The deflationary Japanese economy is a spurious observation and a precarious political propaganda, which tacitly connects with the fanatic diagnosis urging an inflation-prompting macroeconomic policy. This book provides an overview of the prolonged stagnation of the current Japanese economy. It also examines the politico-economic implications concerning the precarious conversion of Japanese monetary policy and focuses on the vulnerability of the price-sustaining policy concerning the public debt. The book also analyzes and suggests against the acceleration of inflation under the current Japanese foreign exchange system and also suggests that the surge of foreign direct investment towards East Asia is the acute cause of Japanese economy stagnation. The book concludes that to rebuild the economic potential of the Japanese economy, education and fostering the youths are the keys. This book will definitely interest those who are keen to learn more about the relationship between Bank of Japan and the Japanese political parties.

Examining the role of the public sector in small-business debt-capital formation, this book describes current approaches, conceptually and pragmatically, and evaluates their advantages and disadvantages from a variety of perspectives. It also suggests a model for improving our approach to small business capital formation in the United States. Financing small business creation and expansion has always been difficult. Private debt capital providers tend to avoid small business because the latter are preceived to be too risky. Yet because of the importance of small businesses to national economic growth, stability, and innovation, ensuring that these businesses can obtain and effectively use appropriate levels of debt capital is vital to national well-being. How, and to what extent, should the public sector intervene in the debt capital markets to ensure that sufficient capital flows to small businesses? This book is an attempt to answer that question.

This comprehensive survey of transportation economic policy pays homage to a classic work, Techniques of Transportation Planning, by renowned transportation scholar John R. Meyer. With contributions from leading economists in the field, it includes added emphasis on policy developments and analysis. The book covers the basic analytic methods used in transportation economics and policy analysis; focuses on the automobile, as both the mainstay of American transportation and the source of some of its most serious difficulties; covers key issues of urban public transportation; and analyzes the impact of regulation and deregulation on the U.S. airline, railroad, and trucking industries. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Alan A. Altshuler, Harvard University; Ronald R. Braeutigam, Northwestern University; Robert E. Gallamore, Union Pacific Railroad; Arnold M. Howitt, Harvard University; Gregory K. Ingram, The Wold Bank; John F. Kain, University of Texas at Dallas; Charles Lave, University of California, Irvine; Lester Lave, Carnegie Mellon University; Robert A. Leone, Boston University; Zhi Liu, The World Bank; Herbert Mohring, University of Minnesota; Steven A. Morrison, Northeastern University; Katherine M. O'Regan, Yale University; Don Pickrell, U.S. Department of Transportation; John M. Quigley, University of California, Berkeley; Ian Savage, Northwestern University; and Kenneth A. Small, University of California Irvine.

This book addresses the lively interaction between the disciplines of law and economics. The traditional boundaries of these two disciplines have somehow inhibited a full understanding of the functioning of and the evolution of economic and legal systems. It has often been the case that these boundaries have had to be reshaped, and sometimes abolished, before either one of the two disciplines could successfully clarify the real life problems arising from the complex institutions of contemporary societies. The contributions to this volume encompass some of the core controversial issues in law and economics arising from interactions between legal orderings and economic institutions. They include: the nature of institutional and legislative change and the emergence of strong institutional complementarity in legal positions the relationship between private orderings and the role of the State in enforcing contracts and defining property rights the nature and dynamics of endogenous enforcement and the analysis of governance models and corporate ethics. Part of the renowned Siena Studies in Political Economy series, this book will be an essential read for postgraduates and researchers in the fields of law and economics, and the economics of institutions.

First Published in 1972. The London Discount Market is unique, and its existence has contributed more than any other single factor to the elaboration of what may legitimately be called the Anglo-Saxon tradition in Central Banking technique. The bill of exchange has existed for centuries in its classical late Victorian form by many decades. This book assesses how in no other country in the world did the same relationships evolve between the Central institution and the Money Market.

In recent years the understanding of the cognitive foundations of economic behavior has become increasingly important. This volume contains contributions from such leading scholars as Adam Brandenburger, Michael Bacharach and Patrick Suppes. It will be of great interest to academics and researchers involved in the field of economics and psychology as well as those interested in political economy more generally.

