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.

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.

In Foreign Direct Investment, Imad A. Moosa presents a survey of the vast body of literature and ideas relating to foreign direct investment that will be invaluable as a reference work for all these groups. He provides concise definition and analysis of the theories behind foreign direct investment, and considers factors affecting its implementation. The impact of foreign direct investment on economic development, host countries and the growth of multinationals, together with methods for evaluating foreign direct investment projects are discussed.

How the persistent worsening of the income distribution in the US in the 1980s and 1990s be explained? What are the prospects for the re-emergence of sustainable prosperity in the US economy over the next generation? Situating these questions within a wider context through historical analysis and comparisons with Germany and Japan, this book focuses on the microeconomics of corporate investment behavior, and the macroeconomics of household saving behavior. The contributors analyze how the combined pressures of excessive corporate growth,international competition, and intergenerational dependence have influenced corporate investment over the past two decades. They also offer a perspective on how corporate investment in skill bases can support sustainable prosperity, with studies drawn from the machine tool, aircraft engine, and medical equipment industries.

Despite the regional currency crisis of 1997-1998, Asia-Pacific economies continue to be among the most attractive markets in the world. Although Japanese and American firms have invested heavily in those economies, European firms are poised to take advantage of the post-Asian recovery, phenomenal Chinese growth rates, and deepening economic liberalization. Here, original essays focus on the market and non-market strategies employed by European firms to boost their share of the Asian market and to rally European governments and the European Union in support of their initiatives. In addition to a novel theoretical framework to analyze strategy, three chapters focus on investment trends in Asia, lobbying in Asia, and the EU. The book also includes original case studies of the air transport, automobile, software, and finance sectors.

World Economic Issues at the United Nations: Half a Century of Debate attempts an objective analysis of the discussions in the policy forums of the United Nations on the major issues in the world economy over the past half a century. The book opens with a brief survey of the world economy since the Second World War. The following chapter presents a bird's-eye view of the issues discussed as well as a perspective on each of the issues. Starting with the issues of growth and stability in industrial countries, the study goes on to present discussions on the evolving issues of development of less developed countries. The volume devotes a substantial chapter on the efforts at establishment of the new international economic order. The more mundane matters of food needs of developing countries and their pervasive poverty are not lost sight of. Discussions on other major issues of interest and concern to developing countries, such as those of primary commodities, and the crisis of external debt, as well as issues of international trade, occupy a substantial space in the study. Two short chapters dwell on debates relating to transnational corporations and the international monetary system, especially as they concerned developing countries. The book concludes with a substantial chapter on resources, environment and sustainable development, a subject of growing importance at the United Nations. A principal justification of the study is that these discussions and debates constituted a major body of thinking on the world economy that is worth surveying. A central aim is to follow the evolving ideas over time in each field, to describe not only what was debated but how, and in the process it throwslight on the nature and limits of international economic cooperation. An all important question underlies an investigation of this nature. Many of those who were engaged in the half century of debate sought to change the world economy, some by only tinkering with it, others by radical reform. Has anything changed as a result? One would like to ponder, even though the answer may not be all that clear. The present study is offered as a modest contribution to any examination of the past achievements and future roles of the organization.

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.

The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) encompasses the legislative text and political resolutions regulating fiscal policy and public finances in EMU. The contributions in this volume analyze the institutional, legal, theoretical and empirical aspects of the SGP, examine its development and evaluate its main implications. The authors include academic economists, who provide insightful analysis, and policy makers who have contributed to the shaping of the pact and have a direct responsibility for its implementation. This book is the definitive source of reference on the SGP for academics, policy makes and economists.

This book highlights the importance of mobile resources as a feature of globalization, and challenges the received wisdom about the causes and effects of international capital mobility. From a world concerned with strategic weapons and the risks of mutual annihilation, a new world order is emerging in which different forces loom large in the communal consciousness. In this new order, resources and the jobs they produce have—at least in the West—pushed security matters firmly into second place.

