Since the recent international crises, the role and significance of international financial institutions (IFI) have been challenged. Some have argued that global financial institutions are inadequate and inefficient in performing their missions, and may be replaced by modern institutions with inclusive governance and a goal-focused approach. International Financial Institutions and Their Challenges analyzes the claimed purposes of IFIs and their failures, and proposes solutions for the future. This comprehensive account is the first book of its kind to give readers an exhaustive overview of key IFI's from the International Monetary Fund to the Islamic Development Bank. By encouraging readers to think outside the box, Lessambo enhances the current and future debates on IFIs. The book brings readers to the real challenges of international finance, and appeals to scholars in economics, finance, international studies, government studies, law, and political science, as well as professionals in finance, development experts, and employees at NGOs.

This third volume of COMECON Foreign Trade Data includes official statistics relevant to the foreign economic relations of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the USSR. The 1982 volume updates and improves upon earlier volumes by providing ongoing coverage of Council for Mutual Economic Assistance activities to encourage a comparative historical study of trends in foreign trade.

Opening a closed economy to trade can lead to greater trade and the emergence of a market economy. Sowing Market Reforms examines the assumptions of liberal economic theory and assesses the impact that increased trade has had on the Russian agrarian sector. Crumley argues that Russian agricultural producers are not simply homo economicus responding to price signals, but rather they are economic actors influenced by institutional, financial, and legal obstacles as well as political culture. By examining a sector of the economy that was exposed to increased imports more than four decades ago, Crumley illuminates the economic pressures, resistance, and reform that help to shape Russia's agrarian sector today.

Economic globalization is a complex phenomenon where the links between social security expenditures and globalization are not well understood so far. This study summarizes new key findings and highlights new theoretical insights in the field of social security systems, labor standards, taxation and economic globalization. Moreover, new thoughts on the links between social security systems and migration as well as between free trade areas and social market economy development are presented. The book analyzes the role of a changing age dependency using a Branson model and it derives implications for the stock market price index, the exchange rate and the interest rate. Economic globalization needs to be politically managed and through the Transatlantic Banking Crisis and the Euro Crisis the need to more carefully draw the rules of the game for financial globalization has been highlighted. Unstable financial markets have a large potential to undermine social market economies and social security systems. The rising income inequalities within countries raise more policy challenges for Europe than for the US.

The selected papers in this volume were prepared under the research project on "EU Eastern Neighborhood: Economic Potential and Future Development (ENEPO)" funded by the EU Sixth Framework Program. They discuss the broad spectrum of development issues in the EU Eastern Neighborhood and economic relations between the enlarged EU and its Eastern neighbors in the former USSR. Individual chapters address areas of economic and social development, trade, energy, investment, migration, costs and benefits of economic reforms, development assistance and political economy of policy reforms. In particular, they examine interrelations and mutual synergies between trade liberalization, inflow of foreign investment, economic and institutional reforms and a reduction of income and development disparities. The publication thus closes an important knowledge gap in respect to the economic, social and institutional development of the CIS region and its economic relations with the EU.

William Mott examines the relationships between economic growth and international conflict in history and theory, developing and analyzing a set of observed empirical modern growth-conflict relationships over long periods, and presenting an explanation of the observations. After introducing the growth-conflict relationship as the unit of analysis, he identifies historical perceptions of the growth-conflict relationship from ancient times through the modern era. Mott offers an alternative theoretical construct for further investigation, and speculates about the impact of these results on orthodox political-economic theory. The results of this work carry powerful implications for national management of foreign direct investment and trade in both home countries and host nations.

When Robert Z. Aliber's" The International Money Game" first appeared in 1973, it was widely acclaimed as the best - and most entertaining - introduction to the arcane mysteries of international finance on the market. The seventh edition of this classic work has again been fully rewritten to take account of the immense changes in the world economy since the previous edition, and includes a new chapter on asset pricing and bubbles.

This book provides an enduring response to modern economic problems and the consequent crises, dealing with the economic modelling of nations and the forecasting of economic growth. The main arguments embodied constitute the creation of jobs and the restoration of economic growth, using the implicit acceptance of analysis on differential models and neutral systems for controlling the wealth of nations.

The study deals with challenging questions of long-term future of global economy and the mankind. Focusing not only on what happens in the economic sphere but also on cultural, social, political, demographic, technological, and ecological processes. It employs a holistic approach to answer fundamental questions about the course of the future.

The Yearbook on Space Policy, edited by the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), is the reference publication analysing space policy developments. Each year it presents issues and trends in space policy and the space sector as a whole. Its scope is global and its perspective is European. The Yearbook also links space policy with other policy areas. It highlights specific events and issues, and provides useful insights, data and information on space activities. The first part of the Yearbook sets out a comprehensive overview of the economic, political, technological and institutional trends that have affected space activities. The second part of the Yearbook offers a more analytical perspective on the yearly ESPI theme and consists of external contributions written by professionals with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise. The third part of the Yearbook carries forward the character of the Yearbook as an archive of space activities. The Yearbook is designed for government decision-makers and agencies, industry professionals, as well as the service sectors, researchers and scientists and the interested public.

