as the impact of federalism on regulatory policies both within the US and Europe, the transatlantic dynamics of water policy, climate change, pesticide and chemical regulation, and biotechnology. A primary focus of this timely study is on the shifting roles of California and the EU as regulatory leaders and ITS impact on future regulatory cooperation across the Atlantic. This informative book will appeal to graduate and postgraduate students, as well as academics and researchers in international relations, business, law and economics who are working on regulatory issues. The policy community which focuses on regulation and transatlantic regulatory relations will also find it an important resource.

Contents:
Introduction
1. The Legacy of the Communist Past and its Impact on Foreign Trade in Transition
2. Foreign Trade Adjustment in Early Transition
3. Successes of Trade Reorientation and Trade Expansion: An Enterprise-Level Approach
4. Institutions and Foreign Trade Reorientation: How Much Impact upon Performance?
5. Post-Transition Foreign Trade Problems and Prospects: The Economics and Political Economy of Accession

Oil makes up one-third of Venezuela's entire GDP, and the United States is far and away Venezuela's largest trading partner. Relations between Venezuela and the United States, traditionally close for most of the last two centuries, began to fray in the last decade as the end of the Cold War altered the international environment. The United States and Venezuela attempts to place the events of the past ten years in historical perspective and to explain the reasons why the changes occurred. It also examines the impact of new actors on the international scene: drug traffickers, common citizens, human rights and environmental activists and the media.

Oil makes up one-third of Venezuela's entire GDP, and the United States is far and away Venezuela's largest trading partner. Relations between Venezuela and the United States, traditionally close for most of the last two centuries, began to fray in the last decade as the end of the cold war altered the international environment. The United States and Venezuela attempts to place the events of the past ten years in historical perspective and to explain the reasons why the changes occurred. It also examines the impact of new actors on the international scene: drug traffickers, common citizens, human rights and environmental activists and the media.

When can a country be said to benefit from free trade?
This question has obsessed economists for more than 200 years, and a definitive answer has never been provided. Continuing the influential work begun in The Gains from Trade and the Gains from Aid, (Routledge 1995), Murray Kemp here presents the recent progress he and his co-workers have made in tackling this important question.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203425634

Beginning with a detailed discussion of the World Trade Organisation and the Uruguay Round and its achievements, this book delves into the causal factors behind the failure to launch the new round of multilateral trade negotiations in Seattle in December 1999. Dilip K. Das tries to determine the precise point reached by the global trading system and map out a way forward, exploring the likely items to be included in the agenda for the new round of multilateral trade negotiations and provides contours for a post-Seattle global trading system.
This book provides an excellent overview of the contemporary global trading system and will be very useful to advanced students and professional economists. It will also greatly benefit policy makers and active participants in trade and global diplomacy.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203522281

Based on archival sources, this history of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im), focuses on its role in the growing involvement of the U.S. in the international economy. Over the last two decades the Bank has carried on its Congressionally-mandated mission in an increasingly complicated environment; brought on by changes in private capital markets, Congressional constraints on its budgets, major financial crises in Latin America and Southeast Asia. It has survived despite the latest developments in communications and information technology, and the demands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to environmental protection.

Explores the functioning of commercial networks in Asia, from the mid-19th century when transport and communications revolutions began to change those networks to the 1930s. The essays throw new light on these multi-layered, overlapping regional trading networks that transcend national borders and shaped the structure and development of the modern Asian economy and society.

As a participant in and negotiator of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, Thomas A. Hockin provides a unique insider's look at the political challenges to free trade and U. S. trade policy. In this timely and important book, Hockin explores the fragile ecosystem of multinational trade alliances in the face of insurgent political protests from both the left and the right. The American Nightmare takes a close look at WTO obstacles such as the failure of member countries to follow dispute settlement arrangements; the conflict surrounding the membership of China; and, the mercurial administration of trade law in the U.S. Hockin makes a convincing case for the current incoherence of American trade policy, warning of a possible collapse of the world economy if the WTO's ability to settle disputes becomes further frustrated. With lucid analysis of the systemic problems involved in free trade and thoughtful possible solutions to them, The American Nightmare is a clarion call for policy makers and a thought provoking read for those of us on the sidelines.

