With the aim of providing a comprehensive analysis of institutions, and of the global economy more generally, this text explores systems of institutions and the effect of corruption, developments in behavioural economics, the impact of immigration, and the links between democratic progress and economic growth. Papers from the Fourteenth World Congress of the International Economic Association held in Marrakech from August 29 to September 2, 2005.

Technology plays an increasing role in competitiveness in the global market. This authoritative new book consists of essays - theoretical as well as empirical - studying the relationships between technology, growth, international competitiveness and employment.The first part of the book shows that international competitiveness and market shares are mainly determined by R&D efforts and technological advantages. It goes on to provide some evidence for the importance of home market size for competitiveness and for the role of proximity and trade flows for stimulating dispersion of new knowledge. Issues discussed include the implications for growth of technical progress as a learning process and of the degree of openness of the economy. The book also addresses the role of multinationals as vehicles for technology diffusion and of monetary policy in a growth context, and the effects of technical progress on the demand for labour, skilled as well as unskilled. Technology and International Trade will be of interest to academics particularly those in the fields of international trade, economic growth, industrial organization and technology.

Global poverty continues to be a major problem, one that has received much attention and resources for the last 60 years. The developed countries, international institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations, various aid agencies, and civil society have contributed trillions of dollars to fight poverty yet there are more poor today than there were a decade ago. In this hard-hitting polemical Karnani demonstrates what is wrong today's approaches to reducing poverty. He proposes an eclectic approach to poverty reduction that emphasizes the need for business, government and civil society to partner together to create employment opportunities for the poor arguing that the only way they will ever be truly lifted out of poverty is to create jobs that provide financial support for entire local communities in developing nations.

This innovative book assesses the impact of labour standards on the competitiveness of firms through a comparison of developing and industrialized countries.The lack of a strict code of labour standards in developing countries is thought to result in unfair competition, which industrialized countries have used to justify protectionist policies. Developing countries are seen to oppose the adoption of labour standards, believing that such measures are likely to jeopardize their competitiveness in world markets. This book analyses both of these positions within the context of the current political debate on the subject. The authors investigate the reasons for implementing labour standards, and measure their impact upon firm competitiveness using a variety of empirical tests and statistics from approximately 165 countries. They conclude that labour standards do not have a significant impact on the competitiveness of firms or economies as a whole. From their evidence the authors offer policy advice including the decentralization of decision making for implementing labour standards, and the adoption throughout the world of core labour standards. Labour Standards and International Competitiveness will be welcomed by academics interested in international economics, development economics and labour economics, as well as by policymakers and practitioners working in international organizations.

This unique reference provides the first book-length bibliography on NAFTA. The scope of the book encompasses NAFTA from the Bush administration through the Clinton administration, up to and including 1995. It provides sources from a wide range of disciplines-business, economics, law, science, and political science-and from such diverse perspectives as labor and environmentalism. The book covers (1) serials, including journals, magazines, and newspapers; (2) books, pamphlets, government documents, and dissertations; and (3) non-book sources, including online databases, audiovisual materials, and the Internet. This unique reference provides the first book-length annotated bibliography on NAFTA. The scope of the book encompasses NAFTA from the Bush administration through the Clinton administration, up to and including 1995. It includes events leading up to the NAFTA vote in Congress on November 17, 1993, the vote itself and analyses of it, the political aspects of NAFTA's passage, and the status of the agreement once in effect. The book covers (1) serials, including journals, magazines, and newspapers; (2) books, pamphlets, government documents, and dissertations; and (3) non-book sources, including online databases, audiovisual materials, and the Internet. As a distinct reference, the book will be useful to researchers and scholars and will assist both academic and public libraries in answering reference questions.

This book explores the reliability of official statistical data in the ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and the benefits of a better vocabulary to discuss the quality of publicly available data to address the needs of all users. It introduces a rigorous method to disaggregate and rate data quality into principal factors containing a total of ten dimensions, which serves as the basis for a discussion on the opportunities and challenges for data quality, capacity building programs and data policy in Southeast Asia. Tools to standardize and monitor statistical capacity and data quality are presented, as well as methods and data sources to analyse data quality. The book analyses data quality in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, before concluding with thoughts on Open Data and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

This book critically analyses the ways in which Africa has shifted from the periphery of global trade, international relations and politics to the centre of the world stage because of its existing and potential economic prowess and purchasing power that the continent has to offer.

This edited collection presents an alternative set of reflections on India's contemporary global role by exploring a range of influential non-Western state perspectives. Through multiple case studies, the contributors gauge the success of India's efforts to be seen as an alternative global power in the twenty-first century.

