In 1989 the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe opened their economies by establishing more open exchange rate policies and exchange controls and eliminating prohibitive tariffs and quotas. Now trying to join the integrated world economy, they are facing the challenge of finding strategic alliances and attracting foreign capital. This book analyzes economic policy in Eastern Europe with a focus on the financial arrangement of currency boards. It examines the main challenges facing East European countries, their economic policy strategies, the main challenges to the economies that adopted currency boards, and whether currency boards were a solution.

The book is organized into two parts. Part I addresses the challenges to economic policy in Eastern Europe, and Part II turns to the discussion of currency board arrangements.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis of national fiscal policies in the European Union and in the European Monetary Union. Adopting a critical perspective, the book offers a deep insight into the consequences of the current strategy of national fiscal policies on economic activity.

This ground-breaking book examines marketing's impact on economic development. Focused on the less developed and newly industrialized countries, Campbell and Reddy outline how marketing can and should be used as a primary tool by government, business, and private planners. Analysis of Japan's post-war economic development is used as a starting point for the book's development of a macro-behavioral model. The model, centered on marketing, includes the constructs of attitude, adaptation, and achievement orientation as the macro-behavioral keys of development. The model explains how those keys function best in an environment where government, business, and labor interact to facilitate development in a market economy.

After reviewing some definitional aspects of marketing and economic development, the book examines marketing's role in less developed countries. It examines the conditions in the former USSR and its satellites and shows how marketing could facilitate their vitally needed economic development. The model, based on Japan's development, is proposed. It is then shown how the model can explain the successful economic development of Setubal, Portugal. India is examined as an example of the countries which should apply the model to hasten economic development.

An analysis of the strength of the dollar, the role of the dollar and other alternatives as international money, the U.S. as an international capital market, and the past and future relationships between financial policy and foreign relations.

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.

As import-substitution industrialization yields to increasing market liberalization in Latin America in the 1990s, privatization assigns new roles to both the public and private sectors. After the decade of the debt crisis, a much weakened State will reorient its policy efforts to the difficult issues of limited fiscal and monetary choices, regulation of newly privatized firms, and long-postponed social programs. However, privatization represents a mhallenge for the private sector as much as it is an issue for the public sector. Foreign and domestic capital will be asked to play a critical role in revitalizing battered economies. New players, from penny-capitalists to pension funds, and new institutions, including dramatically altered banking systems and suddenly thriving stock markets, have recently appeared. The changing roles of public and private sectors and the implications of these developments are the focus of this book.

The forefathers of neoclassical or conventional economics, beginning with Walras, wanted to build a psycho-mathematical science similar to celestial mechanics. However, during the first half of the last century, they succumbed to the charm of axiomatization: Hence, economics remains a stillborn science. Its theory is plagued with incongruities, generating misleading notions and policies that are detrimental to human welfare and environmental equilibrium. Its truths have significantly low half-lives, and its confused pronouncements have become an open ground in which false consciousness rumble unchallenged. This state of affairs calls for a fundamental revision.

After reviewing the evolution of economics from Antiquity to the present and pointing to its inadequacies, Dominique proposes an alternative formulation which not only sheds light on the enduring features of market economics but also makes economics consistent with physics, the mother of all sciences. This is a challenging revision for scholars, students, and others involved with economic theory.

" Intertemporal Macroeconomics is the first text to offer a unified and systematic exposition of the key issues, both traditional and new, in dynamic macroeconomics. Based on neoclassical growth theory, the book is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in macroeconomics and finance.

This volume treats various aspects of the Yugoslav economic model and focuses on the long-term program of stabilization undertaken by that country in the last few years. The contributors discuss such diverse topics as the country's socioeconomic relations, and problems and prospects for carrying out a long-term stabilization program. "Essays on the Yugoslav Economic Model" puts forth a number of assertions relating to the country's economic performance: that Yugoslavia must resort to greater reliance on markets; it must become more export oriented with a fully convertible currency; the country must rid itself of debilitating inflation; it must preserve a social policy consistent with its socialist principles.