Since 1999, intensive research efforts have vastly increased what is known about the history of coerced migration of transatlantic slaves. A huge database of slave trade voyages from Columbus's era to the mid-nineteenth century is now available on an open-access Web site, incorporating newly discovered information from archives around the Atlantic world. The groundbreaking essays in this book draw on these new data to explore fundamental questions about the trade in African slaves. The research findings--that the size of the slave trade was 14 percent greater than had been estimated, that trade above and below the equator was largely separate, that ports sending out the most slave voyages were not in Europe but in Brazil, and more--challenge accepted understandings of transatlantic slavery and suggest a variety of new directions for important further research. For the most complete database on slave trade voyages ever compiled, visit www.slavevoyages.org.

This title was first published in 2000: An investigation of the issue of financial markets interdependence or integration through the application of recently developed and powerful techniques in time series econometrics. The text provides coverage of theoretical analysis and applications in the context of the Asia-Pacific region.

This title was first published in 2002: This compelling text is the first major application of Michael Porter's diamond framework to identify the sources of national competitive advantage in the case of Greece. Offering a useful evaluation of Porter's theory through an extensive literature review, the book also draws on empirical evidence from five selected Greek industries. It also provides information and commentary on many aspects of the Greek economy, its historical evolution and its current trends. International and Greek investors, international organizations, business consultants and financial institutions will certainly benefit from this analysis of the Greek economic environment. Moreover, universities and researchers will be interested in the evidence supporting or refuting parts of the widely used and cited "diamond" framework.

In the past 15 years, the nations of the Western Hemisphere have staged a remarkable revolution --in the way they trade with their neighbors. First, after decades of restrictive import policies, several countries began to liberalize their trade and investment regimes. Then, beginning a decade ago, numerous bilateral and sub-regional trade agreements were achieved, to serve as vital complements to domestic reforms and to foster trade flows among member countries. At the Second Summit of the Americas in 1998, negotiations among 34 democracies were launched to establish the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). This report takes stock of the remarkable progress to date in the development of free trade in the Western Hemisphere. It examines trade flows between countries in the same regional groupings and between members of different sub-regional arrangements. The report describes the main characteristics of the trade arrangements signed between countries of the Hemisphere and explores the development of trade rules in these arrangements. Finally, the report details recent advances in the construction of the FTAA.

This book describes and assesses an emerging threat to states' territorial control and sovereignty: the hostile control of companies that carry out privatized aspects of sovereign authority. The threat arises from the massive worldwide shift of state activities to the private sector since the late 1970s in conjunction with two other modern trends - the globalization of business and the liberalization of international capital flows. The work introduces three new concepts: firstly, the rise of companies that handle privatized activities, and the associated advent of "post-government companies" that make such activities their core business. Control of them may reside with individual investors, other companies or investment funds, or it may reside with other states through state-owned enterprises or sovereign wealth funds. Secondly, "imperfect privatizations:" when a state privatizes an activity to another state's public sector. The book identifies cases where this is happening. It also elaborates on how ownership and influence of companies that perform privatized functions may not be transparent, and can pass to inherently hostile actors, including criminal or terrorist organizations. Thirdly, "belligerent companies," whose conduct is hostile to those of states where they are active. The book concludes by assessing the adequacy of existing legal and regulatory regimes and how relevant norms may evolve.

This book contains studies measuring impediments to trade and investment in a variety of sectors, including telecommunications, finance, shipping, education and air transport. The authors explain how the measures were calculated and show how the results could be used in sophisticated economic models. The final part of the book looks at current issues in services negotiations in the World Trade Organization and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203520084

Using a series of twelve historical case-studies that are based on extensive archival research, this book explains why firms succeed or fail in communicating or transferring knowledge and discovering new expertise. By analysing how workable trade-offs between opposing forces have been achieved in the past, this study provides a set of guidelines for executives who embark upon inter-firm projects.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203187679

This volume provides a detailed up-to-date analysis of the strategic issues and policy options of China's accession to the WTO. Quantitative analysis demonstrates how tariff reduction resulting from China's accession to the WTO will benefit the Chinese economy as well as the rest of the world. The book argues that there is no single trade policy initiative likely to result in larger gains in international trade in the foreseeable future than China's accession to the WTO.

eBook available with sample pages: 020339822X