Conventional wisdom warns that unaccountable political and business agents can enrich a few at the expense of many. But logically extending this wisdom implies that associated principals - voters, consumers, shareholders - will favor themselves over the greater good when 'rules of the game' instead create too much accountability. Democratic Governance and Economic Performance rigorously develops this hypothesis, and finds statistical evidence and case study illustrations that democratic institutions at various governance levels (e.g., federal, state, corporation) have facilitated opportunistic gains for electoral, consumer, and shareholder principals. To be sure, this conclusion does not dismiss the potential for democratic governance to productively reduce agency costs. Rather, it suggests that policy makers, lawyers, and managers can improve governance by weighing the agency benefits of increased accountability against the distributional costs of favoring principal stakeholders over more general economic opportunities. Carefully considering the fundamentals that give rise to this tradeoff should interest students and scholars working at the intersection of social science and the law, and can help professionals improve their own performance in policy, legal, and business settings.

A decade on from Schumacher's 1997 work, there are renewed calls for a paradigm shift from the metaphysics of materialism that informs conventional thinking, to holistic theorisations of how we should engage with the other. Twenty-first century frameworks of accountability should emancipate society from the hegemony of neoclassical economics. This special issue posits Schumacher's Middle Way thinking in the context of growing concerns about global warming and climatic changes and, teases out its implications for holistic accountability by introducing readers to the science of climate change and its implications for managing natural resources, and integrating 'western' and 'eastern' tenets of holistic knowledge without dichotomising them into 'either or' frameworks.

This book develops current thinking on fiscal policy, emphasizing the role which fiscal policy can play in macroeconomic policy and challenging the view that macroeconomic policy should rely on monetary policy alone. This book offers theoretical insights in defence of fiscal policy as a valid macroeconomic instrument.

The first part of this book consists of seven chapters which draw lessons for the transforming economies from the experiences of EC member countries (including, Eastern Germany), the U.S., and South-East Asian 'Pacific Rim' countries. The second part of the book contains a further six chapters which focus on the experiences of Poland in the early phase of its transition with regard to privatisation, the microeconomic impact of monetary policy and banking sector reform, and draws lessons for other transforming economies.

It is of frequent concern that the United States and the United Kingdom have very low rates of personal savings, whereas several other advanced industrialized countries - particularly Japan, France, and Italy - have high rates of personal savings. These essays address the salient questions suggested by this contrast. Do different attitudes to bequests explain the difference in the saving rates among these countries? What are the different kinds of bequest - real estate, financial assets, or human capital? Is it possible to conclude that bequests affect the formation of fiscal policies, or are they neutral with respect to fiscal policies? Finally, what is the relationship between bequests and public pensions? In an effort to answer these questions the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) organized an international conference on savings and bequests in Tokyo in March 1992. Among the distinguished specialists from Europe, Japan, and North America who presented papers on the subject were: Hiroyuki Chuma, Michael Hurd, David Wise, Toshihiro Ihori, Laurence Kotlikoff, Pierre Pestieau, Toshiaki Tachibakanki, and Seiji Takata. This book is an outgrowth of that conference. Many countries are discussed in this book, including Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Consumer credit is an integral part of many western societies. This book provides a comprehensive view of how credit granting institutions operate and discusses the relationship between the strategic objectives set by senior management and the operational strategies employed by credit professions working at the coal face of credit provision.

Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its loan obligations damages its reputation, inviting still greater problems down the road. Yet difficult dilemmas arise from this assumption. Should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing historical analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or expect reputational consequences--became the consensus approach. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning international capital markets, and demonstrates how it relies on ideas of absolutist government that have come under fire over the last century. Challenging previous accounts, Lienau incorporates a wealth of original research to argue that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. She traces the notion of debt continuity from the post-World War I era to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private-market actors in shaping our existing framework. Lienau calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.