The study of power is the nucleus of political science and international relations. As a shift of power from traditional industrial countries to emerging powers has been perceived since the turn of the century, this book aims to present innovative theoretical and empirical approaches that can increase our understanding of this transition. Scholars from the fields of international relations, international political economy, economics and security studies not only explore current theoretical debates on 'power' and 'power shifts' among entities, but also provide fresh insights into relevant aspects of international power in the 21st century. With a particular focus on aspects of international security, trade and production, new methods of identifying power and its sources are presented, and their potential implications and challenges are discussed.

This book provides a broad and balanced introduction to the principle Western financial makets and institutions. Unlike other books which tend to focus on an individual market, An Introduction to Western Financial Markets is international in scope. Valdez acknowledges the current movement towards a single global market and recognizes that a parochial knowledge of just one local market is no longer sufficient.

Various financial sectors are described in clear and easy to understand terms. Topics covered include banking (commercial and investment), money and bond markets, foreign exchange, stock markets, finance for trade, insurance options, futures, and other derivative products. A final chapter surveys the key trends and issues in the markets today. A useful glossary of terms is included.

Pages of mathematical formulae, common in introductory books on finance, are avoided. Valdez clearly shows the importance of these formulae, but is constantly aware of his non-numeric readers. This book will appeal to students of banking, finance, economics, business studies and the securities markets.

The constant and seemingly intractable problem of world debt is much in the news today, and, despite the Baker plan of the 1980s and the more recent Brady plan, the plight of third-world borrowing nations and their first-world creditors continues to worsen. Developing nations are stymied by the portions of their gross domestic product that must be given over to servicing debt, and money center banks continue to write down their third-world loans, damaging their own balance sheets as well as their credibility. In this study, a follow-up to his Monetary Reform and Cooperation Theory, George Macesich addresses the world debt crisis and proposes a method for overcoming the dilemma.

Macesich develops a useful framework with which to approach the world debt problem, focusing on his cooperation theory, which calls for a bilateral approach on the part of both creditor and debtor countries. There are significant obstacles to this type of cooperation, however, and these difficulties and methods for overcoming them are discussed at length. Macesich begins the volume with a survey of the world debt problem, followed by a detailed examination of the theory and strategy of cooperation. In succeeding chapters he studies the barriers to cooperation: domestic constraints in debtor nations, domestic constraints in creditor nations, economic nationalism, and the nationalism of the bureaucratic and political elite. He concludes the work with a discussion of the relationship between debt burden and world monetary stability. This study will be a valuable resource for finance and banking professionals and for monetary policymakers, as well as for courses in banking, world finance, and international monetary policy. College, university, and public libraries will also find it a useful addition to their collections.

Written by the world's leading academics in the outsourcing field, this books gives the most recent overview of developments in research and practice. It focuses on new practices in innovation, offshoring, onshoring, capabilities, project management and cloud services, offering a distinctive theory of outsourcing.

Informal sector has emerged as a critical element in the development process of theentiredevelopingworld.Itisnowwellrecognisedthatsuchasectorprovides employmenttothemajorityoftheworkforceinthepoorcountries.Sometimesthe shareofemploymentintheseactivitiesgoeswaybeyond50%oftotalemployment. Informalusuallyreferstoextra-legalandnon-recordedeconomicactivitiesandcan captureawholearrayofdiverseoccupations, productsandservices.Development Economicsasadisciplinehasnottreatedsuchtopicswithadequatereverence.Text booksdealingwitheconomicdevelopmentdonothaveexclusivesectionsdevoted to the discussion of growth, dynamics and sustenance of informal activities. In particular how informal transactions in?uence employment, output, productivity, wagesandenvironmentisseldomdiscussedformallyintermsofanalyticalm- els. Informal sector does not operate in a vacuum. Thus the general equilibrium linkages involving the informal and formal activities also need to be explored in detailifdevelopmentpoliciesaretobeproperlyevaluated.Thisvolumesuccessfully addressesboththeseissuesanddoesitwithcompetenceandrigour. Authorsofthisvolumehavebeenworkingonthefrontiersofdevelopmentpolicy researchinthecontextofopendevelopingeconomies, focusingmainlyongeneral equilibriumimplicationsofsuchpolicies.Infactoneoftheauthorshaswrittenat length on informal credit market. Sustained research programme on such a topic ofgreatsigni?cancelendscredibilitytothisvolume.Itisalsohightimethats- eralinternationalpublicationsoftheauthorsinrelatedareasareputtogetherina comprehensivemonograph.Iamde?nitesuchavolumewillbeveryhelpfultos- dents, researchers, policy makers and anyone seriously interested in development economics. CentreforStudiesinSocialSciences, Calcutta, India SugataMarjit vii Preface In the last few decades informal sector has drawn serious cognizance among economists in view of its role in developing economies. The earlier contention that the informal sector epitomises the 'residual' sector or a sector of last resort has been belied by a plethora of evidences indicating its dynamic character and its instrumental role in ameliorating unemployment and in propelling the dev- oping economies towards growth and prosperity. This conceptual metamorphosis regarding the informal sector has stimulated revived interest in the phenomenon amongdevelopmenteconomists.Thereexistmanybooksthatdealwiththesector analyticallyorempirically. However, the theoretical analysis of the different aspects of the sector is equally important, especially for formulation of appropriate policy prescriptions. Comparativestaticresults, inmanycases, divergefromtheconventionalresults.We noticedthatalthoughvariousauthorshavepublishedtheoreticalpapersindifferent journals, there are very few books that try to understand the informal sector in a theoreticalframework.Thislacunainculcatedinusaninteresttowritethisbook.

