This book examines the drivers of inbound medical tourism in Germany. In light of growing international trade of medical services, it provides a quantitative analysis of the determinants of international patients' choice of destination. It develops coherent definitions of medical tourism and medical travel, and presents multiple unique data sets to identify inbound medical travelers in Germany. Further, it introduces an empirical modeling framework for investigating and quantifying the drivers and effects of a patient's choice of destination at the national, hospital and individual level. A particular focus of the analysis lies on cultural proximity and personal networks as key channels to convey trust in a destination's service. In addition, real consideration sets of international patients are presented. The findings presented are embedded in a global context and will help inform future empirical investigations and modeling.

The accords and protocols that underlie the Arab and Israeli peace agreements set into place economic policies and political processes so flawed that they are bound to fail. The chapters in this volume look at the diplomatic and historical precedents that have led to this situation and they debate - some cynically and some sympathetically - the reasons why the institutional structures and trade regimes the process has created are so weak. But for whatever reason, the structural flaws built into the Middle East peace process are not only biased toward the dominant players but against the people who most want peace.

With the creation of a single global market in financial services, the effective regulation of banks at the international level has become essential. This work offers a comprehensive examination of the development and structure of the provisions for the control of international financial markets. It explores the background to the major financial crises of the late 20th-century and the nature of the global response, beginning with the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of managed exchange rates and the resulting establishment of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in 1974. The author describes the structure and operation of the Committee and examines both the content of its core supervisory papers and the development of its more general regulatory programme. The emergence of increasingly complex international banking and financial conglomerates has required a fundamental revision of the traditional sector-based methods of supervision and regulation. The book examines the difficulties associated with the cross-border and cross-sector regulation of such groups and assesses the international response to these problems. Financial crises in Asia and elsewhere during the late 1990s generated further anxiety concerning the stability of the international financial market place. The causes of the crises are accordingly examined and the various responses adopted as part of an international financial architecture analysed in detail. This book addresses all the major factors involved in international banking supervision, conglomerate control and financial stability together in a single text. It should prove a useful reference and analytical tool for all those specializing in international banking and financial market control.

This volume discusses the development of the Mexican manufacturing sector during the NAFTA era. This book pursues several objectives simultaneously. Firstly, it gives continuity to and revitalizes the structuralist economic perspective and debate proposed by Latin American development theory. Secondly, it analyzes the trend of structural heterogeneity in Mexico from 1994-2008 using the manufacturing sector as a case study. Lastly, it uses methodologies established by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to provide an in-depth statistical evaluation of the effects of economic liberalization on structural change, labor productivity, production concentration, and dynamic competitiveness in the main industries of the sector: food, beverages, and tobacco; textiles and apparel; chemistry; electromechanics. Providing historical context for the evolution of Mexico's economy after trade liberalization, this volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and researchers of industrial economics, economic development, Latin-American studies, developing studies, international economics, international relations, political science, and economic geography.

Why, and how, do states obey international law? This engaging book tackles this very question head on via its examination of the conflicting and conciliating processes of the Chinese approach to litigation and the Western approach to legal orientation in the field of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism.The authors examine the normative framework of WTO rule implementation in a globalised international economic order. They further explore the notion of the rule of law in China's Confucian system, and how it interacts with a rule-based world trading system. Topics discussed include theorising the WTO implementation regime, the Chinese approach to law, China and the WTO dispute settlement system, and Chinese Confucianism and compliance. With its focus on international economic law and political science, this book will be accessible to students, policy makers, practitioners and academics looking to understand China and the rule of law in a global context

This is the first book dedicated to the scrutinization of Myanmar's unofficial foreign exchange market, its roots in restrictive administrative controls on foreign exchange and international trade, and its effects on the country's economic performance. This book integrates vast pieces of records and data with first-hand information from extensive fieldwork to create an overall picture of the chaotic but seemingly efficient foreign exchange market in Myanmar, a transitional economy in Southeast Asia whose economic systems had been less known due to its isolation until recently. This book illustrates how the unofficial foreign exchange market emerged during the country's transition to a market-based economy, how informal currency deals proliferated under restrictive controls, and why they persist despite the significant economic reforms since 2011. Refuting the conventional wisdom of foreign exchange policy reforms, this research clarifies path-dependent features of foreign exchange market systems, and it discusses possible solutions for modernizing economic systems. This book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth analytical narrative about informal economic activities and foreign exchange policy reforms in a fragile state.