The federal Superfund program for cleaning up America's inactive toxic waste sites is noteworthy not only for its enormous cost - $15.2 billion has been authorized thus far - but also for its unique design. The legislation that created Superfund provided the Environmental Protection Agency with a diverse set of policy tools. Preeminent among them is a civil liability scheme that imposes responsibility for multimillion dollar cleanups on businesses and government units linked - even tangentially - to hazardous waste sites. Armed with this potent policy implement, the agency can order the parties who are legally responsible for the toxic substances at a site to clean it up, with large fines and damages for failure to comply. EPA can also offer conciliatory measures to bring about voluntary, privately financed cleanup; or it can launch a cleanup initially paid for by Superfund and later force the responsible parties to reimburse the government. In this book, Thomas W. Church and Robert T. Nakamura provide the first in-depth study of Superfund operations at hazardous waste sites. They examine six Superfund cleanups, including three regions and both 'hard' and 'easy' sites, to ask 'what works?' Based on detailed case studies, the book describes various strategies that have been applied by government regulators and lawyers and the responses to those different strategies by businesses and local government officials. The authors characterize the implementation strategies used by the EPA as prosecution, accommodation, and public works. They point out that the choice of strategy involves setting priorities among Superfund's competing objectives. They conclude that the best implementation strategy is one that considers the context of each site and the particular priorities in each case. Looking toward the reauthorization of Superfund, they also offer recommendations for improvements in the organization of the program and discuss proposals for change in its liability scheme.

Capital income taxation is a complicated issue because of the g- eral equilibrium implications these taxes have with regard to the int- sectoral and intertemporal allocation of economic resources. Together with Michael Stimmelmayr (CES, Munich) and Christian Keuschnigg (IFF, St. Gallen), Doina Radulescu from the Ifo Institute for E- nomic Research has designed a complex and particularly elegant - tertemporal general equilibrium model of the economy, called IfoMod. IfoMod makes it possible to calculate the welfare gains and losses from fundamental tax reforms in present value terms. One of the tax reforms Doina Radulescu analyses is the move - wards a dual income tax, as is used in some Scandinavian countries. She analyses this tax using German data, because it was recently p- posed, among others, by the German Council of Economic Advisors. In the meantime, IfoMod has become a standard tool for the Ifo Institute. According to the Council of Economic Advisors, it is not only sta- of-the-art, but one of the world's most developed and advanced CGE models for the purpose of analysing intertemporal allocation problems in growing economies. Hans-Werner Sinn Preface This book was written during my time acting as a PhD candidate in the Public Finance Department at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich.

"There is a vast literature on the illicit drugs, a large literature on nicotine, and nothing up-to-date and authoritative on the second most deadly, and arguably the most damaging, alcohol. Phil Cook, with a modesty and understatement that inspire trust, explores the options for reducing the harms, allowing the benefits, and respecting personal liberty. This is a masterly combination of analysis and evidence. It is also beautifully written."--Thomas C. Schelling, Nobel Prize-winning economist

"The war on tobacco was won: the harms were recognized and measures taken to reduce them. In this compelling book, Philip Cook shows that the war on alcohol, too, can be won if policymakers act on the overwhelming and converging evidence that simple measures can reduce the short-term and long-term harms caused by drinking. He brings order to a highly complicated set of causal issues by telling us what may be true, what is probably true, and what is indisputably true; and he shows how large gains can be made simply by taking account of the last set of facts."--Jon Elster, Columbia University

"This book contains the most thorough and penetrating analysis of alcohol-control policy to date. It is certain to become a landmark in the fields of health, economic, and public policy. It is a tour de force of virtually every aspect required to formulate sound policy in this crucial area. Bravo!"--Michael Grossman, City University of New York Graduate Center

"No previous book has brought alcohol policy issues together as comprehensively and set them in context as effectively as this one does. Perhaps most impressive is its author's ability to incorporate research from many fields and to translatethis evidence and the evidence from his original analyses into a book that is both highly readable and accessible to a wide audience--an audience ranging from policy researchers and policymakers to public health professionals, historians, economists, and general readers."--Frank J. Chaloupka, University of Illinois, Chicago, and director of ImpacTeen