Urban transportation problems abound across America, including jammed highways during rush-hours, deteriorating bus service, and strong pressures to build new rail systems. Most solutions attempt either to increase transportation capacity (by building more roads and expanding mass transit) or to manage existing capacity (through HOV restrictions, exclusive bus lanes, and employer-based policies such as flexible work hours). This book develops an alternative solution to urban transportation problems based on economic analysis, but well aware of the political constraints on policymakers. The authors estimate that efficient pricing and service policies could save more than $10 billion in annual net benefits over current practices, but argue that powerful, entrenched political and institutional forces will continue to thwart efficient economic solutions to improve urban transportation. They believe, however, that some form of privatization would likely improve social welfare more than an efficient public sector system. Facing fewer operating restrictions, greater economic incentives, and stronger competitive pressures, private suppliers could substantially improve the efficiency of urban operations and offer services that are more responsive to the needs of all types of travelers. The authors conclude that policymakers have bestowed huge benefits on the public by allowing the private sector to play a leading and unencumbered role in the provision of intercity transportation. Public officials should take the next step and allow the private sector to play a leading role in the provision of urban transportation.

This book analyzes the factors that shape business activity in Republican Turkey and examines the presence of some of these factors in other societies with highly different cultures and histories. Bugra's premise is that neither the institutional framework nor the behavioral regularities of a market economy emerge spontaneously following principles of a universally rational behavior. Rather, these reflect societal characteristics to be shaped by policy measures that ensure the smooth functioning of the market mechanism.

This volume is part of the ongoing collaboration between the RMC series and the Socio-Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations (ISEOR), a French intervention-research think tank co-directed by Henri Savall and Veronique Zardet. Building on an earlier collaboration on the ISEOR approach - Socio-Economic Intervention in Organizations: The Intervener-Researcher and the SEAM Approach to Organizational Analysis (IAP, 2007) - Buono and Savall bring together over 30 talented intervener-researchers to explore and examine the ongoing evolution of the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM). This volume revisits the application of SEAM in the context of intervention challenges in the wake of the recent economic crisis and the disruptivechange that has taken hold across the world. The basic foundation of SEAM - built on the idea of strategic patience, the need to undertake holistic intervention in organizations, and the challenge to get organizational members to listen to themselves (through what they refer to as the mirror effect) - has remained the same. In response to economic and organizational pressures in the current environment, however, there has been a concomitant emphasis on helping client organizations achieve short-term results while still maintaining focus on the long term. Many ideas that have become part of the current discourse within ISEOR today were not as explicitly addressed in the initial volume - from the destructive effect of the Taylorism-Fayolism-Weberism (TFW) virus, to the need to focus on ways to ensure the sustainability of a SEAM intervention, the growing importance of collaborative interactions between external and internal consultants, and the growing importance of cocreating knowledge with client firms and organizations.

The Retail and Food Services sectors play an important role in Singapore. They add to the vibrancy of the economy and contribute to the social well-being of Singaporeans. At the same time, they are often highlighted and scrutinised for their low productivity performance and high reliance on manpower. There is to date a lack of local literature that addresses the issues faced by the two sectors at the enterprise and worker levels.This timely book includes major topics in services productivity in the Singapore context, with emphasis on Retail and Food Services. Topics covered include the key productivity levers of the services sectors: holistic productivity measurement framework, effective entrepreneurship, manpower management, promotion by social media, marketing, costing process and accounting sophistication. These areas are explored through literature reviews and in-depth interviews with companies and consumers. The chapters also include recommendations for policy makers and industry stakeholders. Written in a simple and accessible manner, this book will serve as an insightful guide to researchers, policy-makers, industry practitioners and enterprises and those who are keen to learn from the Singapore experience.

This volume is part of the ongoing collaboration between the RMC series and the Socio-Economic Institute for Firms and Organizations (ISEOR), a French intervention-research think tank co-directed by Henri Savall and Veronique Zardet. Building on an earlier collaboration on the ISEOR approach - Socio-Economic Intervention in Organizations: The Intervener-Researcher and the SEAM Approach to Organizational Analysis (IAP, 2007) - Buono and Savall bring together over 30 talented intervener-researchers to explore and examine the ongoing evolution of the Socio-Economic Approach to Management (SEAM). This volume revisits the application of SEAM in the context of intervention challenges in the wake of the recent economic crisis and the disruptivechange that has taken hold across the world. The basic foundation of SEAM - built on the idea of strategic patience, the need to undertake holistic intervention in organizations, and the challenge to get organizational members to listen to themselves (through what they refer to as the mirror effect) - has remained the same. In response to economic and organizational pressures in the current environment, however, there has been a concomitant emphasis on helping client organizations achieve short-term results while still maintaining focus on the long term. Many ideas that have become part of the current discourse within ISEOR today were not as explicitly addressed in the initial volume - from the destructive effect of the Taylorism-Fayolism-Weberism (TFW) virus, to the need to focus on ways to ensure the sustainability of a SEAM intervention, the growing importance of collaborative interactions between external and internal consultants, and the growing importance of cocreating knowledge with client firms and organizations.

