Since World War II, America's economic landscape has undergone a profound transformation. The effects of this change can be seen in the decline of the traditional industrial heartland and the emergence of new high tech industrial complexes in California, Texas, Boston, and Florida. The Rise ofthe Gunbelt demonstrates that this economic restructuring is a direct result of the rise of the military industrial complex (MIC) and a wholly new industry based on defense spending and Pentagon contacts. Chronicling the dramatic growth of this vast complex, the authors analyze the roles played by the shift from land and sea warfare to aerial combat in World War II, the Cold War, the birth of aerospace and the consequent radical transformation of the airplane industry, and labor and major defense corporations such as Boeing, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas. Exploring the reasons for the shifts in defense spending--including the role of lobbyists and the Department of Defense in awarding contracts--and the effects on regional and national economic development, this comprehensive study reveals the complexities of the MIC.

The Marxist theory of capitalist growth and transformation has often been shrouded in obscurity, either by endless recapitulation of Marx's texts or by excessive use of mathematical formalism. This short book presents an integrated and rigorous view of capitalist development - technical change, class relations, trends in the profit rate and share, cyclical and long-term crisis - in a form that is accessible to serious readers with or without prior training in economics or familiarity with Marxist thought.

EMU - A Swedish Perspective provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the EMU project. The main advantages and disadvantages of a single currency are evaluated. A key feature of the analysis is the attempt to integrate economic and political aspects. The book is a revised version of the report by the Swedish Government Commission on the EMU. Although the analysis focuses on the consequences for Sweden of joining versus not joining the monetary union, it is highly relevant for the discussion in all EU countries. The book provides an in-depth analysis of how the demands on economic policy will be affected by the monetary union. Various chapters discuss monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, unemployment and labour markets, the transition to monetary union, and the exchange-rate arrangements between participants and non-participants. Other chapters analyse the importance of the EMU for European political integration, democratic aspects, and how membership in the monetary union will affect the possibilities for an individual member state to exert influence within the EU. EMU - A Swedish Perspective should be of interest to professional economists and political scientists, students, and all others who want to form an opinion about the monetary union on the basis of a balanced assessment of the consequences. EMU - A Swedish Perspective provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the EMU project. The main advantages and disadvantages of a single currency are evaluated. A key feature of the analysis is the attempt to integrate economic and political aspects. The book is a revised version of the report by the Swedish Government Commission on the EMU. Although the analysis focuses on the consequences for Sweden of joining versus not joining the monetary union, it is highly relevant for the discussion in all EU countries.

After the transition to free economy, governments of the former Soviet republics realized that in spite of becoming a part of the shaky international economic order, their individual economic success can be assured by rational national economic policies that in addition to the fundamental law of supply and demand govern the economic mechanism sensitive to both external and internal phenomena. Originally published in Russian and now translated in English, this book by Dr. A. Ashimov and his colleagues offers a novel theory providing a numerically-justifiable approach to the solution of major economy control problems that are faced by virtually every government in the world. First, they developed and validated numerous mathematical models describing complex interactions between economic and social factors thus enabling the decision makers to foresee the outcomes of their decisions. Second, on the basis of these models the authors formulated the appropriate control problems that could be interpreted as achieving the transition to the desirable economic regimes and maintaining these regimes in spite of initial conditions and both external and internal perturbations. It should be noted that due to the inherent uncertainty introduced by the use of statistical models, the nonlinearity of the underlying phenomena and the intention to obtain the optimal solutions, the solution process becomes quite intricate and calls for the application of the most sophisticated techniques offered in advanced control theory. The authors utilized the most instrumental statistical model validation techniques; they established sufficient conditions for the existence of optimal solutions of the relevant control problems; and they skillfully combined the applications of the phase space formalism, system stability analysis, and the methods of functional analysis. Finally, they developed algorithms resulting in the optimal problem solutions, thus offering economic policy makers a dependable decision support tool. Macroeconomic Analysis and Economic Policy Based on Parametric Control offers a novel, highly mathematical approach to the solution of very realistic economy control problems. It presents a good example of the application of mathematical modeling, advanced control theory, and model-based decision making that could be adopted by researchers and graduate students specializing in economics, control, and relevant areas of research, addressing their own research problems.