This insightful book explores the intense and ultimately fleeting moment in 1980s America when the future looked Japanese. Would Japan's remarkable post-World War II economic success enable the East Asian nation to overtake the United States? Or could Japan's globe-trotting corporations serve as a model for battered U.S. industries, pointing the way to a future of globalized commerce and culture? While popular films and literature recycled old anti-Asian imagery and crafted new ways of imagining the ""yellow peril,"" and formal U.S.-Japan relations remained locked in a holding pattern of Cold War complacency, a remarkable shift was happening in countless local places throughout the United States: Japanese goods were remaking American consumer life and injecting contemporary globalization into U.S. commerce and culture. What impact did the flood of billions of Japanese things have on the ways Americans produced, consumed, and thought about their place in the world? From autoworkers to anime fans, Consuming Japan introduces new unorthodox actors into foreign-relations history, demonstrating how the flow of all things Japanese contributed to the globalizing of America in the late twentieth century.

In the last half of the 20th Century, the world economy has benefited from a globalization process driven by the enlightened confluence of technology, innovation, trade, and foreign direct investment. This book broadens our understanding of that process. Opening with a review of current global economic metrics and the significant differences between advanced and developing nations, the book goes on to discuss the globalization paradigm and the forces driving it. Discussing the importance of new ideas and new technology in continued economic growth, the volume shows how the protection of intellectual property encourages innovation. Also covering the evolution of international trade, the book reviews trade distortions from both external and internal sources, comparing trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis with alternative trade practices, such as free trade and custom unions. The work also reviews the origins and functions of the new World Trade Organization. Describing the rapidly growing practice of foreign direct investment, the book shows how FDI is closely linked to international trade and concludes with a review of the important function FDI can play in the bundling and delivery of the resources required for accelerated economic development of the emerging world.

The world is a veritable stage for superpowers. Major historical events are best viewed as the outcomes of games played by superpowers for their own economic interests. The objective of this book is to explore the primary cause of global historical events. A global economic disparity (GED) motivates superpowers to pursue their interests and results in the corresponding global historical event (GHE). This book explores the causal relationships between GEDs and GHEs that stand out in recent global history since the first Industrial Revolution, taking a geoeconomic approach which encompasses economics, international political affairs, history, and geography. The book confirms the causalities between GEDs and GHEs. It is a pioneering work that provides a unique but powerful policy implication: in order to alleviate international conflicts and tensions between superpowers, it is necessary to reduce GEDs. And since it is virtually impossible for a few superpowers to reduce the GEDs, the world economy needs a multipolar economic system for global stability through competition. The book was written shortly after the world economy was trapped within downward spirals caused by the US financial crisis and its contagion. As a collective representation of GEDs in various areas, the financial disparity is a central part of GEDs. The book rigorously examines the financial crisis (2008-2014) in the United States and the Fed's response, a program of quantitative easing (QE) implemented in three phases, while bearing in mind that the origin of the current crisis is not solely the financial sector or stock markets, but worldwide economic disequilibrium. This book also focuses on the details for the causal relationships prevailing in several major areas: human resources, raw materials, energy, environment, and poverty.

