In 1960, the GDP per capita in South East Asian countries was nearly half of that of Africa. By 1986, the gap had closed and today the trend is reversed, with more than half of the world’s poorest now living in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Why has Asia developed while Africa lagged? The Asian Aspiration chronicles the untold stories of explosive growth and changing fortunes: the leaders, events and policy choices that lifted a billion people out of abject poverty within a single generation, the largest such shift in human history.

The relevance of Asia’s example comes as Africa is facing a population boom, which can either lead to crisis or prosperity; and as Asia is again transforming, this time out of low-cost manufacturing into high-tech, leaving a void that is Africa’s for the taking. But far from the determinism of ‘Africa Rising’, this book calls for unprecedented pragmatism in the pursuit of African success.

In 2018 the world watched as 82 per cent of all wealth created was claimed by the top 1 per cent of the global population. The bottom 50 per cent of humanity saw no increase at all. While one new billionaire was created every two days, one in every four South Africans were living on less than R18 per day – not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

Inequality has always been part of the world we live in, but in the past twenty years the situation has worsened. We have seen the rise of mega corporations, where regional companies have become global players: power brokers that are richer and more powerful than most countries. This has seen businesses record ever-increasing profits while they pay ever-decreasing taxes. How is this happening?

In South Africa, millions of people depend on the services and products of mega corporations, but to what extent do these corporations influence and affect the lives of their consumers? What do these companies do with all the power that is in their hands?

In The Dirty Secrets of the Rich and Powerful, James-Brent Styan casts the spotlight on economic inequality and unpacks historical and ongoing business practices that have a real influence on people today. This book takes you right into the corridors of power and behind the closed doors of the boardrooms of the rich and powerful to show you how, and why, the status quo seems so unfair.

Following his explosive international bestseller Red Notice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.

When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption that prompted Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order is a stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most ruthless villains in the world—and win.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS) nations have become a strong engine of South-South Cooperation. The most significant outcome of the emergence of BRICS is the shift they have brought to the balance of power in global affairs. The past decade has steadily accelerated commercial and strategic engagements between BRICS and Africa. The BRICS countries constitute Africa’s largest trading partners and new investors. BRICS has nourished Africa’s economic emergence and elevated the continent’s contemporary global positioning. This book seeks to determine the potential of BRICS-Africa cooperation in promoting African development.

Some of the critical issues in this book include the following: a) What will be the impact of intra-BRICS and BRICS–Africa cooperation and partnerships, mainly through the New Industrial Revolution, financial technologies, infrastructure, economic growth and development in health; b) Determine the relevance of the BRICS New Development Bank in the post-COVID era; c) Examine the governance and accountability mechanisms required to entrench BRICS governance cooperation with the continent, and e) Determine strategies that address gender developmental disparities and inequalities in BRICS and Africa.

This book consists of five sections, preceded by an introduction and later at the end of the chapters, a conclusion. The five mentioned sections respond to the 2020 12th BRICS Summit, ‘Global Stability, Shared Security, and Innovative Growth thematic thrusts.

A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at one of the world's biggest tech companies.

In 2019, a Chinese entity called Tencent overtook Facebook to become the world's fifthlargest company. It was a watershed moment, a wake-up call for those in the West accustomed to regarding the global tech industry through the prism of Silicon Valley: Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft. Yet to many of the two billion-plus people who live just across the Pacific Ocean, it came as no surprise at all.

Tencent's ambition to be an essential part of digital daily life means it holds a dizzyingly diverse range of products - music, gaming, messaging, and film.

In this fascinating narrative - crammed with insider interviews, exclusive details about the company's culture - tech reported Lulu Chen tells the story of how Tencent is changing the world and asks what the consequences will be for us all.

Now firmly established as one of the leading economics principles texts in the UK and Europe, the sixth edition of Microeconomics has been fully updated.

Much revered for its friendly and accessible approach, emphasis on active learning and unrivalled support resources, this edition features brand-new new coverage of the impact of globalization, digitization and the gig economy.

A vital and timely investigation into how the consulting industry has made its way to the heart of our economies and governments - and what to do about it

There is an entrenched relationship between the consulting industry and hollowed-out, risk-averse governments and shareholder value-maximizing firms. Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington show that our economies' reliance on companies such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG and EY stunts innovation, obfuscates corporate and political accountability and impedes our collective mission of halting climate breakdown. The 'Big Con' is possible in today's economies because of the unique power that consultancies wield through extensive contracts and networks - as advisors, legitimators and outsourcers - and the illusion that they are objective sources of expertise and capacity. The Big Con weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments and warps our economies.

