Could information and communication technology (ICT) become the transformative tool for a new style of global development? Could ICT promote knowledge-based, innovation-driven, and smart, adaptive, participatory development? As countries seek a way out of the present period of economic contraction, they are trying to weave ICT into their development strategies, in the same way organizations have learned to use ICT to transform their business models and strategies. This integration offers a new path to development that is responsive to the challenges of our times.

In e-Transformation, Nagy Hanna identifies the key ingredients for the strategic integration of ICT into national development, with examples from around the world. He draws on his rich experience of over 35 years at the World Bank and other aid agencies to outline the strategic options involved in using ICT to maximize developmental impact transforming public service institutions, networking businesses for innovation and competitiveness, and empowering communities for social inclusion and poverty reduction. He identifies the key interdependencies in e-transformation and offers a holistic framework to tap network effects and synergies across all elements of the process, including leadership, cyber policies, institutions, human resources, technological competencies, information infrastructure, and ICT uses for government, business, and society.

Integrating analytical insights and practical applications across the fields of development, political economy, public administration, entrepreneurship, and technology management, the author candidly argues that e-transformation, like all bold ideas, faces implementation challenges. In particular, the aspiration-reality gap needs to be systematically addressed if ICT-enabled innovation and transformation is to become a development practice. E-transformation is first and foremost about thinking strategically and creatively about the options made possible by the information technology revolution in the context of globalization. To this end, the author provides tools and best practices designed to nurture innovation, select entry points, prioritize among competing demands, and sequence and scale up. He outlines the roles of all participants political, managerial, entrepreneurial, social and technical whose leadership is essential for successful innovation."

The last survey of the rent-seeking literature took place more than a decade ago. Since that time a great deal of new research has been published in a wide variety of journals, covering a wide variety of topics. The scope of that research is such that very few researchers will be familiar with more than a small part of contemporary research, and very few libraries will be able to provide access to the full breadth of that research. This two-volume collection provides an extensive overview of 40 years of rent-seeking research. The volumes include the foundational papers, many of which have not been in print for two decades. They include recent game-theoretic analyses of rent-seeking contests and also appHcations of the rent-seeking concepts and methodology to economic regulation, international trade policy, economic history, poUtical com petition, and other social phenomena. The new collection is more than twice as large as any previous collection and both updates and extends the earlier surveys. Volume I contains previously published research on the theory of rent-seeking contests, which is an important strand of contemporary game theory. Volume II contains previously pubHshed research that uses the theory of rent-seeking to an alyze a broad range of public policy and social science topics. The editors spent more than a year assembling possible papers and, although the selections fill two large volumes, many more papers could have been included."

A concise analysis of the evolution of monetary policy and banking institutions over the past sixty years that stresses the dynamic interactions between the Federal Reserve and banking institutions that resulted from financial market innovations. Institutions were influenced by increasing competition in markets and monetary policies. The book consists of two parts, which are organized chronologically. The first has chapters that correspond with terms of chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board. It critically analyzes decisions taken by the Federal Open Market Committee in each period and argues that innovations forced changes in the design and conduct of monetary policy. The second part analyzes how banking institutions evolved from a very conservative and regulated system in 1945 to highly inventive financial firms and how this evolution has affected the distribution of credit, wealth, and income in the US.

Information and communication technology (ICT) is central to reforming governance, innovating public services, and building inclusive information societies. Countries are learning to weave ICT into their strategies for transforming government as enterprises have learned to use ICT to innovate and transform their processes and competitive strategies. ICT-enabled transformation offers a new path to digital-era government that is responsive to the challenges of our time. It facilitates innovation, partnering, knowledge sharing, community organizing, local monitoring, accelerated learning, and participatory development.

In Transforming Government and Building the Information Society, Nagy Hanna draws on multi-disciplinary research on ICT in the public sector, and on his rich experience of over 35 years at the World Bank and other aid agencies, to identify the key ingredients for the strategic integration of ICT into governance and poverty reduction strategies. The author showcases promising practices from around the world to outline the strategic options involved in using ICT to maximize developmental impact-transforming government institutions and public services, and empowering communities for inclusion and grassroots innovation.

Despite the ICT promise, Hanna acknowledges that reforming governance and empowering poor communities are difficult long-term undertakings. Hanna moves beyond the imperatives and visions of e-transformation to strategic design and implementation options, and draws practical lessons for policymakers, reformers, innovators, community leaders, ICT specialists and development experts.