The need to understand the migration between the United States and Mexico is greater today than at any time in its century long history. Its volume and complexity are greater than most observers might have imagined even a decade ago; and it operates in a context charged with serious human, political, and security challenges. Yet, there is often confusion over the most fundamental questions about the demography, economics, and political nature of the movement and its policy responses. The editors of this book bring together a team of top policy-oriented migration experts from Mexico and the United States to provide an up-to-date analysis leading to grounded policy recommendations for both governments. Their conclusions derive from new analyses as well as from detailed discussions with policy-makers. Contributors assess the main characteristics, trends, and factors influencing Mexico-U.S. migration and recommend actions that should improve migration management, substantially reduce undocumented flows, and refocus Mexican migration into legal channels. Also contained within this book are recommendations of development strategies in Mexico that should reduce mid- to long-term emigration pressures. The book shows that collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico is not only possible, but necessary, as unilateral reforms will continue to fail until both governments act together to regulate the flow, improve conditions for the migrants, and make sure that migration has positive social and economic impacts on both countries.

This year, the "Yearbook Commercial Arbitration" has reached the milestone of thirty years of documenting the law and practice of international commercial arbitration. The Yearbook provides up-to-date and informative material to arbitration scholars and practitioners in the form of arbitral awards and court decisions, as well as newly adopted or amended arbitration rules. An indispensable feature of the Yearbook is the reporting on the 1958 New York Convention, which in this volume includes the greatest number of cases yet - 79 court decisions from 12 countries throughout the world. These cases are indexed and linked to the General Editor's earlier-published Commentaries on the New York Convention, facilitating research on any aspect of the Convention. The Yearbook also contains recent court decisions applying the 1961 European Convention, the 1975 Inter-American Arbitration Convention and the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, as well as leading cases on topical issues from a variety of jurisdictions. Austrian, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish decisions are translated into English, giving the reader access to material which might otherwise be inaccessible. Arbitral awards made under the auspices of the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, the German Maritime Arbitration Association and the Hamburg Friendly Arbitration deal with procedural and substantive issues of general interest to the business and legal communities. New and amended rules adopted by the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), the China Maritime Arbitration Commission (CMAC) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) are reproduced and information is provided on arbitration legislation recently enacted in Chile, Denmark, Norway, Philippines and Poland. A Bibliography and List of Journals keep the reader up-to-date on relevant literature. The worldwide scope and variety of the materials of the Yearbook assure the reader of a comprehensive annual overview of international commercial arbitration.

Ideological and cultural factors do not define or influence the way labor relations are conducted in China's workplace, as many suppose they do. Oakley shows that the impact of the global market has significantly altered the way labor relations are actually practiced in China, which follows what she calls a global market paradigm. Nevertheless, Maoism and Confucianism continue to influence labor relations in China, and the ideological and cultural remnants still to be found could affect China's relations with other nations for years to come. Instead of taking a macro-level, industrial-relations approach common to other studies of Chinese labor, Oakley provides an in-depth look at the problems emerging on the shop floor, in the wake of economic reform. She provides translations of actual case histories, each of which details the causes of disputes, the various methods that were found to resolve them, and their eventual outcomes. At a broader level of analysis, her book tends to support convergence theories, of which globalization is the latest, proving that there are other features in contemporary market labor relations that have emerged in China in direct response to the demands of global competition. The result is a superbly detailed examination of a topic too little covered and seldom well understood.

Oakley begins by considering the features of market labor relations and the emergence of a globalization-friendly style, in both Western and Asian economics. She continues with an analysis of the ideological and cultural dimensions of the relationship between managers and managed. In the next three chapters, she discusses the causes, resolution methods, and labor dispute outcomes. In each case she refers to the evidence of market, Maoist, and Confucian influences. The conclusion she draws is that while Confucian ideas and traces of Maoism continue to have an impact on the development and resolution of labor disputes in post-reform China overall, Chinese labor relations conform to the demands of the global, not the provincial, marketplace.

This book examines the political and social impact of English overseas merchants during the upheavals of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It explores the merchant societies of London, York, and Liverpool, and illuminates the growing prominence of the overseas trader in the press and in Parliament.