The type of research methodologies used in analysing stock returns in the book is outlined in this technical chapter. The chapter begins with definitions of useful summary statistics, such as the mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, and their interpretation. Tests statistics for inferences on population means, proportions and differences of means, among others, are also presented. A summary of single equation regression techniques and the way these are applied through estimation and inference are outlined, focusing on the interpretation of standard output and diagnostic tests. The single equation methodology is then extended to multiple equation systems; the methods of Multivariate Least Square (MLSQ) of Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations (SURE) are Regressions as well as those considered. Time series, ARlMA, models form also part of the discussion. This is a chapter, which is aimed at readers who are interested in understanding the technical background used in deriving results later in the book. 2.2. Summary Statistics for a set of Data A set of numbers which are generated by agents' actions in the market, and which can take different values if the agents were to repeat their actions, are known as random variables. For example, prices of shares in the stock exchange are determined at each point in time from the collective actions of agents operating in the market through their demand and supply decisions. The price of a share is thus a random variable, and so is the return of the share.

The central question addressed in Financial Innovations and the Welfare of Nations is how the transfer of financial innovations from developed to developing economies can nurture the dynamics of emerging capital markets. National capital markets can be positioned along a continuum ranging from embryonic to mature and emerged markets according to a decreasing "national cost of capital" criterion. In the introductory chapter Laurent Jacque argues that newly emerging countries are handicapped by a high cost of capital due to "incomplete" and inefficient financial markets. As capital markets graduate to higher level of "emergedness," their national firms avail themselves of a lower cost of capital that makes them more competitive in the global economy and spurs economic growth. Skillful transfer of financial innovations to emerging markets often encourages the deregulation of the country's financial services sector. This results into new conduits for a more efficient capital allocation process such as commercial paper, securitized consumer finance and other disintermediated modes of financing which out-compete traditional financial intermediaries (mostly commercial banks), reduce households' cost of living and conjointly fuel the dynamics of emerging markets. Our response to the central question of how the transfer of financial innovations can enhance the Wealth of Nations is to show that it reduces the cost of capital while not unduly increasing systemic risk. Part I examines the relationship between financial innovations and systemic risk of the international financial system.

Leonard Seabrooke argues that they key to understanding 'change' in international finance in the last forty years rests with US structural power. He demonstrates for the reader how structural power draws from embedded state-societal relations and how the US promotion of 'direct financing' has encouraged Britain, Japan, and Germany to 'catch-up' to US-led innovations. In drawing considerably on multidisciplinary insight, the book will benefit all those who wish to understand more about 'change' in the international political economy.

Contents:
Lecture I: Fundamentals? Exchange rates in the light of Schumpeter but not of Dioletian
Lecture II: Preliminaries Friedman's case for flexible exchange rates versus random walks in theory and practice
Lecture III: Equilibria? Interest parity and purchasing power parity - which kind of equilibria?
Lecture IV: Divergence Process analysis of temporal exchange rate equilibria
Lecture V: Stabilization Further results on process equilibria and countervailing forces making for mean reversion
Lecture VI: Mere demand and supply Stabilization through bounded interest rates and exchange rate theory "Without the contrivance of macroeconomics"
Lecture VII: Non-neutrality I On the nature of money - or: The story of Anacharsis the Scythian, Part I
Lecture VIII: Non-neutrality II The story of Anacharsis the Scythian Part II

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.

This text 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.

This book examines the case of nominal income targeting as a monetary policy rule. In recent years the most well-known nominal income targeting rule has been NGDP (level) Targeting, associated with a group of economists referred to as market monetarists (Scott Sumner, David Beckworth, and Lars Christensen among others). Nominal income targeting, though not new in monetary theory, was relegated in economic theory following the Keynesian revolution, up until the financial crisis of 2008, when it began to receive renewed attention. This book fills a gap in the literature available to researchers, academics, and policy makers on the benefits of nominal income targeting against alternative monetary rules. It starts with the theoretical foundations of monetary equilibrium. With this foundation laid, it then deals with nominal income targeting as a monetary policy rule. What are the differences between NGDP Targeting and Hayek's rule? How do these rules stand up against other monetary rules like inflation targeting, the Taylor rule, or Friedman's k-percent? Nominal income targeting is a rule which is better equipped to avoid monetary disequilibrium when there is no inflation. Therefore, a book that explores the theoretical foundation of nominal income targeting, comparing it with other monetary rules, using the 2008 crisis to assess it and laying out monetary policy reforms towards a nominal income targeting rule will be timely and of interest to both academics and policy makers.

Building upon a wide range of literatures, this book argues that international regulatory institutions become stronger when oligopolistic institutional arrangements decay and competitive pressures intensify. This is shown to be the case for global finance by the study of two inter-state institutions - the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions, and of the international banking and securities industries which they seek to regulate. There is also the development of the concept of "private" regimes.