Mazzucato and Collington expertly debunk the myth that consultancies always add value to the economy. With a wealth of original research, they argue brilliantly for investment and collective intelligence within all organizations and communities, and for a new system in which public and private sectors work innovatively for the common good. We must recalibrate the role of consultants and rebuild economies and governments that are fit for purpose.

An expert on China's growing digital empire provides an urgent look at the battle to connect and control tomorrow's networks.

Its vast infrastructure projects now extend from the ocean floor to outer space, and from Africa's megacities into rural America. China is wiring the world, and, in doing so, rewriting the global order.

As things stand, the rest of the world still has a choice. But the battle for tomorrow will require America and its allies to take daring risks in uncertain political terrain. Unchecked, China will reshape global flows of data to reflect its own interests - and the lives of countless individuals enmeshed in its systems.

Taking readers on a global tour of these emerging battlefields, Jonathan E. Hillman reveals what China's digital footprint looks like on the ground, and explores the dangers of a world in which all routers lead to Beijing.

This official ICSA study text has been specially designed to support students taking the Trust and Company Administration module of ICSA's Level 5 qualifications in International Finance and Administration.The text covers the syllabus for each module and is structured to help in planning a programme of study. Learning outcomes linked to the syllabus are highlighted to help students focus on the examination requirements for each module.The text follows a standard format and includes a range of features to encourage active learning and to help students apply principles and theory to real-life business situations, including: case law and case examples stop and think scenarios worked examples test yourself review questions and answers glossaries of key termsThe text provides an excellent guide for students, but also serves as a useful reference for anyone who needs an accessible and practical introduction to the subject.

Americans have contradictory beliefs about how international trade affects the country as whole and specific communities. Yet notwithstanding the heat of political rhetoric, these beliefs are rarely mobilized into political action. Alexandra Guisinger examines this apparent disconnect by examining the bases of Americans' trade preferences in today's post-industrial economy and why do so few politicians attempt to take advantage of these preferences. The changing American economy has made the direct effects of trade less obvious, making the benefits and costs more difficult to determine. In addition, information sources, including the media, have changed in content and influence over time, their influence varies across different groups of individuals, and partly as a result individuals hold countervailing beliefs about the effect of trade on their own and others' economic outcomes. American Opinion on Trade provides a multi-method examination of the sources of attitudes, drawing on survey data and experimental surveys; it also traces how trade issues become intertwined with attitudes toward redistribution as well as gender and race.

The international community has donated nearly one trillion dollars during the last four decades to reconstruct post-conflict countries and prevent the outbreak of more civil war. Yet reconstruction has eluded many of these countries, and 1.9 million people have been killed in reignited conflict. Where did the money go? This book documents how some leaders do bring about remarkable reconstruction of their countries using foreign aid, but many other post-conflict leaders fail to do so. Offering a global argument that is the first of its kind, Desha Girod explains that post-conflict leaders are more likely to invest aid in reconstruction when they are desperate for income and thus depend on aid that comes with reconstruction strings attached. Leaders are desperate for income when they lack access to rents from natural resources or to aid from donors with strategic interests in the country. Using data on civil wars that ended between 1970 and 2009 and evidence both from countries that succeeded and from countries that failed at post-conflict reconstruction, Girod carefully examines the argument from different perspectives and finds support for it. The findings are important for theory and policy because they explain why only some leaders have the political will to meet donor goals in the wake of civil war. The findings also shed light on state-building processes and on the political economy of post-conflict countries. Paradoxically, donors are most likely to achieve reconstruction goals in countries where they have the least at stake.

Europe's trade policies matter in global politics. Despite the recent focus on Brazil, India, and particularly China, the European Union remains the world's largest market and trader. Despite its recent economic troubles, Europe remains in a powerful position to shape how globalization is governed. We know surprisingly little about how its trade policy is actually made, because previous works have focused on individual trade policy decisions to the detriment of the 'big picture' of the Union as a trade power. Parochial Global Europe argues that trade policy is composed of multiple, distinct policies. Each presents a distinctive constellation of mobilized societal preferences, pattern of political institutions, and range of government preferences. The balance of economic power between the EU and its trade partner(s) affects the stakes involved. Together these four factors define trade policy sub-systems, which help explain both the EU's objectives and whether it realizes them. The authors advance this argument by analysing the EU's role in the demise of the Doha Round, its use of anti-dumping and pursuit of market access, the trade effects of its single market programme and efforts at regulatory diplomacy, including the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership negotiations. Parochial Global Europe thus focuses centrally on modern, 21st century trade policy. It also sheds light on the EU as a global actor by analysing its use of trade policy as a tool of foreign policy from promoting development, to encouraging human rights and environmental protection, to punishing security threats.