The global economy cannot fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic unless internationally coordinated actions are taken, and the industrial sector must be central to these efforts. The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated that manufacturing remains the backbone of our economies. Yet, it also shows the vulnerability of our production systems to sudden shocks. For recovery to take hold, it is critical to understand how the pandemic has affected the sector, and the prospects for the future of industrialization as economies worldwide continue to rebound and recover. The Industrial Development Report 2022 contributes to this discussion by providing evidence at the country, industry, and firm level and documents the impacts of the crisis, by examining the drivers of resilience and vulnerability in those same contexts. The main finding of this report is that industrial capabilities are a key driver of resilience. The industrial sector provides employment and income generation opportunities across the globe. During the pandemic, the sector ensured continuous access to essential goods and services for populations all over the world, including food, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical products. Indeed, this report reveals that countries with stronger manufacturing capabilities and more diversified industrial sectors have weathered both the economic and the sanitary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic better than their peers. Findings documented in the report strongly reaffirm the centrality of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 (Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation, and foster innovation), which is at the core of UNIDO's mandate, to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

National economies are linked through flows of capital and goods. This book addresses those linkages, analyzes their benefits for economic development, and evaluates a country's opportunities to reap the best possible rewards by influencing the linkages. The book focuses on the role of product characteristics in international economics and their impact on economic development. After an introduction to the topic, it analyzes the influence of product sophistication on growth, and offers alternative means of measuring product characteristics. In turn, the book provides evidence for the impact of foreign equity on the characteristics of the products that firms produce. Moreover, it presents empirical findings that prove that the quality of a country's legal and institutional framework is influenced by said country's predisposition to trade rule-of-law-intensive goods.

Relying on new statistical and archival material, this book tells the story of the operation of the international monetary system of the mid-nineteenth century. It seeks to explain how this system was able to weather the impact of the California and Australia gold discoveries. It shows how France contributed to global financial stability by standing ready to exchange silver from gold at a fixed rate - a consequence of its bimetallic system. This book also shows how France's decision to change its domestic monetary rules caused the emergence of the gold standard in 1873, and thus offers a new interpretation of the global monetary history of the nineteenth century.

In the era of globalization, foreign trade has an immense impact upon modern economies. To succeed in the global marketplace, sustainable development in trade practices is an imperative goal for countries to reach. Global Perspectives on Trade Integration and Economies in Transition is an authoritative reference source for the latest research on the dynamics of transitional economies and how certain obstacles can disrupt the effectiveness of the transition process. Highlighting the value of trade incorporation at the national and international levels, this book is ideally designed for researchers, professionals, government officials, policy makers, and upper-level students interested in the intersection of globalization, trade, and international economics.

This book integrates important milestone cases with new analyses to provide comprehensive coverage of environmental law and economics. It covers important international topics, including interactions of global environmental features and public/private health, economics of the institutions for optimal environmental management, extension of the Polluter Pays Principle to the global arena (including international trade), improved approach to the usage of cost-benefit analysis methods, economic or environmental decision-making under risk aversion and uncertainty, integration of operations in world trade and finance with the ecology and economics of the environment, objective treatment of methods of compliance, and dispute settlement procedures in the international environmental disputes arena.

This book offers a comprehensive account of the transatlantic regulatory cooperation phenomenon: its causes and political context in a globalizing economy, its theoretical understanding, its relationship to trade and competition, its implications for democracy, and its likely directions in the future. This book recognizes that, while national authorities are still the principal actors in regulatory fields, regulation is increasingly an international affair.

The Caspian Sea region is rich in oil and natural gas and can potentially become a major energy supplier. Despite the interest of the three Caspian countries of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, their energy resources have remained mainly undeveloped a decade after their independence. The main factor that has prevented the full development of the Caspian energy resources has been the difficulty of selecting long-term safe, reliable, and economically viable export routes. The three landlocked Caspian countries have no choice but to depend on their neighbors to access international waters for their exports. For many reasons, including internal stability and extensive oil facilities and pipelines, Iran offers the most suitable routes to all three Caspian countries. However, despite the interest of the Caspian energy-exporters, in using this route, the U.S. policy of containment of Iran has prevented them from doing so. For political, economic, and security reasons, the existing in-use Georgian and Russian routes cannot and will not be a long-term solution for energy exports. The insistence of the American government on imposing the expensive and unreliable Turkish route on the reluctant Caspian energy-exporters and its categorical rejection of the Iranian route have created a major obstacle to the development of the Caspian energy industries.

