This book revisits an important chapter of financial history in the Middle East and the Balkans from 1870 1914. During this period, capital flows in the form of sovereign debt increased rapidly throughout the region. The spiral of heavy government borrowing eventually culminated in defaults on foreign obligations in the Ottoman Empire (1875), Egypt (1876), Greece (1893) and Serbia (1895). In all four cases, introducing international financial control over the finances of the debtor states became the prevalent form of dealing with defaults. The different cases of international financial control became increasingly refined and they marked important milestones in the evolution of the global governance of sovereign debt before 1914. For the defaulting states however, the immediate impact of international financial control was infringement of sovereignty. The extent of international financial control and the borrowing capacity of debtor states varied in each case as well as the degree of resistance towards it. This book documents the characteristics of international financial control in a comparative perspective. It relates sovereign debt, default and international financial control to political and fiscal systems, and raises questions about the tension between national sovereignty and global capital. It sheds light on the impact of international financial control on the long-term credibility and fiscal capacity of the debtor states in question. The author demonstrates that the governments' decisions to borrow internationally, and their attitudes towards international financial control, were heavily influenced by domestic political and fiscal factors.

The essays present an up-to-date picture of the North-South negotiating process with respect to commodities. Some of the essays examine general issues concerning these negotiations, looking at topics such as power relationships and debt problems; others form coherent case studies. The development of the Common Commodity Fund also is discussed.

Academics and practitioners alike recognize that global governance institutions suffer from a democratic deficit. Many have looked to transnational civil society as a means of remediation. Yet a clear gap has begun to emerge between normative hopes and empirical reality. Using new data from civil society engagements with the World Bank, this book shows how transnational civil society organizations prioritize pre-existing mission over responsiveness to claimed stakeholders, undertake activism in line with financial incentives, achieve impacts using elite channels of influence, and undercut the authority of developing country governments. It explores the structural roots of these patterns and examines their impact on democratic representation. It also offers practical advice for how these negative patterns can be moderated through new practices at the Bank and new norms within civil society.

Banking and investment in Mexico have changed radically over the past decade, and the economic events that prompted these changes will have a significant impact on Mexico's role in regional and world financial markets. Adams traces the evolution of Mexico's banking and investment activities, reviews current conditions and their implications for future investment opportunities in Mexico, and makes clear that what happens to Mexico's economy and political stability will have major implications for what happens elsewhere in the world. One of the first books to look at banking and investment in Mexico after the peso crash of 1994-1995, with a highly detailed bibliography and notes, Adams's study will be important reading for international business, finance, and investment professionals and for their colleagues with similar interests throughout the academic community.

The fate of both Mexico and the United States is that the two countries are forever tied by geography. The historical evolution of the dual interaction between the peoples of these two nations is and will be significant for the future of both countries. With this in mind, the book is divided into chapters reviewing such themes as the interaction and historical financial events that transpired during the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the expansion of cross-border financial and investment services, as well as a framework and background review of the events leading up to and resulting from the devaluations of the 1970s and 1980s, and more recently the evolution of the peso crisis of 1994-1995. The imperceptible yet gradual economic integration of the two economies has required time in developing, while not always being seamless in its implementation and transition. American macroeconomic policy has long had a direct impact on the economy of Mexico, as is evidenced by the impact of U.S. interest rates on the financial underpinnings of the Mexican treasury and the banking system to assist with the overall economic growth of the nation. An appreciation for the historically sensitive issues and perspectives, be they nationalization of the oil industry, immigration, or market access for foreign financial services, is paramount to a fuller understanding of doing business on both sides of the border.

Over the past few decades, finance has been subject to an accelerated process of change and innovation. These changes have often been understood as a distortion to a self-equilibrating economic system. This volume, however, aims to investigate the financial sphere in the wake of deregulation, as an emergent driving force in shaping the nature of capitalism into the new century.
This edited volume unravels the complexity and fragility of contemporary finance. It explores the role played by international finance in reconfiguring power structures, and explains the inner workings and mechanisms of global finance in the wake of deregulation. It aims to deepen our understanding of the interconnectedness of the processes and mechanisms of financial expansion. Elucidating the effects of this expansion in the global political economy, the book looks at the central question of how financial power works today.
The volume brings together perspectives from political economy, finance, accountancy, law and sociology. Together, the contributors develop an appreciation of the novel constitutive role of finance in globalizing capitalism.