America and China are the two most powerful players in global affairs, and no relationship is more consequential. How they choose to cooperate and compete affects billions of lives. But U.S.-China relations are complex and often delicate, featuring a multitude of critical issues that America and China must navigate together. Missteps could spell catastrophe. In Debating China, Nina Hachigian pairs American and Chinese experts in collegial "letter exchanges" that illuminate this multi-dimensional and complex relationship. These fascinating conversations-written by highly respected scholars and former government officials from the U.S. and China-provide an invaluable dual perspective on such crucial issues as trade and investment, human rights, climate change, military dynamics, regional security in Asia, and the media, including the Internet. The engaging dialogue between American and Chinese experts gives readers an inside view of how both sides see the key challenges. Readers bear witness to the writers' hopes and frustrations as they explore the politics, values, history, and strategic frameworks that inform their positions. This unique volume is perfect for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of U.S.-China relations today.

This volume presents eighteen papers by leading Roman historians and archaeologists discussing trade in the Roman Empire during the period c.100 BC to AD 350. It focuses especially on the role of the Roman state in shaping the institutional framework for trade within and outside the empire, in taxing that trade, and in intervening in the markets to ensure the supply of particular commodities, especially for the city of Rome and for the army. As part of a novel interdisciplinary approach to the subject, the chapters address its myriad facets on the basis of broadly different sources of evidence: historical, papyrological, and archaeological. They are grouped into three sections, covering institutional factors (taxation, legal structures, market regulation, financial institutions); evidence for long-distance trade within the empire in wood, stone, glass, and pottery; and trade beyond the frontiers, with the east (as far as China), India, Arabia, the Red Sea, and the Sahara. Rome's external trade with realms to the east emerges as being of particular significance, but it is in the eastern part of the empire itself where the state appears to have adapted the mechanisms of taxation in collaboration with the elite holders of wealth to support its need for revenue. On the other hand, the price of that collaboration, which was in effect a fiscal partnership, ultimately led in the longer term in slightly different forms in the east and the west to a fundamental change in the political character of the empire.

Given the powerfully negative and ongoing impact of the Great Recession on western economies, the question of whether historically wealthy nations--the US, Western European countries, Japan--can stay wealthy has become an overriding concern for virtually every interested observer. Can their middle classes remain comfortable as more and more good and technically jobs disappear to other parts of the world? Can they support themselves as they devote more and more economic resources to an aging population base? In The Third Globalization, eminent political economists Dan Breznitz and John Zysman gather some of the discipline's leading scholars to assess the prospects for growth and prosperity among advanced industrial nations. Throughout, they examine the core transformation in the economies of the advanced countries, the character of the challenge from the emerging economies, and the varied policy responses of the advanced countries. And, via a series of case studies, the contributors consider the central challenges these countries face internally and the nature of their responses.In particular, they ask what governments might do to achieve the goal of generating and retaining highly productive economic activity, which they collectively regard as necessary for sustained growth. In total, the book directly challenges a number of core policy and academic assumptions about the dynamics of contemporary advanced economies by looking at the problem from three different angles: a) a macro perspective, which considers the forces changing the policy and political economy landscape after the crisis; b) a sectoral perspective, which explains how these forces unleashed major shifts within critical domains and industries; and c) a policy perspective that concentrates on the responses to the Great Recession of both the already rich nations and the new, game transforming, competitors such as China and India. All told, the book's powerful analysis of a current global problem--weak growth in the world's longtime growth engines--that is of concern to everyone will make this essential reading for scholars and policymakers from across the social sciences.

This book provides edited selections of primary source material in the intellectual history of competition policy from Adam Smith to the present day. Chapters include classical theories of competition, the U.S. founding era, classicism and neoclassicism, progressivism, the New Deal, structuralism, the Chicago School, and post-Chicago theories. Although the focus is largely on Anglo-American sources, there is also a chapter on European Ordoliberalism, an influential school of thought in post-War Europe. Each chapter begins with a brief essay by one of the editors pulling together the important themes from the period under consideration.

The Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is one of the longest established and more controversial of the common policies of the EC. It deals principally with the management of fishery resources, relations between the EC and third States in fisheries matters, the marketing of and trade in fishery products, financial assistance to the fisheries sector, and aquaculture. However, the CFP is not just a matter for those with an economic interest in fisheries. It also raises many issues of more general concern, such as the capacity of the EC and its Member States to manage important natural resources sustainably, the impact of fishing on the wider marine environment, and relations between developed and developing States. This book addresses the CFP from a legal perspective. It provides a detailed account of the very large body of EC law comprising the CFP, and draws on the European Commission's associated documents to aid interpretation and add context. As a result, the book will be of value to anyone wanting knowledge of the law of the CFP. Although not addressing the Commission's 2009 Green Paper on reform of the CFP, the book should provide a useful reference point against which to view the reform of parts of the CFP that is anticipated to take place over the next few years.