This volume treats various aspects of the Yugoslav economic model and focuses on the long-term program of stabilization undertaken by that country in the last few years. "Essays on the Yugoslav Economic Model" puts forth a number of assertions relating to the country's economic performance: that Yugoslavia must resort to greater reliance on markets; it must become more export oriented with a fully convertible currency; the country must rid itself of debilitating inflation; it must preserve a social policy consistent with its socialist principles. Furthermore, Yugoslavia must take all of these measures and more within the constraints of the existing socio-political framework of socialist self-management and heterogeneous population. The contributors each agree that given the country's diversity, a resort to markets is the only meaningful option available.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Eurozone faced a major challenge to many of its most widely held beliefs around both short- and long-term economic policy. Contrary to what had been the received wisdom, it suddenly became clear that financial institutions can fail, that low interest rates are often unable to stimulate the economy, that the unemployment gap is still very large, and that external and internal imbalances are becoming more entrenched. Such sudden revelations left economists grasping for answers. Rosaria Rita Canale and Rajmund Mirdala outline the economic orthodoxies that led to such massive blind spots, and they shed light on the emerging paradigms that continue to struggle to offer convincing frameworks that address what happened and what to do next. They show how dominant economic theories led to a progressive devaluing of the idea that coordinated economic policy offers an effective way of maintaining macroeconomic equilibrium, and they illustrate how the new economic environment calls for a new role for economic policy, one that allows for a more maneuverable monetary policy and a more active fiscal policy. What they ultimately suggest is that this renewed framework of cooperation among policy instruments would require a general rethinking of the political equilibria within the Eurozone, as a stable economic environment cannot be maintained at the expense of particular countries. For its systematic analyses of the economic policy framework of the Eurozone, and for the rigor of its critiques of current ideas about how to move forward, Fiscal and Monetary Policy in the Eurozone is essential reading for postgraduate students of economics, and it is of keen interest to researchers, policymakers, journalists, and financial strategists.

This book provides key insights into how to control local government debts and optimize the makeup of debts in China. The rapid growth of investment in infrastructure on the part of local governments has offset the slowdown of investment growth in manufacturing and real estate and maintained the growth rate of 7.7% in 2013. However, local governments' debts have accumulated, which increases the risk of debt default and threatens the stability of China's financial system. The research suggests that increasing the proportion of issuing bonds in total debts would be the first step toward eliminating the debt risk. Second, the Chinese government should play its part; and lastly, the government should relinquish its administrative control and monopoly in order to allow the service industry to further develop.

With six essays exploring different aspects of economic growth, poverty, inequality and social security, this book offers a critical perspective on India's development experience since independence. Incisive and empirically rich, the book opens up new vistas in development discourse and informs current policy debates.

As the decade of the 1980s draws to a close, international debt--and the role of international banks in solving the debt crisis--is considered by some to be the major problem facing the world's economies. This collection of essays, contributed by some of the nation's most respected thinkers, academics, policy advisors, and top ranking executives examines the world monetary system in terms of its institutions and mechanisms and their relationship to liquidity, exchange rates, credit creation, trade, and growth. Practicing professionals, academics, and all those interested in monetary theory will find this volume to be an excellent reference on questions of policy relating to international banking, world monetary system, and world economic growth in the late 1980s.

The book analyzes the relationship between globalization and sustainable development. It presents analysis of the relationship between social and environmental conditions of sustainability. It explores the interaction between history of facts (globalization since the industrial revolution) and history of ideas (liberalism since Adam Smith). It focuses on generally neglected aspects such as health and social corporate responsibility.This book examines how consistent the post-war process of globalization has been with the basic requisites of sustainable development. It argues that the polarization of public opinion into support of either globalization or sustainable development has not helped an understanding of the issues, and that the confrontation should be abandoned.

As a result of the financial crisis, the weaknesses of the Eurozone, including the public debt crisis, materialized in severe depressions in certain of its country members. In this monograph, the author analyzes structural weaknesses of the Eurozone and argues that they can be traced to (i) institutional differences, (ii) differences in the economic structures, (iii) the fundamental inability of European Bureaucracy to deal with crises, and (iv) the extreme rigidity of markets which prevents a general equilibrium in product and credit markets. He concludes that whether the Eurozone is sustainable, depends on future monetary and credit policies, and discusses the implications of reforming it in the best interest of the international banking and financial system. The recent policies of the ECB of "cheap" credit expansion are examined in detail. The approach of the work is along the lines of von Mises' and Hayek's Austrian tradition; additionally, substantive international empirical evidence supporting this Austrian approach is presented.

Ray presents a comprehensive review of U.S. trade policy since World War II, with particular emphasis on how that policy has affected developing countries. Special attention is given to trade policy shifts in the last twenty years in an attempt to determine whether or not U.S. trade concessions to developing countries contribute positively to their efforts to meet their considerable debt obligations. The author combines theoretical discussion with empirical data drawn from the seven leading debtor nations--Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, the Philippines, and Venezuela--in a provocative examination of the economic and sociopolitical causes and implications of changes in protectionism and the pattern of tariff and nontariff trade barriers in the last few decades.