Featuring new findings and fresh insights from an international roster of labor economists, including such eminent authors as Morley Gunderson, Harry Holzer, and Paul Ryan, this book delves into a uniquely wide range of high-profile labor issues affecting youth in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan - from declining job, wage, and training prospects to workplace health hazards, immigration, union activism, and new policy strategies. This widely accessible introduction to the latest research in the area presents original empirical economic studies in an engaging style. All may find something of interest in the host of controversial topics of lively public debate that are covered, including: youth unemployment, earnings mobility, racial/ethnic and gender inequalities, training quality and access, job hazards, health insurance coverage, immigration, minimum wage laws, union organizing, and global economic competition. Young Workers in the Global Economy is written in a clear and accessible style for a broad readership ranging from scholars and college students to employers, unions, career counselors, human resource professionals, vocational trainers, policy analysts, government officials, immigration and health care activists, as well as to the wider public concerned about the future of youth career prospects.

Reevaluating NAFTA seeks to answer the question: has NAFTA integrated North America? A fifteen-year NAFTA appraisal finds trade expansion boosting optimism, but also unveils stark asymmetry between developed and developing countries as well as top-heavy NAFTA regulations seriously constraining ground-level integration. Using empirical data analysis and a wide-reaching theoretical context, this book seeks to evaluate the results of NAFTA's 'fifteen-year itch' to identify what worked and what didn't, and ultimately, to point to the future of North American integration.

This collection of orchestrated analyses develops an "issues and process framework" for assessing the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative to develop freer trade within the Western Hemisphere. This volume comes at a time of transition in U.S. domestic politics and global trade negotiations. Anticipating the critical choices to be faced by the Clinton administration, as well as other public and private sector leaders here and abroad, the analyses in the volume, written by a team of leading international trade and economic development specialists, will provide the reader with insights into the complex political, economic, social, and, to some extent, technical character of efforts to expand regional and world trade.

A norm of special treatment for LDCs, created by the UN, has spread to various international organisations including the WTO. Within the WTO evidence of the institutionalization of the norm can be found both in the agreements and legal documents and the way in which the LDCs have been treated by other states. Helen Hawthorne investigates how norms impact on negotiations in international organisations. She shows that few studies of international organisations focus on the role of the weaker states in the organization, the majority focus either on the major states or the emerging economies. By ignoring the role of the poorer, weaker states in the GATT/WTO we are ignoring the history of these states in the organisation and do not get a true picture of the organization, how it operates in relation to them and their impact on the organisation.

The major advances in transport services and the export of capital from Europe during the years 1870-1914 made possible the development of a true world economy. This volume studies the British Empire's export activity in light of its world power status. Saul traces the development of British overseas trade from its beginnings prior to European imperialism around the world through its standing at the outbreak of World War I.

The major advances in transport services and the export of capital from Europe during the years 1870-1914 made possible the development of a true world economy. This volume studies the British Empire's export activity in light of its world power status. Saul traces the development of British overseas trade from its beginnings prior to European imperialism around the world through its standing at the outbreak of World War I.

Published annually, this 29th edition brings together a unique combination of the latest data on, and detailed analysis of, a vast region. Scrupulously updated by Europa's experienced editors, the volume also includes contributions from regional specialists. General Survey Essays written by acknowledged experts on the area provide an impartial overview of the region. Country surveys Individual chapters on each country, comprising: - essays on the geography, recent history and economy of each country - a statistical survey - a full directory section - a select bibliography. Regional Information A directory of research institutes and bibliographies of books and journals covering Latin America and the Caribbean.