As Peimani suggests, if this policy continues, many oil and gas exporters will opt for the Iranian route without regard to existing U.S. punitive legislation. The results could well be the isolation of the U.S. in the Caspian region and a gradual exclusion of American oil companies from the region. This overview will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and policymakers involved with economic and political issues of the region.

The word village has the evocative power of ancient shared social values based on solidarity, equality, and common expectations for the betterment of life. The book's title is borrowed from McLuhan's apt metaphor, but questions its underlying assumptions. The contributors recast some of the basic elements of the complex phenomenon of the so-called globalization. Trade laws, industrial relations, economic and political systems are analyzed in a critical perspective. Moreover, environment and sustainable development, languages' rights, education, mobility and migrations are discussed in view of contemporary changes that societies are undergoing throughout the world. The vulnerability of societies caught up in new networks of interdependence due to reduced distances also are put to the fore, in the context of the new accelerated circulation of information, ideas, goods, and human beings. Provacative reading for scholars interested in a multinational, Euro-Atlanticist perspective on globalization.

The international discourse is most recently focused on some negative outgrowths of world economy, especially after the Seattle Round (December 1999) and its unexpected uprising of protests. The researches of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (University of Genoa), in cooperation with scholars from Europe, Canada and the United States, offer in this collection of essays a multinational contribution which is part of their work in progress on the multifaceted issue of the contemporary global village. The book features some optimistic outcomes, and some worries about what the new millennium will not achieve, despite the common and transnational efforts, that is to say a fair re-distribution of resources to reach what R. W. Fogel defines a post-modern equality, based on values as well as on material wealth. In sum, the essayists wonder if some of the hidden promises of globalization will develop in a better new century.

This book offers in-depth legal and political analysis concerning the compatibility of the Westphalian state model with globalization and the digital revolution. It explores the concept of democracy in a globalized world, discusses the legitimacy of economic integration in the global market, and presents three case studies (from Brazil, Taiwan and Spain) on the impact of social media on elections. It further entails novel perspectives on the impact of digitalization on national borders, and the role of citizens and experts in the shaping of globalization. A final chapter addresses the extent to which insights gained from the analysis of the abovementioned aspects will need to be considered in efforts to recover from the current global health and economic crisis.

With the bursting of the econmic bubble in the early 1990's Japan's public and private sectors have undergone dramatic change. William Farrell analyzes the economic superpower's turmoil in the political, bureaucratic and business arenas and offers a candid look at opportunities and strategies now open to U.S. business in Japan. A practical compendium of useful and up-to-date information, this book cuts through the stereotypical fog and is a valuable resource for business people, policy makers, and academics.

Despite the recent economic crisis, Japan still accounts for two-thirds of the entire Asian economy. However, in 1998, unemployment reached an historic high, the stock market plummeted, financial institutions were failing, and bankruptcies were a daily occurrence. William Farrell analyzes the discord in the political, bureaucratic, and business arenas and offers a candid look at opportunities and strategies now open to U.S. business. This timely book allows the reader to comprehend and act upon these public and private sector changes taking place in one of the world's largest economies.

Former Vice President of the United States and Ambassador to Japan, Walter F. Mondale, provides a foreword. The book also includes a comprehensive chronology of key events from 1994 through to the present. The connections between Japanese business and government are shown in graphic form. The recent history of the Japanese economy is revealed with a fascinating look at the inner working of the nation's most influential organizations. Additionally, U.S. and Japanese leadership and decision-making styles are compared, and the myth of a never-changing Japan is challenged. After reviewing and analyzing these key issues, the concluding chapter discusses how one becomes a participant in the process and identifies emerging opportunities. As a practical resource of useful and current information, this book cuts through false predictions of doom and demystifies the complexity of the Japanese bureaucracy.