This book offers insight into the motives behind Moscow's behaviour in the Persian Gulf (with a specific focus on the GCC member states and Iran), considering Russia's growing role in the Middle East and its desire to protect national interests using a wide range of means. The book explores the drivers and motivations of the Russian foreign policy in the Gulf region, thus, helping the audience to generate informed prognosis about Moscow's moves in this area over the next years. In contrast to most studies of Russia's presence in the region, this book considers the Russian involvement in the Gulf from two standpoints - the Russian and foreign. The idea of the book is to take several key problems of Moscow's presence in the Gulf, each of these to be covered by two authors-Russian and non-Russian scholars, in order to offer the readers alternative visions of Moscow's policies towards Iran and the GCC countries

As the prime force behind trade throughout the Western Hemisphere, the United States is emerging with two trade projects--the newly-signed North American Free Trade Agreement and the projected New American Community. This volume provides a clear, concise guide to all aspects of the 5-volume NAFTA accord, its side agreements, and the unfolding New American Community. It covers specific issues, rationalizations, ideologies, controversies, and recommended actions. With special emphasis on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the volume will provide a major resource for both academics and decision makers in industry and government. Written by a leading authority on U.S. Latin American trade, the volume includes entries, arranged alphabetically, on NAFTA and other trade-related topics. The NAFTA entries are based on the five-volume treaty or official government and nongovernmental publications. Since the New American Community is still emerging, the non-NAFTA entries are interpolations from past trade accords and existing nationwide agreements or ideas based on global concepts and directives, especially the European Union.

As national governments continue to disagree over how to respond to the aftermath of the global financial crisis, two of the few areas of consensus were the decisions to increase the IMF's capacity to respond and remove the policies designed to limit the use of its resources. Why was this massive increase in the size of the IMF, accompanied by the removal of policies designed to limit moral hazard, such an easy point of consensus? Michael Breen looks at the hidden politics behind IMF lending and proposes a new theory based on shareholder control. To test this theory, he combines statistical analysis with a sweeping account of IMF lending and conditionality during two global crises; the European sovereign debt crisis and the Asian financial crisis.

The study of regionalism is essential as it has become a vital trend with profound regional and global impacts. Japan, Korea and China are regarded as the key actors for such action in East Asia. While regionalization has created building blocks for economic integration, the act of exclusion from regionalism will only lead to marginalization. Therefore, it is important to learn how to make it work. This book analyzes the effect of China, Japan and Korea's trade strategy on ASEAN countries. As closer economic ties between countries in the area have expanded significantly in the last decade, economic regionalization in East Asia has proceeded in a much more dynamic fashion than regionalist projects. Hastiadi argues that regionalism in the form of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) is better than the present regionalization as it promotes sustainability in the future.

The Chinese financial sector, despite having been developed at a much later stage compared with other developed nations, has achieved substantial progresses over the past decades. By the end of 2014, a total of 16 commercial banks had been listed on the stock exchanges, exerting strong impact onto the market indices and contributing significantly to the country's sustained economic growth. This book reviews the evolution of the Chinese financial system, examining the effectiveness of reform strategies made by the government over the last ten years. The first chapter offers a comprehensive review of the development of the Chinese banking sector and the state-owned banks (SOBs). The second chapter focuses on the efficiency of the Chinese banking sector. Employing data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), the author tests the change of efficiency within the Chinese banking sector over the past decade. It also looks at the strategy adopted by the Chinese government as the final attempt in reforming its troublesome SOBs and the effectiveness of such a reform strategy. The next chapter examines the corporate governance practise of the Chinese commercial banks, and the author follows by investigating the effect of the 2007 US credit crunch on Chinese banks and the country's wider economy. Other chapters survey the influence of foreign entry to the Chinese domestic banking sector, and the development of shadow banking in China. The author concludes by discussing the role of the central bank, namely the People's Bank of China (PBOC), and its role in implementing effective policies to promote economic growth.

This book compares the cross-border integration of infrastructures in Europe such as post, telecommunication and transportation in the 19th century and the period following the Second World War. In addition to providing a unique perspective on the development of cross-border infrastructures and the international regimes regulating them, it offers the first systematic comparison of a variety of infrastructure sectors, identifies general developmental trends and supplies theoretical explanations. In this regard, integration is defined as international standardization, network building and the establishment of international organizations to regulate cross-border infrastructures.

This thought-provoking monograph analyzes long- medium- and short-term global cycles of prosperity, recession, and depression, plotting them against centuries of important world events. Major research on economic and political cycles is integrated to clarify evolving relationships between the global center and its periphery as well as current worldwide economic upheavals and potential future developments. Central to this survey are successive waves of industrial and, later, technological and cybernetic progress, leading to the current era of globalization and the changes of the roles of both Western powers and former minors players, however that will lead to the formation of the world order without a hegemon. Additionally, the authors predict what they term the Great Convergence, the lessening of inequities between the global core and the rest of the world, including the wealth gap between First and Third World nations. Among the topics in this ambitious volume: * Why politics is often omitted from economic analysis. * Why economic cycles are crucial to understanding the modern geopolitical landscape. * How the aging of the developed world will affect world technological and economic future.< * The evolving technological forecast for Global North and South. * Where the U.S. is likely to stand on the future world stage. Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery will inspire discussion and debate among sociologists, global economists, demographers, global historians, and futurologists. This expert knowledge is necessary for further research, proactive response, and preparedness for a new age of sociopolitical change.