The Political Economy of the World Trading System is a comprehensive textbook account of the economics, institutional mechanics and politics of the world trading system. This third edition has been expanded and updated to cover developments in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since its formation, including the Doha Round, presenting the essentials of trade negotiations and the WTO's rules and disciplines.
The authors focus in particular on the WTO's role as the primary organisation through which trading nations manage their commercial interactions and the focal point for cooperation on policy responses to the rapidly changing global trading environment. It is the forum in which many features of the globalisation process are considered, and it currently faces an unprecedented set of challenges. The increasing importance of countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa in international trade relations, the revealed preference towards regionalism, intensification of trade conflicts, the role of business groups and NGOs in trade policy formation and negotiations, and pressures for more leadership in an institution threatened by paralysis are examples of issues that are discussed in some detail; all are critical for the operation of the system and for international business in the coming decade. This edition also includes numerous real-world examples to illustrate how the WTO impinges on business, workers and households, written from the perspective of managers and business associations.
An insider's view of the institutional history of the WTO allows the authors to use a variety of conceptual tools to analyse the working of the WTO in a non-technical manner. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each chapter and an extensive bibliography make the volume suitable both for introductory and postgraduate courses on international economics and business, international relations, and international economic law.

This volume illuminates and critically assesses Paul A. Samuelson's voluminous and groundbreaking contributions to the field of economics. The volume includes contributions from eminent scholars, including six Nobel Laureates, covering the extraordinary depth and breadth of Samuelson's contributions.

Conventional wisdom holds that China's burgeoning economic power has reduced the United States to little more than a customer and borrower of Beijing. The rise of China, many feel, necessarily means the decline of the West--the United States in particular.
Not so, writes Edward Steinfeld. If anything, China's economic emergence is good for America. In this fascinating new book, Steinfeld asserts that China's growth is fortifying American commercial supremacy, because (as the title says) China is playing our game. By seeking to realize its dream of modernization by integrating itself into the Western economic order, China is playing by our rules, reinforcing the dominance of our companies and regulatory institutions. The impact of the outside world has been largely beneficial to China's development, but also enormously disruptive. China has in many ways handed over--outsourced--the remaking of its domestic economy and domestic institutions to foreign companies and foreign rule-making authorities. For Chinese companies now, participation in global production also means obedience to foreign rules. At the same time, even as these companies assemble products for export to the West, the most valuable components for those products come from the West. America's share of global manufacturing, by value, has actually increased since 1990. Within China, the R&D centers established by Western companies attract the country's best scientists and engineers, and harness that talent to global, rather than indigenous Chinese, innovation efforts. In many ways, both Chinese and American society are benefiting as a result. That said, the pressures on China are intense. China is modeling its economy on the United States, with vast consequences in a country with a small fraction of America's per-capita income and scarcely any social safety net. Walmartization is not something that Asian manufacturing power is doing to us; rather, it is how we are transforming China.
From outsourcing to energy, Steinfeld overturns the conventional wisdom in this incisive and richly researched account.

As the world shifts away from the unquestioned American hegemony that followed in the wake of the Cold War, the United States is likely to face new kinds of threats and sharper resource constraints than it has in the past. However, the country's alliances, military institutions, and national security strategy have changed little since the Cold War. American foreign and defense policies, therefore, should be assessed for their fitness for achieving sustainable national security amidst the dynamism of the international political economy, changing domestic politics, and even a changing climate. This book brings together sixteen leading scholars from across political science, history, and political economy to highlight a range of American security considerations that deserve a larger role in both scholarship and strategic decision-making. In these chapters, scholars of political economy and the American defense budget examine the economic engine that underlies U.S. military might and the ways the country deploys these vast (but finite) resources. Historians illuminate how past great powers coped with changing international orders through strategic and institutional innovations. And regional experts assess America's current long-term engagements, from NATO to the chaos of the Middle East to the web of alliances in Asia, deepening understandings that help guard against both costly commitments and short-sighted retrenchments. This interdisciplinary volume sets an agenda for future scholarship that links politics, economics, and history in pursuit of sustainable security for the United States - and greater peace and stability for Americans and non-Americans alike.