Credit risk analysis is one of the most important topics in the field of financial risk management. Due to recent financial crises and regulatory concern of Basel II, credit risk analysis has been the major focus of financial and banking industry. Especially for some credit-granting institutions such as commercial banks and credit companies, the ability to discriminate good customers from bad ones is crucial. The need for reliable quantitative models that predict defaults accurately is imperative so that the interested parties can take either preventive or corrective action. Hence credit risk analysis becomes very important for sustainability and profit of enterprises. In such backgrounds, this book tries to integrate recent emerging support vector machines and other computational intelligence techniques that replicate the principles of bio-inspired information processing to create some innovative methodologies for credit risk analysis and to provide decision support information for interested parties.

This study has been written during my time at the Institute of Public Finance at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany. I am indebted to a number of people who have made this work possible. First and foremost, I thank my teacher Prof. Dr. Bernd Raffelhuschen ] with whom I had the pleasure of working for many exciting years. The German term "Doktorvater" alludes to the fatherly role of a thesis supervisor, and he has truely lived up to this role. Also, I am grateful to Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Hans-Hermann Francke for his co-correction and the valuable comments he has given me. In addition, I wish to thank my family. Especially, my wife, Daniela, has not only supported me with her love and affection but has also kept an eye on my discipline when the going got tough. The greatest sacri?ce in the course of working on this thesis, have been the miles and many hours away from her. Unfortunately, the yearsofmydoctoralstudieswereovershadowedbythedeathofmyfather. Tohimand mymother, Eva-MariaBorgmann, Iamimmenselygratefulfortheirloveandsupport throughout my life. Daniel Besendorfer and Erik Luth ] have been close companions and friends at the Institute of Public Finance from my ?rst days in Freiburg, and I have gained from their friendship enormously. This work has largely pro?ted from comments and suggestions of many colleagues who have also been great fun to work with. Among them, I especially thank Holger Bonin, Oliver Ehrentraut, Matthias Heidler, Stefan Fetzer, Pascal Krimmer, and Stefan Moog."

Sustainability has become a topic of global relevance: Corporations and other economically acting organizations increasingly need to realize economic, environmental and social objectives in order to survive. Supplementary to "classical" environmental management, realizing corporate sustainability requires comprehensive approaches which allow the integration of social and economic aspects. Such concepts can be found e.g. in international excellence models mainly based on a TQM thinking but also in the field of human factors in organizational design and management. Understood as systems approaches, they include the interests of all relevant stakeholders with a mid- or long-term time perspective and are thus highly linked with the principles of sustainable development. In this book internationally leading scientists discuss the issue of sustainability from their perspective, resulting in an innovative view on different management approaches under the umbrella of corporate sustainability.

A comparative analysis of the process of public sector transition from central planning to market democracy. It is the story of the difficulties and complexities of moving to a system of greater autonomy for the subnational governments of the Czech and Slovak Republics, including the future of these two governments' fiscal policies after the global recession.

Covering a topic of massive contemporary importance, this well written volume demonstrates how transportation strategy and environmental sustainability can be pursued in a comprehensive and harmonious, rather than unconnected and potentially conflicting, set of public policies. It applies lessons from several urban areas (e.g., Bogota, Singapore, Mexico City, Sao Paulo), including "success stories" and less successful "hard-won lessons," to a case study in Guangzhou.

The book is dedicated to the question of how much room for national tax policy Member States of the European Union will be able to maintain in the future. It focuses on the possibilities Member States have and the limits they face, such as the need to finance the welfare state or limits of European and International Law. The research question is looked at from different angles. Economic as well as legal aspects are included.

In this ambitious book, the authors challenge mainstream economic theory to present a new theoretical concept on modern economic reality. The book reveals in detail the key notions of the sociodynamic multiplier and the rational behavior of the state.

This book focuses on the role of interest groups and their lobbying efforts in public policy. It applies strategic contest theory as the basic methodology and clarifies the fundamental parameters that determine the behavior of the government and the interest groups. It illustrates the proposed approach in five specific cases: determination of monopoly price, privatization policy, migration quotas, minimum wage and promotion in tournaments.