Asia has shown the world what success in economic development looks like. From the amazing transformations of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the other 'tigers' in the early 70s, to the more recent takeoffs of the People's Republic of China (PRC), India, and the leading economies in Southeast Asia, the region has prospered at a startling pace. Technologies were adopted, productivity raised, and export markets conquered. Billions were lifted out of poverty. What was once a backwater is now a global engine of growth. That roaring progress was, however, fueled by a lesser-known factor: borrowing. Governments, corporations, and households financed their path to prosperity with debt-lots of debt. Today, the volume of debt hanging over Asian economies is huge, in both absolute and relative terms. It was growing fast before the pandemic and is projected to grow even faster because of it. Demography is bound to make matters worse in the long term. How sustainable is this? What should policy makers do to keep Asia's finances stable? Should markets worry? These are the core questions of this book. Through a collection of chapters by renowned experts, a diagnosis of Asia's debt accumulation is offered. The approach is both country- and issue-driven, so both idiosyncratic and common elements can be identified. Matters like Japan's social insurance promises, the PRC's state-owned enterprises, the Pacific islands' aid dependency, and the saving habits of households in the Republic of Korea are dissected. As are trends that are present across countries, such as population aging, shrinking fiscal space, and contingent liabilities. This allows for a deeper understanding of what makes borrowing sustainable-or not. And it leads directly into policy recommendations, especially those involving the use of new financial instruments. The final product is a book whose comprehensiveness and practicality are unprecedented in the field. It will be equally invaluable for governments, investors, and scholars in Asia and beyond.

This book highlights strategies for poverty reduction in developing countries, with emphasis on the power of the market mechanism and vigor of the private sector, focusing ODA on a few longer term challenges and leveraging advances in technology to the fullest, and underlining the importance of human rights and security.

Today's unprecedented growth of data and their ubiquity in our lives are signs that the data revolution is transforming the world. And yet much of the value of data remains untapped. Data collected for one purpose have the potential to generate economic and social value in applications far beyond those originally anticipated. But many barriers stand in the way, ranging from misaligned incentives and incompatible data systems to a fundamental lack of trust. World Development Report 2021: Data for Better Lives explores the tremendous potential of the changing data landscape to improve the lives of poor people, while also acknowledging its potential to open back doors that can harm individuals, businesses, and societies. To address this tension between the helpful and harmful potential of data, this Report calls for a new social contract that enables the use and reuse of data to create economic and social value, ensures equitable access to that value, and fosters trust that data will not be misused in harmful ways. This Report begins by assessing how better use and reuse of data can enhance the design of public policies, programs, and service delivery, as well as improve market efficiency and job creation through private sector growth. Because better data governance is key to realizing this value, the Report then looks at how infrastructure policy, data regulation, economic policies, and institutional capabilities enable the sharing of data for their economic and social benefits, while safeguarding against harmful outcomes. The Report concludes by pulling together the pieces and offering an aspirational vision of an integrated national data system that would deliver on the promise of producing high-quality data and making them accessible in a way that promotes their safe use and reuse. By examining these opportunities and challenges, the Report shows how data can benefit the lives of all people, but particularly poor people in low- and middle-income countries

Despite the fact that the globalization process tends to reinforce existing inequality structures and generate new areas of inequality on multiple levels, systematic analyses on this very important field remain scarce. Hence, this book approaches the complex question of inequality not only from different regional perspectives, covering Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin and Northern America, but also from different disciplinary perspectives, namely cultural anthropology, economics, ethnology, geography, international relations, sociology, and political sciences. The contributions are subdivided into three essential fields of research: Part I analyzes the socio-economic dimension of global exclusion, highlighting in particular the impacts of internationalization and globalization processes on national social structures against the background of theoretical concepts of social inequality. Part II addresses the political dimension of global inequalities. Since the decline of the Soviet Union new regional powers like Brazil, China, India and South Africa have emerged, creating power shifts in international relations that are the primary focus of the second part. Lastly, Part III examines the structural and transnational dimension of inequality patterns, which can be concretized in the rise of globalized national elites and the emergence of multinational networks that transcend the geographical and imaginative borders of nation states.

David Begg examines how four small open economies- Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland- have managed the stresses and strains of Europeanisation since the single market came into being, and as fault lines begin to appear within the European integration project. In particular, he drills down into the Irish Polity to see how its institutions have engaged with Europe and how decisions on critical issues like integration, EMU and Social Partnership were reached. He finds that both Ireland and Europe are at a critical juncture for different but interconnected reasons, and identifies the options that are available to them.