""Paying the Tab" is unequivocally a major contribution to the field. Fully covering issues on both the supply and demand side of the market, with a wealth of new data, it provides the most comprehensive discussion of alcohol control that I am aware of. Economists will benefit tremendously from its presentation of the context for our current approach to the issue, and noneconomists will welcome the clear yet complete exposition of the methods used by economists to evaluate public policy."--Sara Markowitz, Rutgers University

DEA is computational at its core and this book will be one of several books that we will look to publish on the computational aspects of DEA. This book by Zhu and Cook will deal with the micro aspects of handling and modeling data issues in modeling DEA problems. DEA's use has grown with its capability of dealing with complex service industry and the public service domain types of problems that require modeling both qualitative and quantitative data. This will be a handbook treatment dealing with specific data problems including the following: (1) imprecise data, (2) inaccurate data, (3) missing data, (4) qualitative data, (5) outliers, (6) undesirable outputs, (7) quality data, (8) statistical analysis, (9) software and other data aspects of modeling complex DEA problems. In addition, the book will demonstrate how to visualize DEA results when the data is more than 3-dimensional, and how to identify efficiency units quickly and accurately.

The present volume provides a collection of material on the subject of international comparisons, contributed by scholars from a range of relevant disciplines and geographical backgrounds. The papers in this volume have been classified into two broad groups united by overlapping themes. Part I includes essentially empirical papers intended to provide a clear picture of the different types of international comparisons that have been undertaken by various organizations and individuals. The papers relate to empirical studies of different sectoral and national income aggregates at both regional and global levels. The papers in Part II deal with methodological and analytical issues. Discussion of the appropriateness of various aggregation methods for international comparisons accounts for a major component of this section. The volume provides a set of studies on international comparisons of prices, output and productivity, and will provide a reference source for interested readers.

Diesem Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft liegt eine umfassende Sicht des oeffentlichen Sektors in einer Volkswirtschaft zugrunde. Neben Fragen der oeffentlichen Ausgaben und Einnahmen werden auch oekonomische Aspekte oeffentlicher Unternehmen sowie die Finanzwissenschaft der Europaischen Union behandelt. Die Besonderheit des Buches liegt in seiner Anwendungsorientierung und entsprechend in der empirischen und institutionellen Fundierung. Dabei wird neben Deutschland auch auf OEsterreich Bezug genommen, was institutionelle Vergleiche und Querbezuge ermoeglicht. Die Leser erhalten durch das Buch eine umfassende, theoretische und empirisch fundierte Einfuhrung in die oekonomischen Aspekte des oeffentlichen Sektors in der Volkswirtschaft, wobei sowohl im Bereich der Theorie wie auch der Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik neue Entwicklungen berucksichtigt werden.

The First Basel Capital Accord, implemented in 1988, was aimed at ensuring the soundness and stability of the international banking system. The new accord, Basel II, which is planned for implementation in December 2006, is intended to strengthen the framework for dealing with credit risk. This book provides an informative analysis of what Basel II means for the small and medium-sized enterprize (SME) sector in Europe and its impact on its credit financing conditions. It also presents a detailed analysis of how banks formulate an internal rating system and illustrates how this system works in practice. Finally, it concludes with the key measures that should be taken by banks, SMEs, and public policymakers to improve financing in the new rating culture.

Motivated by the recent proliferation of fiscal consolidation episodes in the advent of Monetary Union, this book explains the causes and consequences of fiscal policy in Europe. This book answers three related questions: What explains the timing of fiscal adjustments? What explains their different duration and composition? What are the economic and political consequences of having implemented different adjustment strategies?