The authors uncover the roots of the eurozone crisis, focusing on how this can be solved against the backdrop of a very deep financial and economic crisis and its strong social impact. Looking at the impact of the financial crisis on the eurozone, they explore the European Union's recent and future developments.

New Edition: International Economics: Global Markets and Competition (4th Edition)This book integrates the microeconomics of trade with international finance and open economy macroeconomics. The emphasis throughout is on international competition and the limits of trade policy.Economics began with a debate over tariffs. Domestic industries lobby for protection against foreign competitors or export subsidies. Government policy makers dole favors in return for cash and votes. Governments negotiate free trade agreements but disregard them when possible with tariffs, export subsidies, and other policies to influence foreign trade and investment. The forces of international competition, however, eventually overwhelm government policy.This text presents the critical issues of international trade and finance. Trade theory includes partial equilibrium market analysis, neoclassical trade models, constant cost production, factor proportions production, and models of industrial organization. The text integrates concepts from international finance and the basic models of open economy macroeconomics.The presentation uses graphs with numerical examples making the theory easier for students, especially when combined with more general classroom presentation. The text does not assume previous courses in intermediate economics or calculus but develops the theory with simple tools. Numerous questions give students confidence to use the theoretical models and concepts.Over 250 boxed examples illustrate the theory, many with visually descriptive charts and plots. The text is concise in its presentation style. Students enjoy its clear straightforward style and instructors notice the difference on exams. remove The Instructor Manual is available upon request for all instructors who adopt this book as a course text. Please send your request to [email protected].

Global warming reveals that world energy consumption is on an unsustainable path. This updated second edition of The New Energy Crisis examines the impact of climate change on energy economics and geopolitics, exploring key issues such as energy poverty, renewable and nuclear energy, and focusing on the implications of the Fukushima crisis.

Many Japanese and Germans endorse the shareholder-first assumptions dominant today in Britain and America. Yet in both countries there are articulate defenders of what they consider to be a better, more social-solidary way of life. Dore traces the fascinating debates which ensue on corporate governance, on worker rights, on supplier relations, on cartels and anti-trust, on pensions and welfare. He also analyses actual changes in economic behaviour. These accounts of the battle for the national soul in Japan and Germany constitute one of the finest contributions to the 'diversity of capitalism' debate. Dore's account should be read by anyone who is interested to know whether, for all the talk of globalization, that diversity is going to survive.

Using the framework of critical international political economy, the contributors challenge the long held views about the ways natural resources shape political and economic outcomes. They examine how the specific features of the resource sector creates particular dynamics of policy change, and therefore, the range of development options for the Global South move beyond adopting unregulated, open extractive markets. In so doing, they explore the extent to which neoliberalism as a global political project has both constrained and opened opportunities for economic development in the global South. The volume engages with development theory and political economy literature by exploring the ideational construction, implementation, and subsequent recalibration of mining reforms in the last three decades across Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The Contemporary Global Economy provides a lively overview of recent turbulence in the world economy, focusing on the dynamics of globalization since the 1980s. It explains the main drivers of economic change and how we are able to discern their effects in the world today. * A lucid and balanced survey, based on extensive research in data and documents, accessible to the non-specialist * Written by a renowned specialist in international economic relations with academic and government credentials * Offers clear and engaging explanations of the main motors of economic change and how we are able to discern their effects in the world today * The author assumes little knowledge of economic theory or financial markets * Identifies the challenges for sustainable recovery and economic growth in the years ahead

In the second edition of his Global Political Economy, thoroughly revised, David Reisman reexamines the ideological and material underpinnings of the international order in the light of recent research and developments. Taking belief systems such as liberalism, socialism and nationalism as his way into current controversies and debates, he suggests ways in which the conflicting positions can be reconciled. The book ranges widely, from the role of the superpower hegemon and the international organisations to competing currencies, trade agreements, regional pacts, transnational corporations, intellectual property rights and the less developed countries. Global Political Economy is an impartial, multidisciplinary and comprehensive analysis of the lines of force that are pulling the world together even as they are drawing it apart. Offering an insightful picture of economic unions and international trade, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of economics and finance, global political economy, international relations, and public policy and politics.

This book focuses on the economic and political relationships between Russia and Europe, which are currently characterized by the existence and escalation of contradictions. On the one hand, the common history and geographical proximity of Russia and Europe have naturally produced a close interdependence; on the other, current global political affairs and opposing positions continue to hinder the development of common economic relationships in Russia and Europe. This contributed volume describes integration processes in Russia and Europe to illustrate best practice examples and demonstrates how both parties have increasingly come to understand the importance of international cooperation, highlighting economic, legal, philosophical, political and sociological aspects.