The regulation of foreign investment represents one of the most topical and controversial subjects in European Union law and international investment law. EU foreign investment law is emerging as a critically important issue, particularly since the introduction of EU competence over foreign direct investment after the Lisbon Treaty and the recent successful challenge of the compatibility of Member States Bilateral Investment Treaties with EU law. Within this framework, the book sets out to identify whether and to what extent the EU has become an international actor in the field of foreign investment. Exploring the existing legal framework on the scope and exercise of EU competence and its legal effects, it examines the foundations upon which EU investment policy is based and will be based in the future. The book addresses questions relating to the definition of foreign investment; the scope of EU competences; the exercise of EU powers; the substantive content of existing and future EU International Investment Agreements; and the objectives of EU investment policy and its EU law effects. From this grounding, the study widens to scrutinize the influence that the EU exerts on international law and regulation of foreign investment. Paying careful attention to the substantive content and orientation of EU International Investment Agreements, the book takes a comparative approach to the content of Bilateral Investment Treaties, as well as to the ramifications of EU foreign investment regulation for international law, especially with regard to the EU's international responsibility. Taking into account the recent developments in the field, this book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the legal, practical, and political concerns that the creation of an EU common investment policy creates.

Nigeria and South Africa account for about a third of Africa’s economic might, and have led much of its peacemaking and peacekeeping initiatives over the last two and a half decades. Both account for at least 60 per cent of the economy of their respective sub-regions in West and Southern Africa. The success of political and economic integration in Africa thus rests heavily on the shoulders of these two regional powers who have both collaborated and competed with each other in a complex relationship that is Africa’s most indispensable.

Nigeria remains among South Africa’s largest trading partners in Africa, while both countries have cooperated in building the institutions of the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). Nigeria and South Africa have also sought to give Africa a stronger global voice, while competing as rivals on issues such as peacemaking in Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and Guinea-Bissau. While Nigeria is the most ethnically diverse country in Africa, South Africa is the most racially diverse state on the continent. Both countries have had a tremendous cultural impact on the continent in terms of Nollywood movies and South African soap operas.

The first three chapters of this book assess Nigeria/South Africa relations in the areas of politics, economics and culture. The second section has three essays that examine the issue of hegemonic leadership in relation to Nigeria and South Africa. The third section consists of four essays on the contributions to the bilateral relationship and leadership roles of four prominent South Africans and Nigerians: Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Olusegun Obasanjo and Sani Abacha. The final section of the book analyses three technocratic Nigerian and South African ‘visionaries’: Adebayo Adedeji, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

This book, written by global experts, provides a comprehensive and topical analysis on the economics of chocolate. While the main approach is economic analysis, there are important contributions from other disciplines, including psychology, history, government, nutrition, and geography. The chapters are organized around several themes, including the history of cocoa and chocolate - from cocoa drinks in the Maya empire to the growing sales of Belgian chocolates in China; how governments have used cocoa and chocolate as a source of tax revenue and have regulated chocolate (and defined it by law) to protect consumers' health from fraud and industries from competition; how the poor cocoa producers in developing countries are linked through trade and multinational companies with rich consumers in industrialized countries; and how the rise of consumption in emerging markets (China, India, and Africa) is causing a major boom in global demand and prices, and a potential shortage of the world's chocolate.

The Federal Reserve System-the central bank of the United States, better known as The Fed-has never been more controversial. Criticism has reached such levels that Congressman Ron Paul, contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, published End the Fed, with blurbs from musician Arlo Guthrie and actor Vince Vaughn. And yet, amid a slow economy and partisan gridlock, the Fed has never been more important. Stephen H. Axilrod explains this influential agency-its powers, operations, how it sets policy-in The Federal Reserve, a timely addition to Oxford's acclaimed series What Everyone Needs to Know. Of the two major governmental tools for shaping the economy, Congress controls fiscal policy-taxation and spending-and the Fed makes monetary policy-influencing how much money circulates in the economy, and how quickly. Traditionally the Fed has relied on three instruments: open-market operations (buying and selling U.S. bonds), lending to banks, and setting reserve requirements on bank deposits. It also helps to regulate the financial system. Drawing on years of experience inside the Federal Reserve System, Axilrod shows how these tools actually work, and answers a series of increasingly detailed questions in the series format. He asks, for instance, if the system of regional Fed banks needs modification for today's technological landscape; if there is corruption in the Fed's governance; what happens to profits from its operations; the impact of political pressure; the extent of Congressional oversight; and just how independent it truly is. Whether discussing the Fed's balance sheet through the financial crisis of 2008 and beyond, the federal funds rate, or the international context, Axilrod displays a mastery of his subject Coming in time for the Fed's 100th anniversary in 2013, this book deftly explains an institution that every American needs to understand.