Important and celebrated economist Leland Yeager is one of the architects of the 'Virginia School' of political economy that has produced two Nobel laureates (James Buchanan and Ronald Coase) and the Public Choice movement. A number of top class contributors have here been brought together to produce a festschrift in Yeager's honor - edited by Roger Koppl, and including the aforementioned Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, David Colander, Deirdre McCloskey and Roger Garrison.

This is a full-scale study of prices in medieval Scotland, c. 1260-1542, which includes detailed discussions of coinage, and weights and measures. Nearly 6000 prices are listed individually, average prices are calculated for each commodity, and for groups of commodities such as cereals and livestock. Scots prices are compared with English, and the significance of the data for the economic history of medieval Scotland is analyzed fully. This is the only full study to have been undertaken on Scots medieval prices, and there is no comparable work on Scottish medieval economic history in print.

First published in 1986, this title argues that the successful development of a new microeconomics requires a deeper understanding of methodological individualism and its role in stability analysis. Lawrence Boland expounds a critique of neoclassical models, which, he contends, often fail to include an explicit stability analysis. He demonstrates that much of the sophisticated theoretical literature over the past thirty years can be understood as ad hoc attempts to overcome the deficiencies of such models in the absence of cogent stability analyses. In conclusion, he explains the need to update the theory taught at universities, and to develop a truly individualist version of microeconomics that is consistent with the methodological principles of major neoclassical models. An important contribution to economic methodology, this work is a highly valuable resource for all students and teachers of economics at the undergraduate level.

This book offers extensive and quality research on and original insights into China's internal regional dynamics. It provides a focused analysis of the internal dynamics and regional economic diversity of China covering the eastern, central and western regions through case study, data analysis and review of state-initiated policy measures. The book also identifies and analyses existing and potential challenges facing China's regions in their pursuit of sustainable development. Different regions in China have attempted to achieve fast economic growth and move up the industrial value chain through industrial restructuring and upgrading, inter-regional industrial transfer, urbanization or seeking central government's endorsement of new regional policies. The book examines the difference and similarities among local government policies to boost regional industrial and economic growth and assesses their implications and effectiveness. The author had conducted detailed studies in this field in order to bridge the existing research gap and the book will help to give rise to useful and illuminating discussion.

A typical consumer underestimates the benefits of future energy savings and underinvests in energy efficiency, relative to a description of the socially optimal level of energy efficiency. To alleviate this energy-efficiency gap problem, various programs have been implemented. In recent years, many governments have started providing consumers with subsidies on the purchases of eco-friendly products such as hybrid cars and energy efficient appliances. This book conducts a comprehensive analysis of the environmental subsidy programs conducted in Japan and examines their impacts on consumer product selection, consumer product use, and environmental outcome. The book also proposes recommendations for future environmental and industrial policies. The book's empirical findings will be of interest to those who are researching on and policymakers of environmental and industrial policies.

If you are a student on a business or management degree or diploma and taking a module which includes economics, then this text is written for you. The text covers the core economics that you will need as a business student, but also various business-related topics not typically covered in an introductory economics textbook, such as business organisation and strategy. Numerous cases and examples throughout the text illustrate how economics can be used to understand specific business problems or aspects of the business environment.

This is a major study of economic policy making in Britain between the wars. It provided the first full-length analysis of the early development of fiscal policy as a tool of modern economic management. The central question addressed is how Keynesian fiscal policies came to be adopted by the British government, with particular attention paid to the role of the Treasury and to that of Keynes himself. Drawing extensively on unpublished documents hitherto untapped by economists or historians, Roger Middleton challenges the widely held view of official economic thinking as an ill-informed group of people holding 'the Treasury view' in opposition to Keynes's prescriptions for deficient demand and mass unemployment. Instead he argues that acceptance of Keynesian economics during the Second World War resulted from political and administrative factors as much as a conversion to Keynesian theory. He investigates the form and impact of fiscal policy during the 1930s and, through a constant employment budget analysis, shows convincingly that at times of rising unemployment governments ignore at their peril the effects of automatic stabilizers upon budgetary stability. Historians and economists welcomed this fresh perspective on a debate of historical as well as contemporary importance. Towards the Managed Economy is essential reading for all those interested in the rise and fall of Keynesian demand management. This classic text was first published in 1985.