The competition between European financial centres is a subject of spirited public debate. Has the introduction of the Euro undermined London's position? Does tax competition disadvantage some European centres? Should the regulation of institutional investment be changed? Is it a good policy for governments to promote their national financial centres? And would the UK joining the European monetary union threaten the position of other European centres? These are some of the questions confronting policymakers and industry players. This book provides a firm empirical basis for examining these issues and provides a means to compare the efficiency, performance and future potential of the main European financial centres.

This book deals with the models and applications of exchange rate forecasting. It is written primarily for professionals with the objective of providing a concise survey of the techniques of forecasting. The book considers the business decisions requiring exchange rate forecasting and some related issues such as market efficiency and trading rules.

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.

In the late 1980s, as the empirical appeal of macro-economic exchange rate models began to fade, a few people including Professor Charles Goodhart at the London School of Economics and researchers at Olsen & Associates in Zurich, started to collect intra-daily exchange rate data. The resulting database provides new insight into the foreign exchange markets and thereby opens up previously unexplored avenues of research. Intra-Daily Exchange Rate Movements presents an extensive study of the Olsen & Associates database and is one of the first monographs in this exciting new area. This book aims to provide a systematic study of the characteristics of intra-daily exchange rate data as well as an empirical investigation into different approaches of modelling the exchange rate movements. First, the author describes empirical insights, which range from the distributional issues of exchange rate data to the impact of macroeconomic fundamentals and institutional characteristics. This leads to a survey of the main stylized facts. Using the O&A database, Guillaume then presents a systematic investigation of the empirical performance of three broad categories of models: macro-economic models using an extension of chaos theory, stochastic models including the GARCH and time-deformation models, and technical analysis. The book shows how these approaches can be used to model intra-daily exchange rate movements and highlights some of the pitfalls inherent in such an exercise. In an area where literature remains controversial, this book hopes to trigger further inquiries into the suitability of these different approaches to modelling.

Integrating transition economies into the global commercial and trade market system is a prolonged and risky process. This book is a collection of studies dealing with the different issues related to the liberalization of external relations in economies moving from a socialist to a market-based system The focus is on external sector developments, and the topics deal with balance of payments conditions, exchange rate policies and regimes, international competitiveness, international capital flows, trade, and other matters related to the integration of transition economies into the world economy. An understanding of the principles involved and of the experiences of both transition and advanced economies during this process is crucial to ensure its ultimate success. Written by internationally recognized scholars, the chapters cover these issues in a systematic manner. The first section treats current account developments, capital flows, and exchange rate policies in transition countries, the second section deals with specific issues related to international trade, and the final section consists of six specific country experiences. In this final section, a chapter dealing with the Russian Federation discusses the collapse of the ruble in August 1998.

This timely volume points the way towards a new positive regulatory framework for international investment, following the failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). It examines the flaws in free market strategies underpinning the recent phase of globalization, in particular drawing out the lessons from the MAI, which was suspended in October 1998. The authors explore an alternative based on a positive regulatory framework for international business, aimed at maximizing the positive contribution to development of foreign investment and minimizing it's negative social and environmental impacts. The contributors include academics, researchers for non governmental organizations, and business and trade union representatives, writing from a combination of economic, legal and political perspectives. The book combines academic analysis with grass roots and practical experience, and suggests concrete policy proposals.

The growth of financial markets has clearly outpaced the development of financial market regulations. With growing complexity in the world of finance, and the resultant higher frequency of financial crises, all eyes have shifted toward the current inadequacy of financial regulation. This book expertly examines what this episode means for Asia's financial sector and its stability, and what the implications will be for the region's financial regulation. By focusing on legal and institutional frameworks, the book also elaborates on various issues and challenges in terms of how financial liberalization can maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of crisis. The book will appeal to academics, students, and policymakers across a diverse range of fields including: international finance and trade, economics, Asian studies, development, and development economics.

Offshore finance has transformed many small jurisdictions into high income economies and has facilitated the growth of global financial markets, deregulation and the convergence of economic policies worldwide. However, the volatility and fickle nature of global capital has also become apparent. This major new multi-disciplinary and international collection explores the development of offshore finance and is an extremely valuable resource for all those considering the issues involved in this important area.