Following an introductory analysis of the history of protectionism in the United States, Ray explores the role of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) after World War II in eliminating protection and the impact on developing countries of the changes in tariffs and in the use of nontariff trade barriers under the auspices of GATT. Subsequent chapters deal with such issues as the reasons for the adoption of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) adopted in 1975, the relationship between U.S. trade policies since 1975 and the world debt crisis, the reasons behind the adoption of the Caribbean Basin Initiative in 1983, and the 1985 revision of the GSP. A separate empirical chapter assesses the effects of the new GSP legislation on exports to the United States from developing countries in general and from the severely indebted seven in particular. The final chapter is organized around three major themes: the future course of U.S. trade policy, the likely impact of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement on the United States and Canada, and the Uruguay Round negotiations and the implications of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 on trade between the United States and the debtor nations. Students of international business, international politics, and economic development will find Ray's analysis of the relationship between trade protectionism and world debt an important contribution to current debates on the causes, effects, and solutions to the Third World debt crisis.

Kristi A. Olson asks: What is a fair income distribution? She rejects equal income shares: equal pay undercompensates workers in dangerous and onerous jobs. The envy test, which takes both income and work into account, fares better. Yet, a distribution in which no one prefers someone else's circumstances to her own-as the envy test requires-is unlikely to exist, and even when it does exist, the normative connection between envy and fairness has not been established. After critiquing existing answers, Olson invokes the idea of mutual justifiability: when someone claims that her situation should be improved at someone else's expense, she must be able to give a reason that cannot be reasonably rejected by a free and equal individual who regards everyone else as the same. To give the answer bite, Olson distinguishes two types of envy. Reasons based on personal envy can be reasonably rejected; reasons based on impersonal envy cannot. Olson then tests the solidarity solution against the theories of Ronald Dworkin, Philippe Van Parijs, and Marc Fleurbaey and applies it directly to the concrete issues of the gender wage gap and taxation. By providing a new approach to problems of fair resource allocation, The Solidarity Solution establishes philosophical discussion as critical to today's fight to end economic injustice.

Japan and the European Union sets out to answer a number of crucial questions on the effect of Japan's international relations upon its internal affairs -- in particular how international issues, and Japan's growing relationship with the European Union, have come to penetrate the political economy and decision-making structure in Japanese industry and legislation. Japan/EU affairs have never been marked by any significant political relations, and until the past twenty years, they have been characterized by a reserved indifference. However, as a result of accelerated political and economic changes in the past decade, the two economic giants have made considerable efforts to nurture bilateral relations largely initiated by trade concerns. The author examines the development of this relationship informed by International Relations perspectives and taking into account the growing dependence of successful bilateral relations on the international political economy. Furthermore, Dr. Abe explains the attempt that has been made to resolve Japanese/EU disputes by way of a Joint Declaration. This includes an examination of the 1991 Automobile Agreement involving Japan, the EC Commission and the Japanese manufacturers; and the Liquor Tax dispute which ran from 1986-1995. Throughout this account, the concerns of the United States, and its impact on this relationship, are fully registered.

In his penetrating analysis of Mexico's current economic, political, and social situation, Ramirez focuses on the major structural problems that underlie the nation's profound economic difficulties and the challenges they pose to its people. Writing for both economists and political scientists, Ramirez offers a framework of analysis for a better understanding of Mexico's economic crisis -- one based on an in-depth examination of both its historical origins and its present ramifications. The discussion is supported by comprehensive coverage of the relevant economic data, making this one of the most thorough treatments of the subject available in print.

Following an introductory chapter that provides essential background information, Ramirez addresses the historical and institutional background of the current situation. His study is unusually broad-based in scope, encompassing such issues as the social costs of modernization and the legacy of revolution during the first part of this century, Cardenas and the revolutionary process, economic growth via import-substitution policies, the exhaustion of the Mexican growth model during the 1970s and 1980s, the IMF austerity program. The final chapters present cogently argued policy recommendations -- including alternatives to the austerity measures imposed by international lending organizations. Ramirez's conclusions regarding the causes of Mexico's economic decline and his predictions for the country's economic future make an important contribution to the debate over Mexico's economic survival.

In the face of globalization, workers feel less secure in their jobs and fear wage losses and unemployment. This book explores these issues, asking whether the concerns are warranted.It brings together recent work in an important and rapidly expanding area. It provides comprehensive coverage of both theoretical and empirical aspects. It takes popular concerns about globalization seriously.Although economists have long pointed to the aggregate gains from increased economic integration, the popular perception of globalization is much more pessimistic.