With global markets in turmoil, financial crisis management is the vital topic of this decade. Examining the role that the International Monetary Fund has played since 1976, this volume explores: Britain's stand-by from the late 1970s, the Fund's apparent marginalization in the global economy following the Asian financial crisis, and early responses to the Greek sovereign debt crisis. By focusing on the ideas and interests of domestic policy-makers, Rogers is able to demonstrate how the Fund has been used by domestic economic policy-making elites to reconcile contradictions between accumulation and legitimation that appear inherent to the social relations of capitalism.

There are many challenges facing the economies of developing countries. Capital volatility, financial crises, aid, debt and the IMF are all issues that have received a great deal of attention over recent years. In International Finance and the Developing Economies, Graham Bird provides an essentially non-technical discussion of these issues, examining the underlying political economy and discussing the policy alternatives that are available.

This book asks a fundamental question, that is, whether "somebody in charge" could have prevented or solved the problem leading up to our current financial crisis. This book explores and answers that question from a scholarly and academic economic viewpoint.

The deregulation of domestic financial markets and the capital account in developing countries has frequently been associated with financial turmoil and macro volatility. The book analyzes the experience of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, and Thailand, and draws implications for building development-friendly domestic and international financial architectures. The recommendations are made in light of the key challenge: to design and implement policies able to control macro volatility while building the rules of the financial game that will ultimately contribute to mitigating the sources of aggregate risk.

In light of the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Lai examines whether East Asian economies converged onto the liberal market model by studying the evolution of the financial sectors of Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. This includes sectoral diversification, the nature of competition, and the regulatory and supervisory frameworks.

This book discusses some of the challenges relating to macroeconomic and financial management in a volatile and uncertain world brought about by greater financial openness. It explores the implications of a key set of issues emanating from financial globalisation on emerging market economies in a rigorous but readable manner.

Here is a microeconomic model of joint ventures in Yugoslavia between multinational corporations and Yugoslav labor-managed enterprises. This book focuses on Yugoslavia's unique socio-economic system with its labor-managed enterprises playing host to direct foreign investment. The analysis turns toward multinational corporations as vehicles of direct foreign investment, then proceeds to an examination of Yugoslavian joint-venture agreements between these two partners of diverging interests.

The behavior of fiscal authorities and its interplay with budgetary institutions is a recent and increasingly important area of economic research, heightened by the move to single currency in Europe. This volume provides a systematic analysis of issues including the determinants of fiscal retrenchment strategies, the role of numerical and procedural rules, the composition of the adjustment, the (dis)similarity of fiscal behavior across countries, the interactions between fiscal and monetary authorities, and the long run factors shaping fiscal behavior and sustainability.

This volume brings together leading academic experts from the U.S. and Canada to explore the crucial economic relationship between their two countries--each of whom is the other's largest trading partner. The essays, all specially written for this study, provide an integrated, balanced examination of the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the relationship and discuss reasons for the increasing difficulties experienced in the past few years. An indispensable supplement for courses in international business and regional economics, the study will also provide economists, political scientists, and environmentalists with important new insights into this most critical relationship.

Following an overview of the economic structure of the two nations, the contributors focus upon three general areas of Canadian-American economic relations. The section on natural resources and related issues presents an up-to-date view of energy and environmental considerations and explores shared problems of agricultural competitiveness. Turning to a discussion of trade issues, the contributors analyze the effects of the October 1987 accord, address the impact of the U.S. balance of payments position on Canadian economics, and examine ways in which each country can expand its international trade. Finally, a group of essays on taxes, financial markets, and bilateral investment offers an in-depth treatment of issues such as U.S. direct investment in Canadian manufacturing, the development of an integrated North American venture capital market, and investment patters. Numerous tables and figures amplify the discussions.

This volume makes a unique contribution to the finance and investment literature by bringing together in one place insightful analyses of three major issues affecting world financial markets. Written by a distinguished group of academics, policymakers, and financial executives, the chapters collected here cover international imbalances and international policy coordination, the international debt crisis, and global financial markets. Although the contributors express a variety of approaches and viewpoints, they are united in emphasizing the growing importance of financial markets in the international economy.