This volume gathers together key new contributions on the subject of the relationship, both empirical and theoretical, between economic oscillations, growth and structural change. Employing a sophisticated level of mathematical modelling, the collection contains articles from, amongst others, William Baumol, Katsuhito Iwai and William Brock.

Carl Menger, Friedrich Wieser and Eugen Bohm-Bawerk are acknowledged as pioneers in the development of neoclassical economics, as well as being recognized as the founders of the Austrian School of Economics. Neoclassical Microeconomic Theory examines their contribution and compares it with the other branches of neoclassical economics that emerged between the 1870's and 1930's. The author begins by exploring the initial stimulus provided by Carl Menger's work, and then demonstrates how the views of Menger, Weiser and Bohm-Bawerk complement one another and the tensions exhibited between them: the scope and method of economics; theories of choice; price theory; competition; entrepreneurship; and capital formation and distribution.

This important reference book provides a non-partisan introduction to rational expectations, traces its evolution through three decades, and puts a comprehensive annotated bibliography at the reader's fingertips. In the lengthy introduction, Redman examines in a non-technical way what it means to form expectations of variables rationally, explores the concept's ambiguities, and considers the numerous criticisms the concept has raised. She discusses the evolution of the concept with an emphasis on its association with new classical economics, reviews briefly the empirical findings and obstacles to testing rational expectations and puts the development into perspective within a broader scope of economics in general. The second part provides the reader with an annotated bibliography of over 470 significant books and articles on rational expectations. A Reader's Guide to Rational Expectations will be an essential reference guide for all economists who wish to keep abreast of the most recent developments in economic theory.

"A cut above most workplace histories. Looking at the separate but sometimes overlapping development of European and African-American hairdressing from the early twentieth century to the present, Willett shows how race shaped different trajectories for black and white salons."
--"Lingua Franca"

"Offers an unusually comprehensive look at a significant twentieth-century industry and female preoccupation"
--"American Historical Review"

"Refreshing to read a history so firmly historicized and grounded in working-class and Afro-American history"
-- "Journal of Social History"

"Carefully nuanced and [a] compelling history."
-- Nan Enstad, "The Journal of American History"

Throughout the twentieth century, beauty shops have been places where women could enjoy the company of other women, exchange information, and share secrets. The female equivalent of barbershops, they have been institutions vital to community formation and social change.

But while the beauty shop created community, it also reflected the racial segregation that has so profoundly shaped American society. Links between style, race, and identity were so intertwined that for much of the beauty shop's history, black and white hairdressing industries were largely separate entities with separate concerns. While African American hair-care workers embraced the chance to be independent from white control, negotiated the meanings of hair straightening, and joined in larger political struggles that challenged Jim Crow, white female hairdressers were embroiled in struggles over self-definition and opposition to their industry's emphasis on male achievement. Yet despite their differences, black and whitehairdressers shared common stakes as battles were waged over issues of work, skill, and professionalism unique to women's service work.

Permanent Waves traces the development of the American beauty shop, from its largely separate racial origins, through white recognition of the "ethnic market," to the present day.

This text chronicles a change in epistolary persuasion in the 1230's, crystallized at the imperial chancery of Frederick II, Emperor from 1220-1250. There, traditional appeals, premised on authority and harmony, were challenged by letters in which historical circumstances functioned as an integral part of the strategy of persuasion. Based on the close reading of "Artes Dictandi", as well as a series of letters issued from the papal and imperial chanceries, this book explores the theory and practice of medieval letter-writing. Letters are evaluated as verbal acts intended to persuade, with the public as the ultimate arbiter of success. The author argues that the form, proportion and style of letters were contoured by ideology.

Microcredit has been seen in recent decades as having great potential for aiding development in poor developing countries, with Bangladesh being one of the countries which has pioneered microcredit and implemented it most widely. This book, based on extensive original research, explores how microcredit works in practice, and assesses its effectiveness. It discusses how microcredit, usually channelled through women, is often passed to the men of the family, a practice disapproved of by some, but regarded as acceptable by borrowers who have a communal approach to debt, rather than viewing debt as something held by single individuals. The book demonstrates how the rules around microcredit are often seem as irksome by the borrowers, how lenders often charge high rates of interest and work primarily to preserve their institutions, thereby going against the spirit of the microcredit movement, and how borrowers often end up on a downward spiral, deeper and deeper in debt. Overall, the book argues that although microcredit does much good, it also has many drawbacks.