Being socially responsible on the part of corporate entities is now no longer an option, it is part of their normal business obligations to all their stakeholders regardless of whether these are primary or secondary stakeholders. Modern societies around the world now expect corporate entities of all shapes and forms to be socially responsible in whatever they do; the Global Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility is a first attempt at bringing together in one book experts' accounts of how corporate entities in twenty independent nations around the world are dealing with the issue of CSR. The world today faces diverse social problems. These become apparent as one moves from one country to the next, interestingly, society now expects corporations to help in finding solutions to these problems. The problem of global warming affects us all; modern corporations can no longer continue to assume that the problem will go away, if nothing is done by them. We can all make a little difference by our actions."

Globalization deeply affects economic structures and raises the issue of how governments should respond to new challenges. In this book, various ways of improving the institutional setup for global governance are discussed by renowned experts. The discussion focuses on further liberalizing international trade, preventing international financial crises, and protecting global environmental systems. The advantages of free international trade as well as the fears of those who are against globalization are considered in the contributions.

This book contains essays in honor of Charles B. Blankart on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The contributors include prominent scholars from the discipline of public finance and public choice. The essays include such topics as taxation, public choice, and regulation, and thus give testimony of Blankart's very broad ranging interests in economics.

Casino gambling has spread throughout the world, and continues to spread. As governments try to cope with fiscal pressures, legalized casinos offer a possible source of additional tax revenue. But casino gambling is often controversial, as some people have moral objections to gambling. In addition, a small percentage of the population may become pathological gamblers who may create significant social costs. The Economics of Casino Gambling is a comprehensive discussion of the social and economic costs and benefits of legalized gambling. It is the first comprehensive discussion of these issues available on the market.

This book provides an up-to-date summary of the consequences of demographic aging for labor markets, financial markets, economic growth, social security schemes and public finances in Germany, essentially reflecting the present state of knowledge in any of these areas. All contributions are written by leading experts in their fields and are based on results that emerge at the forefront of current research.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are often seen as a threat to western nations. They raise political issues about the nature of their ownership, origin, objectives, portfolio & performance, & are regarded with suspicion by countries in which the SWFs invest. This text provides a comparative study of the 7 largest SWF holding countries.

In today's globalized and competitive business environment, companies increasingly look to restructuring, mergers & acquisitions and downsizing to survive, grow and maximize profits. However, when they are not managed in a socially responsible manner, restructurings may exert the negative impact on employees, shareholders, communities, and society as a whole.

The book empirically explores the phenomena of corporate social responsibility (CSR), restructuring, and relationships with firms' performance in China. It gives an insight into how Chinese firms respond to expectations of stakeholders by making social goals a part of their overall business operations. It also gives a fresh view of the new concept of socially responsible restructuring. For those seeking to promote socially responsible practices in restructuring, the book provides a unique and stimulating analysis and touchstone.

A wide-ranging survey of the theory and evidence on public goods, presenting the main literature on public goods, both theoretical and empirical, in a systematic manner. The breadth and depth of the book's coverage extends the existing literature in many ways.

The aim of this book is to analyse specific sets of macro and structural policies in selected Eastern European countries. The book includes studies on the major Western CIS countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, plus a set of cross-country and regional studies. The analysis in this book contributes importantly to the discussion about the economic prospects of the CIS countries.

An inside view of the forces which shaped SEPA and the PSD written from the unique perspective of someone closely involved throughout the process. It uncovers the strategic, legal and practical implications of the full harmonization agenda and provides an assessment of where these initiatives stand today, including key lessons learned.

Public-private collaboration in infrastructure projects takes place in a variety of institutional frameworks worldwide. This volume considers the different cultural, political and legal settings in the US, UK, Japan and other countries and regions where policymakers are reconsidering traditional mechanisms for raising and deploying capital. By focusing on concrete examples in specific countries, the editors and contributors draw useful lessons for strong sector performance in telecommunications, power, water and social infrastructure. Innovative strategies that work can be modified and refined in other sectors and other countries. Going beyond ideological debate, this volume presents a pragmatic approach to best practice, one that combines market-oriented solutions with governmental oversight according to the specific cultural and institutional situations. Regulators, academics, policymakers, politicians, and students in public policy, finance and economics will find this volume practical and original.

This book explores new forms of private, mutual municipal, public-private and "reverse" state funding of public investments, co-payments and shared contributions, vouchers, and pooled public risk-financing. It includes case studies taken from the Nordic countries, UK, Spain, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey and South Korea.

This book examines history of Russian finances in the period of Russia's transition from communism to capitalism in the 1990s and in the current decade. It focuses on obstacles to market reforms and macroeconomic policy choices that resulted in the state debt expansion and the financial crisis of 1998.