In Part I, the contributors deal with the long-standing question of how to deal with international trade imbalances. Their works take dramatically different positions regarding the causes and cures of the U.S trade deficit and the associated fiscal deficit but highlight the increasingly recognized role of financial flows. Among the other issues discussed are exchange rate variations, future challenges to the international monetary system, the foreign exchange market, and central banking. The second section includes six essays which examine aspects of the international debt crisis. The contributors show that the debt crisis is complicated by the greater role of private international financial flows to developing countries than was the case twenty years ago. Separate chapters present an overview of the international debt crisis, look at the debtor position, review the history of the LDC debt crisis, and explore current developments. Part III examines developments in the structure and functioning of global financial markets and contains separate discussions of futures and options markets, Japanese financial markets, international equity market links, implications for investors, and more. Must reading for policymakers and students of international finance, this book is also an ideal set of readings for courses in international economics.

With the concessional lending operations of the World Bank and IMF having expanded dramatically in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, Liam Clegg provides a timely analysis of the institutional dynamics shaping this aspect of the institutions' operations. Drawn from staffs' own understandings of their operational environments, the volume explores the dynamics of power surrounding these activities. As shareholder states continue to push the institutions to demonstrate their effective contribution to global poverty reduction, they alter the opportunities available for a range of stakeholders to shape operational practice in these key arenas of global economic governance. By demonstrating that current developments are serving to tilt the balance in the 'asymmetric accommodation' between shareholders and stakeholders towards the former, the author highlights some of the most controversial areas of World Bank and IMF operations.

This book addresses the financing of government budgets with non-debt-creating flows through risk-sharing capital market instruments. It offers a comparative analysis with conventional finance to demonstrate the ability of Islamic capital market instruments to create an impetus for economic stability and growth. Rizvi, Bacha, and Mirakhor guide readers chronologically through the unfolding effects of macroeconomic policy implemented to reduce crippling sovereign debt, increase government financing, and guide governments to the path of economic progress.

This book provides new ways of analyzing the key issues in international finance and open economy macroeconomics. The topics covered include: financial globalization and the evolution of the international financial system; international macroeconomic accounting and measurement; early balance of payments approaches; the intertemporal model of international borrowing and lending; the significance of external deficits; the determinants of interest rate differentials and exchange rates; the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies; capital mobility and economic growth; and the causes of financial crisis in emerging economies.

In this book, a leading observer of the international financial system assesses official efforts to address the problem of financial crises in emerging markets. Professor Eichengreen describes the progress that has been made in limiting the frequency of crises and strengthening the international financial system. He also shows that initiatives in this area have unintentionally made life more difficult for the poorest countries. He therefore argues that efforts to limit the threat to the international financial system need to be linked to an increase in development assistance. Another place where official efforts have fallen short, the author argues is in creating new ways of resolving crises. He shows that official financing through the International Monetary Fund is part of the problem. The IMF's financial rescues allow investors to escape without losses, in turn encouraging them to lend without due regard to the risks. This only makes the international system more crises prone. That the IMF has repeatedly come under pressure to bail out crisis countries reflects the absence of other acceptable ways of resolving the financial difficulties of emerging markets. Not lending threatens to expose the international financial system to a disorderly and disruptive crisis. At the same time, radical new alternatives like an international bankruptcy court or international lender of last resort would create more problems than they solved-even if there was the political appetite for such ambitious schemes, which there is not. The author concludes that the best way to enhance the efficiency and stability of international financial markets is by pushing for changes to the provisions of loan agreements that will enhance the capacity of creditors and debtors to resolve financial problems on their own.

This book will be of particular relevance for readers interested in a thorough analysis of international capital flows, their determinants and their macroeconomic implications. It also provides information about the origines of international financial crisis and assess proposals to overcome and avoid financial crisis in the future.The book is an outcome of a conference held at the Kiel Institute of World Economics. The papers cover the track record of financial integration, the changing structure of financial markets and the implications for macroeconomics and growth. Particular emphasis is placed on the various financial crises of the 1990s and on proposals for a reform of the international financial system.

"Euro on Trial looks back - to the aspirations of the founders - and forward - to the possibility of reform or splitting up. After five years of experience with the new currency, new insights are possible into the old arguments for and against union. Monetary union is reversible in part or in whole and this book assesses the costs and benefits. Brown examines several mainstream scenarios for the future of the euro in these essential readings for market practitioners as well as academics. For example, how long will the euro survive? The author shows that the answer depends principally on Germany. Any of the small or medium-sized economies could leave monetary union without threatening its existence. But were Germany to pull out it is highly doubtful whether there would be a core of countries that would perserve inside. Germany's membership so far has brought much disappointment. How many more years of disillusion are required before the question of EMU reform or break-up enters the mainstream of German political debate?