A collective effort by American and North African scholars, this volume provides a comprehensive analysis of recent economic, social, and political events in North Africa. It shows how the Maghrebi states and societies are currently at a very important junction as they try to adjust to different ways of doing things in new regional and international orders. Using a political economy approach, the book focuses on a series of issues raised by the interaction between economic crisis and reform on the one hand, and political change or stagnation on the other. The author and his contributors provide a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of particular value to scholars and researchers of the Arab world in general and North Africa in particular.

This book examines the numerous aspects of exchange rates and the dynamics of macroeconomics, focusing on the PPP puzzle, volatility, levels, with an exploration of the real exchange rate misalignment of the Central European countries single equation approach, an examination of the real equilibrium exchange rate in China, exchange rate dynamics and pass-through effects in Russia and Hungary, and structural shocks on economies.

This book traces the growth of capitalism in South East Asia between 1870 and 1941, a crucial element in understanding contemporary economic and political developments in the region. It focuses on three questions. Why was indigenous capitalism so weak in colonial South East Asia? What were the institutional weaknesses in an otherwise dominant Chinese capitalist class, and why did it fail to transform itself into a modern industrial elite? What was the impact of western colonialism and Japanese economic penetration on South East Asia's prospects for achieving sustainable economic growth?

This book presents a theoretically-based comprehensive analysis of macroeconomic consequences of fiscal policy using a popular economic model: the overlapping generations growth model. A wide range of essential public finance issues is analyzed, including the effects of tax reform on dynamic efficiency, positive and normative effects of public spending, considerations of taxes on fixed assets and monetary holdings, and sustainability of deficits. A unique approach is applied in the study of public finance: one expected to generate substantial interest among current graduate students and active researchers.

The creation of the EMU and the introduction of the Euro is a historic event for the EU countries. The debates on the desirability of the EMU provoked a vast economic literature dealing with the theory of the optimum currency area, costs and benefits of the EMU, symmetric versus asymmetric shocks, alternative mechanisms of adjustment in a monetary union and so forth. Until recently, for the Central European candidate countries for a full membership in the EU, these issues seemed to be too far away, as they concentrated on devising their own monetary and exchange rate systems suitable for their transition period. The challenges of the EMU for the Central European countries have scarcely been dealt with in both Western and Eastern economic literature. Inclusion of Central European Countries in the European Monetary Union aims to fill this gap, by focusing on the most direct issue of relevance for the Central European countries with respect to the EMU - why, how and when these countries are expected to join the EMU. The papers included in this volume study the relationship between the EU accession process of the Central European candidate countries and their involvement in the process of European monetary integration. The book focuses on two main issues. First, are these countries - now or possibly later - a part of the European optimum currency area so that they should belong to the Euro area in the near future? Second, if so, how and when should they undertake necessary adjustments in their monetary and exchange rate policies and join the ERM 2 and the EMU?

This text brings together a number of research studies, all of which examine the behaviour of foreign exchange rates. The main focus of the collection is on empirical characterization of high-frequency exchange rate data. The pioneering studies demonstrate and explain, amongst other things, the regular patterns in intra-day foreign exchange rate activity, the effects of macroeconomic news of rates and analyze the profitability of technical trading rules in these markets. The collection should be of use to students, academics and practitioners who are interested in exchange rate dynamics.