The world is changing rapidly. The global economic crisis has called into question the political decisions that have been made by all countries for decades and has led to a re-formulation of tools and aims. Adjustments to the new situation are necessary and entail considerable economic and social costs. The Balkan and Black Sea area is an important reference point for the European and global economy. Accordingly, the study of the economic development in the area is of great interest, engaging politicians and scientists alike. Under this framework, the matter of the relation between the area's countries and the E.U., the role of the banking system and the importance of the primary sector of the economy as an important developmental factor for the countries' economies are of great importance. "

European Union and the Euro Revolution is a challenging study of the progression of the historic movement towards one European family. This volume is the first, most comprehensive exposition of the treatise of supranational macroeconomics. The Keynesian Revolution taught us macroeconomics in the context of a sovereign nation state. In the post-WWII decades, the concept of supra-national macroeconomics became the core theme of the European Union. Indeed, the traditional concept of a sovereign nation state economy begs a thorough reexamination.
One common economic unit with its well-specified micro and macroeconomic parameters has been mapped onto one common geographic unit, the continent of Europe, a group of sovereign European nation states voluntarily surrendering their erstwhile sovereignty. The official inauguration of one common money, the euro, managed by one common supra-national central bank, the European Central Bank (ECB), on January 1, 1999, has been an epochal event in the eventful history of the European Union (EU) from 1958 through the present. As of 1999, with the euro and the ECB firmly established, the debate became: one money to one Europe.
European Union and the Euro Revolution draws on the authors extensive field studies as a Visiting Scholar with three European national central banks, De Netherlandsche Bank in Amsterdam, Banque de France in Paris, and Der Deutsche Bundesbank in Frankfurt and Japans Ministry of Finance in Tokyo.
His personal conferences with Dr. Otmar Issing, Chief Economist and a Member of the Executive Board of the ECB enriched his understanding of the related issues. His personal conferences with ranking economists and policy-makers ofBank of Japan and Japan Bank for International Development Tokyo, the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) Beijing, Reserve Bank of Australia Canberra and Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Wellington, the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta plus his invited presentations at universities and research institutions in USA, Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Nepal, India, Australia, and New Zealand have added resourceful inputs to this volume. His invited presentation in 2002 at the special workshop sponsored by the United Nations International Training and Research (UNITAR) at the United Nations Headquarter in New York City, of course, brought meaningful insights.
*Contributions to Economic Analysis was established in 1952
*The series purpose is to stimulate the international exchange of scientific information
*The series includes books from all areas of macroeconomics and microeconomics

What actually was the economic situation in 1929 and what happened to the stock market? Harold Bierman's fresh look at the Crash of '29 provides provocative answers that challenge the "facts" and overturn previously held assumptions concerning the catastrophic events that led to ten years of economic depression and very likely created the fertile soil of despair and unrest that ultimately led to World War II. This cogent re-evaluation takes a different tack and arrives at a different set of conclusions than John Kenneth Galbraith's classic overview of the period, The Great Crash. Echoes of the great stock market price declines that ended ten years of the greatest prosperity the U.S. had ever experienced have continued to reverberate down the corridors of history. Bierman believes that a more complete understanding of these past events can enhance current market decisions; that by accurately assessing the stock market crash of 1929-1932, readers can better grasp the present market situation and more wisely forecast the future. Arriving at drastically different conclusions from most widely read books on the subject, the 11-chapter study takes the position that the stock market was not unreasonably high in October of '29, asserting that, in fact, there was reason for optimism. Bierman presents sound explanations for the initial decline that are not dependent on the assumption of overvaluation. He also clarifies the vital distinction between speculation and investment and shows how President Herbert Hoover's "war on speculation" may have contributed to the crash and subsequent depression. The first chapter outlines seven commonly held myths regarding 1929. Other chapters compare the stockmarket and profitability of corporations; attempt to determine whether RCA stock was outrageously overpriced or merely a reasonably priced growth stock; and look at the 1931 banking system hearings. The Mitchell, Wiggin, and Insull affairs are all given new, fact-based twists. Final chapters examine margin buying, probability, and short selling, develop important perspectives on the crash of 1987, and extract valuable lessons to be learned. The book effectively refutes prior notions and replaces them with solidly built, readable explanations that are most relevant to history courses dealing with the period or courses on investment in common stock. Any general reader with an interest in early twentieth century history or in investment will find this a rewarding read.