International Finance and Financial Crises: Essays in Honor of Robert P. Flood, Jr. contains the proceedings of a conference held in honor of Robert P. Flood, Jr. Bob Flood has made important contributions to many areas of economic analysis, including regime switching, speculative attacks, bubbles, stock market volatility, macro models with nominal rigidities, dual exchange rates, target zones, and rules versus discretion in monetary policy. Contributors were invited to address any of the topics or others of their choosing. The results include five papers on topics in international finance; two of these papers, as well as the panel discussion, focus on speculative attacks and financial crises. The other three take new directions in exploring topics in which existing models leave much to be desired.

Insurance and financial markets have been radically and deeply changed in the last 20 years. Deregulation, internationalization of insurance and financial institutions, increasing competition, electronic commerce, bancassurance, and the emergence of new risks are among the challenges faced by insurers and other financial firms. These developing trends pose both global and local challenges for financial firms participating in insurance markets. The Handbook of International Insurance: Between Global Dynamics and Local Contingencies increases understanding of insurance markets by adopting an international comparative approach. Leading scholars and practitioners worldwide provide detailed information on market trends, regulation, taxation, and economic developments for thirteen specific countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Each country chapter covers key aspects of insurance: life insurance, non-life insurance, and public and private social insurance programs. The book also includes comprehensive chapters on reinsurance, Lloyd's of London, alternative risk transfer, South and East Asian insurance markets, and European insurance markets.Setting the stage is an overview chapter by the editors focusing on overall conclusions on globalization. A unique source of information on the evolution of insurance markets worldwide, this book provides valuable perspectives for scholars, practitioners, and policy makers.

A very welcome addition to the largely scarce literature on the history of Middle Eastern-US relations in the area of economic development. Choice Although the United States' economic relations with the Third World have gone through various phases as political and fiscal conditions have shifted, Dr. Godfried contends that the main policy outlines established in the Middle East in the 1940s have dominated the American approach to Third World development ever since. His careful analysis of the issue traces the U.S. role in the North-South conflict over economic development and shows how U.S. development policy evolved during and after World War II, with particular reference to the Arab Middle East.

This timely book provides an innovative examination of financial integration in the European Union - an issue that has become of paramount importance in view of the commencement of European Economic and Monetary Union. The author begins by assessing three different methods of financial integration in the European Union: interest parity conditions, savings-investment correlations and consumption correlations. He goes on to examine the fundamental determinants of financial integration and analyses the factors likely to influence the movement of capital within the European Union. The blend of empirical and theoretical research provides the reader with a comprehensive account of the progress made in integrating financial markets in the European Union. Integrating Financial Markets in the European Union will be essential reading for students and scholars of monetary economics, international finance and European integration. It will also prove useful to practitioners and policymakers working in central banking and government.

Many cities in the Asia-Pacific region serve as financial centres in their respective national jurisdictions or local areas. Noting that most were engaged in efforts to become premier international financial centres (IFCs) in competition with one another, the Korea National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation (KOPEC) convened an international conference in Seoul, Korea in October 2007 to examine the prospects for success for seven such financial centres (Hong Kong, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Wellington), weigh the costs and benefits of such competition for local economies as well as the region as a whole, and derive implications for cooperation among the regional governments. The present volume consists of case studies and commentaries presented at the conference as well as the synthesis report, which draws conclusions from those papers and commentaries. One of those conclusions is that, given the power of scale economies as well as the lack of integration of the financial markets in the region, none of the regional financial centres, even Hong Kong, Singapore or Tokyo, considered alone represents a meaningful rival to London or New York, the two existing global financial centres. The synthesis report thus argues for regional cooperation to integrate all those financial centres into an Asia-Pacific IFC network. It further argues that the present global financial crisis presents a major opportunity for regional governments to create such an IFC network that will challenge London and New York in quality as well as quantity of international financial business while helping the latter two overcome the current global crisis. This would open the path towards a stable and resilient Asia-Pacific financial community, with the constituent regional economies no longer vulnerable to the problems of the so-called original sin and double mismatch.

Most countries, developed and developing, are fiscally decentralized with regional and local governments of varying importance. In many of these countries, some of these sub-national governments differ substantially from others in terms of wealth, ethnic, religious, or linguistic composition. This book considers how fiscal arrangements may strengthen or weaken national solidarity and the effectiveness with which public services are provided. In particular, the nation's ability to cope with changes created by decentralization is explored. Through a series of case studies, the countries of Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Russia, Spain and Switzerland are examined with an eye to how their public finances are structured and how these arrangements act to promote equilibrium or turmoil in the nation state. This is the first detailed consideration of the link between asymmetry and intergovernmental finance, as well as the first detailed study of how asymmetrical fiscal arrangements work in practice in a variety of different countries. Policy analysts concerned with intergovernmental finance and/or political legitimacy issues will find this synthesis of interest, as will readers concerned with the public policy of the many fiscally fragmented countries profiled here.