On an unprecedented scale, nations at all income levels and across the political spectrum have initiated privatization programs over the past twenty years. In the course of this privatization movement, microeconomic efficiency arguments have become the standard justification for the divestment of public assets. This book presents an alternate view and argues that short-term macroeconomic considerations are often the true motive behind privatization programs. Why Do Government Divest? The Macroeconomics of Privatization is a comprehensive treatment of the macroeconomic issues of privatization. In addition to reviewing topics in economic growth and efficiency, this book explores the fiscal, monetary, balance-of-payments, and employment aspects of privatization. Several diverse case studies illustrate how the pursuit of such short-term political objectives can reduce the benefits of privatization.

The Bundesbank is one of the world's most powerful and successful central banks, outstanding for its independence in the conduct of monetary policy and for its success in the achievement of relative price stability virtually throughout the post-war era. This collection of essays by the President of the Bundesbank, by former and present Board members and by Heads of Department within the Bundesbank offer a rare inside insight into its operations. The individual contributions to this volume explain the historical, legal and institutional basis of German internal and external monetary policy and highlight the goals of the German central bank and its role in the economy as a whole. The role of the Deutschmark as one of the leading international transaction, reserve and investment currencies is discussed in detail. Students of monetary management and the banking community throughout the world will benefit greatly from a study of this unique volume.

The primary objective of this book is to advance the state of the art in specifying and ?tting to data structural multi-sector dynamic macroeconomic models, and empirically implementing them. The fundamental construct upon which we build is the Ramsey model. A most attractive feature of this model is the insights it provides into the dynamics of an economy in tr- sition to long-run equilibrium. With some exceptions, Ramsey models are highly aggregated - typically single sector models. However, interest often lies in understanding the forces of e- nomic growth across multiple sectors of an economy and on how policy impacts likely play out over time. Such analyses call for moredisaggregatedmodelsthatcanbe?ttocountryorregional data.Thisbookshowshowto: (i)extendthebasicmodeltom- tiple sectors, (ii) how to adapt the basic model to account for policy instruments, and (iii) 't the model to data, and obtain equilibrium values both forward and backward in time from the data points to which the model is initially 't

"Managing the World Economy," while recognizing how much has been achieved since the start of the Industrial Revolution, challenges the view that much better results could not have been attained. It argues that faster economic growth and much better use of the available human talent could have been in the past, and should be in the future, achievable targets. The reasons for the performance of the world economy over the past 200 years being well below the achievable optimum stem mainly from misconceptions about macroeconomic policy, which the book sets out to explain and correct.

This is a new volume in the successful and long-running "CEA Series". The Asian Economy with one common Asian Money is a frontier topic of study in supranational macroeconomics. If the Europeanization of Europe has become a historic reality, the Asianization of Asia cannot be far behind. The paradigm of the European Union (EU) has become a learning model for other continents, especially Asia. In Asia, the process was initiated following the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, when several newly industrialized Asian economies suffered negative rates of growth of gross domestic product (GDP).The three (Japan, China, and Korea) plus five (Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines) came together to became the core members of a new regional group. Their annual meetings became an institutional feature of Asian economic cooperation and regional economic integration. In 2003, the group expanded to become the four (Japan, China, Korea, and India) plus 10 model (the original five plus Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Brunei Darussalam, and Viet Nam). The book examines the prospects of, the justification for, and the implications of the development of a common Asian currency.

The International Papers in Political Economy (IPPE) series explores the latest developments in political economy. This eighth volume focuses on the financial crisis currently gripping the eurozone, examining the root causes and outcomes and the uncertain future of the euro. The volume provides an overview of the crisis and its possible solutions, with a sharp focus on debt sustainability. Individual countries are also analysed in great depth, with four more detailed studies of the economic climate in Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Greece, exploring the implications of the crisis for economic policies of these countries.

This volume contains papers on issues concerning applications of monetary policy in several countries from the perspectives of writers who work in both academic settings and for central banks. The first paper investigates the usefulness of money as indicator of future spending and inflation in the United Kingdom. The next paper provides insights into the operation of the independent Banque de France and compares them to the operation of other central banks. It provides an overview of the common issues that central banks deal with and a brief historic sketch of how the current objective of price stability evolved as the overriding objective of US and European central banks. Other topics include: a summary of historical developments in the Bank of Israel; an examination of whether there is a monetary aggregate useful as a target for real output for Korea; and an examination of the long-run neutrality of money.