This book features the main papers of Gunter Schmolders (1903-1991), a pioneer in economic psychology for the first time in the English language. Schmolders incorporated psychological considerations in his economic analyses at a time when the distance between the two disciplines was much larger than today. His research on 'fiscal psychology' is of particular and lasting interest, impacting greatly on continental economics. During his lifetime, Schmolders failed to build bridges to enable his contemporary fellow economists to appreciate the importance of his work, however the relevance of his approach is much more obvious in the world's current economic climate.

The Stability and Growth Pact provides for the systematic surveillance of the fiscal policies of 25 EU member states. On this basis, this book provides an overview of themes in current fiscal policy, including the impact of ageing populations on fiscal sustainability, fiscal policy over the cycle, fiscal decentralization and expenditure reforms.

Questo testo offre una (TM)introduzione ai metodi matematici, probabilistici e numerici utilizzati nel settore della finanza che si occupa della valutazione degli strumenti derivati. Il libro fornisce una (TM)esposizione accessibile ad un lettore che abbia una formazione matematica di base. Con lo scopo di ridurre il formalismo, il testo introduce rapidamente i concetti fondamentali senza rinunciare al rigore matematico. La prima parte del volume contiene una (TM)introduzione agli elementi di probabilitA e una presentazione della teoria della valutazione nella (TM)ambito dei mercati discreti. Vengono in particolare illustrati con dimostrazione i teoremi fondamentali della valutazione, i modelli binomiale e trinomiale e vengono accennati alcuni approcci al problema della valutazione in mercati incompleti. Nella seconda parte viene sviluppata in dettaglio la teoria della (TM)integrazione e del calcolo stocastico. Il classico modello di Black&Scholes A] presentato inizialmente in ambito Markoviano con un approccio basato sulle equazioni alle derivate parziali. Successivamente, dopo aver trattato il teorema di Girsanov, la valutazione da (TM)arbitraggio viene rivisitata nella (TM)ottica della teoria delle martingale. Di seguito viene approfondita la teoria delle equazioni differenziali stocastiche mettendo particolare enfasi sui legami con le equazioni alle derivate parziali paraboliche, eventualmente degeneri. Gli strumenti introdotti vengono utilizzati nella discussione di alcuni recenti modelli per la volatilitA che generalizzano la (TM)analisi classica di Black&Scholes. La (TM)ultima parte del testo A] dedicata alla descrizione dei classici metodi numerici utilizzati nellavalutazione dei derivati: metodo Monte Carlo, alberi binomiali e schemi alle differenze finite.

With health care reform at the top of the domestic agenda, this volume assesses the Clinton administration's proposals and several alternative plans by discussing how six other countries have organized health care finance and delivery to achieve universal access to comparable quality care at much lower costs. The six countries examined Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan reveal both the variety and fundamental similarities of medical care systems in the rest of the industrialized world.Joseph White uses foreign experience to indicate the proper direction for American reform and to identify interesting alternatives that suggest compromises for what are usually presented in the U.S. as ""either-or"" choices. Examples include the role allowed for private insurance within all national systems; exceptions to fee schedules in Australia, France, and Germany; and the complaint mechanism for malpractice in New South Wales. White begins by describing each country's system and then follows with chapters disucssing three classes of problems. ""Quality and Access"" uses the experience of other countries to establish a reasonable baseline for what the U.S. should aim to achieve. ""Collecting the Money"" discusses who pays and how. ""Controlling Costs"" explains how other countries have moderated their cost increases. The final chapter assesses American reform proposals in light of the foreign evidence. White argues that a synthesis of ""competition"" and ""regulation"" is possible and that such a synthesis is approached by the Clinton proposals. But he also identifies areas where those proposals fall short or risk collapsing of their own weight. He concludes by comparing the administration's proposals to the major alternatives. ""This book is serious scholarship at its best. Comprehensive in scope, insightful in character, and compelling in its reasoning, the book presents a balanced treatment of alternative proposals."" Choice

The system for allocating public expenditure to the nations and regions of the UK has broken down. Money goes to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by the notorious Barnett formula, but this is collapsing and cannot last long. Money goes to the English regions by poorly-understood formulae that work badly. People in every region think that the system is unfair to them. The Fiscal Crisis of the United Kingdom suggests how the system could be fixed, drawing lessons from Australia and Canada. It recommends a Territorial Grants Commission.