The yen is now one of the major currencies freely traded in the world, and yet, many Japanese exporters take on a currency risk by invoicing in US dollars. In this book, the authors examine why this is the case, particularly for those exporters who have a strong presence in global markets. Managing Currency Risk enhances our understanding of exporters? behaviour by analysing the key factors that influence their choice of invoice currency. Detailed research based on unique data sets is used to highlight how firm size, product competitiveness, intra/inter-firm trade and the geography of export destination impact this decision. This book is a valuable resource for international finance researchers and political economists wishing to discover up-to-date information regarding currency invoicing by multinational firms. It will also be a vital tool for financial and governmental practitioners to discover more about their competitors? behaviour.

The dramatic increase of Japanese direct manufacturing investment in the United States since the 1970s has brought with it many questions about the Japanese investment decision-making process. Japanese Direct Manufacturing in the United States is the first book to investigate this process, explaining the behavior of both the micro- and macro-level actors involved in it and examining such issues as government-business interaction. Based on interviews with Japanese executives and government officials, this book provides an up-to-date and intensive look at this investment phenomenon for Japanese and American policymakers as well as researchers and students interested in Japanese multinational business.

Since I first published Management of Foreign Exchange Risk (Lexington Books, 1978), financial innovation-spurred, in part, by exploding volatility in currency prices-has revolutionized the theory and praxis of foreign exchange risk management. Old-fashioned forward contracts have surrendered market share to currency swaps and options as well as to their perpetually multiplying derivatives. Interestingly, forex derivatives now provide a low cost and highly efficient method of transferring risk from the firms that are exposed to risk but which would rather not be (i. e. , risk-hedgers) to those which are not exposed but which-in exchange for a fee-would assume some exposure to risk (i. e. , risk bearers). Perhaps more importantly, foreign exchange risk management, which was once a fairly mechanical task confmed to the international treasury function, is now permeating global strategic management. Indeed, since the demise of the Bretton Woods system of pegged exchange rates, the cost of forex hedging instruments has fallen so dramatically that firms can readily avail themselves of hedging products which can reduce unwanted risk, thereby potentially gaining a competitive advantage over rivals that do not. Management and Control of Foreign Exchange Risk has grown out of a fundamental revision of my earlier work published almost 20 years ago. In the process, my thinking about risk and its mathematics has greatly benefitted from my association with John Cozzolino and Charles Tapiero.

Capital flight - the unrecorded export of capital from developing countries - often represents a significant cost for developing countries. It also poses a puzzle for standard economic theory, which would predict that poorer countries be importers of capital due to its scarcity. This situation is often reversed, however, with capital fleeing poorer countries for wealthier, capital-abundant locales. Using a common methodology for a set of case studies on the size, causes and consequences of capital flight in developing countries, the contributors address the extent of capital flight, its effects, and what can be done to reverse it. Case studies of Brazil, China, Chile, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and the Middle East provide rich descriptions of the capital flight phenomena in a variety of contexts. The volume includes a detailed description of capital flight estimation methods, a chapter surveying the impact of financial liberalization, and several chapters on controls designed to solve the capital flight problem. The first book devoted to the careful calculation of capital flight and its historical and policy context, this volume will be of great interest to students and scholars in the areas of international finance and economic development.

No antitrust case in recent history has attracted as much public attention as U.S v. Microsoft Corp. Nor has any antitrust case in memory raised as many complex, substantive issues of law, economics and public policy. Microsoft, Antitrust and the New Economy: Selected Essays constitutes an early effort to analyze some of the central issues and to put the case in the context of the ongoing debate over the role of government in managing markets - especially in technology driven New Economy industries.
All of these essays, it should be noted, are written by critics of the government's efforts to regulate Microsoft. Indeed, many are by individuals who were closely involved in the company's legal defense and served as consultants to Microsoft. But their work should be judged on the merits rather than their provenance. For all represent serious scholarship by researchers committed to advancing the debate over government regulatory policies.

An inside view of the forces which shaped SEPA and the PSD written from the unique perspective of someone closely involved throughout the process. It uncovers the strategic, legal and practical implications of the full harmonization agenda and provides an assessment of where these initiatives stand today, including key lessons learned.

This book on the different aspects of international economic policy covers financial crises, reserve accumulation, capital flows and currency wars as well as issues relating to foreign direct investment and developments in China and India.

The book examines the rapid growth and dramatic changes in capital flows globally and to emerging markets. In the context of relevant economic theory, it analyses benefits and costs of large and volatile capital flows to developing countries; the latter includes damaging currency crises as the Mexican and East Asian economies. The book makes innovative proposals on how best national governments - and especially - international organisations can avoid such crises.