This book is one of the first works studying foreign exchange exposure in emerging markets. The analysis takes a broad approach and concludes with a tool that multinatonal companies can apply to improve the effectiveness of their risk management activities against variations in the exchange rate as well as other business risks

A study of budgeting and financial administration in developing countries, which probes reasons for failure and solutions for improvement. The contributors are all involved in relating prescription to practice, and theory to reality in this area. Their essays all seek to provide practical advice to administrators caught up in the ever-changing, unpredictable contemporary environment.

Seeing the 1980s as a period when the rich grew richer but the poor poorer, the essays in this volume explore the disparities in wealth and income, comparing the fortunes of American households with those in other industrialized nations. Demographic and structural changes, saving behaviour, earning gaps, gender, education and race are analyzed in these essays, and methodological and measurement issues explored. The book also discusses policies to counteract growing inequality and proposes remedies.

This book examines the many economic and budgetary aspects of aging, and of an aging population, exploring the welfare state and incentives to retire, the macroeconomic and fiscal implications of aging and the long-run effects of government spending on the elderly. There is also an examination of the changing patterns of retirement behaviour, economic well-being and gender disparities among the elderly, the interaction between private and public provisioning, and aspects of retirement security.

The process of globalization can be seen in the increase of: trade interdependence, the importance of global multinational corporations, mobility and volatility of capital flows (with dangers demonstrated by the recent Mexican crisis). This globalization creates both dangers and new opportunities, both winners and losers. The parallel growth of regional blocs is equally hazardous, particularly for countries left outside the regional blocs. The book, with contributions by eminent experts, describes the impact of both globalization and regionalization and the relationship between these two dominant trends.

The idea that each country should have one currency is so deeply rooted in people's minds that the possibility of multiple and concurrent currencies seems unthinkable. Monetary systems contribute to problems of high unemployment and social distress during financial and economic crisis, so reforms to increase the responsiveness and flexibility of the monetary system can be part of the solution. This book discusses 'monetary plurality', which is the circulation of several currencies at the same time and space. It addresses how multiple currency circuits work together and transform socio-economic systems, particularly by supporting economies at the local level of regions and cities. The book shows that monetary plurality has been ubiquitous throughout history and persists at present because the existence of several currency circuits facilitates small-scale production and trade in a way that no single currency can accomplish on its own. Monetary plurality can improve resilience, access to livelihoods and economic sustainability. At the same time, it introduces new risks in terms of economic governance, so it needs to be properly understood. The book analyses experiences of monetary plurality in Europe, Japan, and North and South America, written by researchers from East and West and from the global North and South. Replete with case studies, this book will prove a valuable addition to any student or practitioner's bookshelf.

The essays in this book examine Zimbabwe's macroeconomic and structural adjustment experiences since independence. Part One analyzes the impact on economic growth, inflation, employment and labor markets. Part Two deals with financial liberalization, and the financial turmoil and currency crisis experienced in the wake of reforms. Part Three examines trade liberalization and its impact on investment and income distribution. Part Four gives sectoral perspectives on the agricultural, manufacturing, and health sectors.

This book offers a collection of studies on various organizations' efficiency, criteria for evaluating efficiency, together with tools and methods for measuring efficiency. The articles included present an interdisciplinary look at efficiency, its essence and the principles of its measurement. They represent an attempt to seek the conceptual boundaries of efficiency, i.e. to clarify this abstract and multidimensional concept including its relation to innovation, competitiveness and intellectual capital. The contributions also identify a broad spectrum of conditions for achieving efficiency in various types of organizations and systems (e.g. health care, hybrid organizations, non-profit organizations), representing various industries (e.g. insurance, banking, tourism, agriculture).