Topicality of Asian economy has refused to fade for almost four decades; if anything it has been levitating. The Asian economy has changed markedly since the economic and financial crisis of 1997-1998 and is continuing to evolve. As a scholarly subject matter, Asian economy has not stopped attracting academicians, policy mandarins, decision makers in the arena of business and students of Asian economy. The Asian crisis was a cataclysmic event for the region and brought to the surface several systemic limitations, like those in the financial sector, corporate governance, regulatory oversight, legal framework, and exchange rate management. Managers of Asian economy need to get to the bottom of these acutely problematical systemic issues. Additionally, Asian economies need to change with the demands of time and devise their post crisis development strategy. Asia's growth model, that served it so well for four decades, is overdue for renewal so that it can re-strengthen its bonds with the ever-evolving regional and global economic reality. The old growth model is likely to be less relevant and effective in the post-crisis future of the Asian economies. feature of Asian Economy and Finance: A Post-Crisis Perspective is that unlike most Asia-related books, it is written in a comprehensive and authoritative manner and covers large areas of Asian macro-economy and finance. The noteworthy areas of focus include global and intra-regional trade and investment, as well as financial and monetary aspects. In-depth discussions have been provided on regional integration through expanding trade, financial flows, regional production networks, and financial and monetary co-operation. In taking a contemporary or post-crisis view of the Asian economy, this book offers the newest knowledge related to relevant themes on the Asian economies as well as the latest concepts. In a succinct manner, this book deals with the principal normative and positive strands with which one need to be properly familiar in this subject area. This tightly written volume covers a great deal of ground and imparts knowledge on the Asian economy related themes to students, researchers and policy makers alike. The book is neither overly technical nor model-oriented. analysis style, which stops short of mathematical formulations and econometric modeling. Many students and other readers who have good analytical minds and sound knowledge of economic principles feel lost in mathematical formulations. This writing style makes it accessible to a much larger number of readers.

After a massive international campaign calling attention to the development impact of foreign debt, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative is now underway. But will the HIPC Initiative meet its high expectations? Will debt relief substantially raise growth? How do we make sure that debt relief benefits poor people? And how can we ensure that poor countries do not become highly indebted again? These are some of the key policy issues covered in this rigorous and independent analysis of debt, development, and poverty. JEAN-CLAUDE BERTHLEMY Professor of Economics, University of Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, France ARNE BIGSTEN Professor of Development Economics, G/teborg University, Sweden NANCY BIRDSALL Founding President, Center for Global Development, Washington, USA ABDUR R. CHOWDHURY Director, Economic Analysis Division, United Nations Commission for Europe, Geneva, Switzerland STIJN CLAESSENS Professor of International Finance, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands ERA DABLA-NORRIS International Monetary Fund, USA ISHAC DIWAN Company Director for Ethiopia and Sudan, World Bank, USA BENNO FERRARINI Director of Economic Research at the World Trade Institute, Switzerl

Fiscal policy is critical to the development of poor countries. Whilst spending must be increased on public services, tax must remain low so as to avoid increasing poverty. This text provides a guide to current political debate on the issue, including new results on the development impact of fiscal policies.

Fiscal policy is critical to the development of poor countries. Public spending on pro-poor services and public goods must be increased, tax revenues must be mobilized, and macro-economic stabilization must be achieved without inhibiting growth, poverty reduction and post-conflict reconstruction. This book provides both a comprehensive and balanced guide to the current policy debate and new results on the development impact of fiscal policies. It is essential reading for students of development economics as well as all those seeking to improve policy-effectiveness.