Throughout the ages money was a prerogative of national sovereignty. Currency management was the responsibility of governments.;After World War 2 Bretton Woods provided the framework for intergovernmental monetary cooperation until, in the early seventies, the banking community, using the Eurodollar as an international medium of exchange, forced governments to adopt a regime of floating rates.;The book describes how, in the 1950s, through an improbable chain of events, Soviet-owned banks established in Paris and London spawned the Eurodollar market, which has come to dominate world finance.;The Euromarket has given rise to a new breed of financiers and currency traders who radically changed the nature of international banking. The book relates the collision between sovereign states and stateless economic forces, the struggle for supremacy between the political authorities and the international financial community, their strategies and tactics, their strengths and weaknesses.

The present volume contains the texts of the papers and criti cal commentary presented at the one-day conference "Financing the world economy in the nineties" at Tilburg University (23 March 1988). This conference was organized by the Post-graduate School of Banking and Finance of "The Tilburg Institute of Advanced Studies" (T .I.A.S.) which is closely associated to Tilburg University. It should be borne in mind that all the chapters were written before March 1988. Although some were revised later, none of the authors has been asked to include develop ments which have occurred since. To achieve a better understanding of the current financial imbalances in the world economy and its consequences and to discuss the alternatives to correct these imbalances, this conference brought to gether outstanding authorities from the academic world, from the inter national supervisors, and from the industrial companies and the banks. After the editor's introduction about the external disequilib ria in the world economy and the burden of economic adjustment, Chapter 1 is the text of the opening address by Dr. Witteveen. He calls atten tion to the central issue, which financing needs that we can see now may persist into the nineties and how can they be met? In this context he mentions the U.S.-current account deficit, the need for stable exchange rates and the international debt problem."

Hardbound. New economic conditions brought about by political seachange, international trade agreements, and technological advances have posed new problems and challenges for many countries and trade communities. This book addresses a wide range of topical issues in commercial policy that will continue to be pertinent for some years.Under examination are bilateral trade agreements, foreign direct investment strategies, regional and global integration; trade reforms; privatization; capital flows; portfolio diversification, and international and technological competitiveness.Particular topics under scrutiny include the causes and remedies of the US trade deficit; the difficulties in penetrating Japanese markets; inflation indicators in the UK; NAFTA, the Uruguay Round and Common Agricultural Policy; industrial and technology policies in the US, and globalization in the airline industry.

Turkey is an attractive location for Western foreign investment because of its emerging role as a springboard for foreign companies to access the newly emerging markets of Central Asia via entering joint ventures with Turkish partners. Turkey's own emerging potential and its market attractiveness for an incremental share of world foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have also been confirmed by the U.S. government, designating the country as one of the ten Big Emerging Markets along with China, India, Russia and Brazil, which are expected to offer the greatest commercial growth opportunities in the 21st century due to their high economic growth and rapidly growing population. Tatoglu and Glaister provide an empirical analysis of the core dimensions of FDI activity based on primary data collected from Western multinationals engaged in either wholly-owned subsidiaries or joint ventures and from local Turkish firms which are the partners in joint ventures in Turkey.

Written for scholars and students of international business, global management, and strategic management, as well as for executives who are actively pursuing international market opportunities and managers in Turkish firms seeking joint venture partners, this book provides a timely account of the key facets of Western FDI activity in Turkey. Tatoglu and Glaister analyze location specific influences, strategic motives, partner selection criteria in joint ventures, management control issues and performance.

Gaming markets are evolving rapidly. Spearheading this change is the internet, which has enabled cross-border gambling on an unprecedented scale. This book explores the changing landscape of the gaming market and is a crucial companion for all looking for informed discussion on the future of gaming.

A fascinating discussion of the role played by fear in financial market panics. Professor Read demonstrates, in easy-to-understand terms, that rising market fear portends to major financial declines. He explains the science and the economics of fear and shows that the financial market has learned how to capitalize on investor or economic fear

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This book investigates issues of policy design in open economics. The performance of simple alternative policy rules is analysed in the context of theoretical models using both analytical solutions and numerical simulation techniques. One of the substantive contributions of the research is that policy evaluation should take into account, among other things, the implications of different rules for foreign wealth and the exchange rate. Hence the open economy models presented in the book include wealth effects and the current account. The evaluation of the alternative policy proposals is carried out within the framework of a "small" individual country and in the broader context of policy coordination. This book should be of interest to economics departments.

Cross-border transactions involve a variety of financial operations, including arbitrage, hedging, speculation, financing, and investment. These inter-related operations give rise to foreign exchange exposure and affect the overall financial performance of multinational firms. The book aims to provide an integrated treatment of multinational financial operations, whilst taking into account some real- world complexities such as bid/offer spreads, transaction costs, capital rationing, and market imperfections.

Foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies are suggested as one of the main channels of technology transfer to less developed economies. In Central East Europe their presence proved to be a decisive factor to economic restructuring and development. This volume is a unique guide to theory, method of research, and empirical evidence, for technology transfer via foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies. It combines the merits of a core text on technology transfer via FDI with up-to-date empirical evidence.