This book explores the nature of the flexibility of Estonia's rapid growth, that enables it to swiftly seize opportunities and weather crises without undue cost.The distinguished cast of contributors draws upon detailed data on individual firms and households to explore the basis for Estonia's record as the most successful of all the EU accession countries over the last decade. They conclude that much of this accomplishment can be attributed to the greater flexibility of the Estonian economy, both in price setting in employment and wages, and in consumption. The book also reveals that Estonia is able to adjust to shocks more rapidly and with less real impact than other countries. Coupled with a favourable macroeconomic policy and a good institutional structure and legal framework, this indicates that Estonia will be an excellent example to other countries despite the recent downturn. This unique book will be of great interest to researchers and students of the economics of transition, and will prove invaluable to policy-makers and their advisors in both transition countries and the rest of the EU, as well as graduate students studying microeconomics and monetary policy.

The Economics of Screening and Risk Sharing in Higher Education explores advances in information technologies and in statistical and social sciences that have significantly improved the reliability of techniques for screening large populations. These advances are important for higher education worldwide because they affect many of the mechanisms commonly used for rationing the available supply of educational services. Using a single framework to study several independent questions, the authors provide a comprehensive theory in an empirically-driven field. Their answers to questions about funding structures for investments in higher education, students' attitudes towards risk, and the availability of arrangements for sharing individual talent risks are important for understanding the theoretical underpinnings of information and uncertainty on human capital formation.

In this carefully articulated investigation of the Walrasian general equilibrium model, the author sets forth one perception or explanation of how the microeconomy might operate. The focus is primarily on the behavior of individual consumers, firms and markets under perfectly competitive conditions and on the simultaneous interactions that occur among them. Central to his argument is that all of these elements fit together to form a unified whole for a complete, consistent, and cohesive picture of the perfectly competitive microeconomy. The book provides substantial discussion of the model's methodological background; returns to scale; the transformation surface and the fixed-factor-supply economy; existence, uniqueness, and stability of equilibria; the dynamics of market adjustments; methodological individualism and the theory of price determination; imperfectly competitive markets; welfare economics; and the role of money capital in the operation of the firm. The author suggests that the abandonment of general equilibrium theory by microeconomists is a mistake, and that it is too soon to give up on the possibility of constructing an adequate analysis of uniqueness, global stability, and price determination. Students and scholars of economics will find much of interest in this thorough exploration of the operation of the microeconomy.

Tettered Money: Managing Digital Currency Transactions presents a comprehensive discussion of financial transactions using digital currencies, with the author, Gideon Samid, making the case for their expansion in tethered money. Exploring the technical, legal, and historical aspects of digital money, the author discusses how the emerging technology of money specified for a specific need or to perform a particular task will affect society. The ability to dictate, Samid argues, how money is spent could increase control over our lives and resources, enabling us to practice a certain efficiency that would, in due time, become a pillar of civilization. Informative and thought-provoking, the book describes an evolving future that, in some quarters, has already arrived.

How to sustain our world for future generations has perplexed us for centuries. We have reached a crossroads: we may choose the rocky path of responsibility or continue on the paved road of excess that promises hardship for our progeny. Independent efforts to resolve isolated issues are inadequate. Different from these efforts and from other books on the topic, this book uses systems thinking to understand the dominant forces that are shaping our hope for sustainability. It first describes a mental model - the bubble that holds our beliefs - that emerges from preponderant world views and explains current global trends. The model emphasizes economic growth and drives behavior toward short-term and self-motivated outcomes that thwart sustainability. The book then weaves statistical trends into a system diagram and shows how the economic, environmental, and societal contributors of sustainability interact. From this holistic perspective, it finds leverage points where actions can be most effective and combines eight areas of intervention into an integrated plan. By emphasizing both individual and collective actions, it addresses the conundrum of how to blend human nature with sustainability. Finally, it identifies primary three lessons we can learn by applying systems thinking to sustainability. Its metaphor-rich and accessible style makes the complex topic approachable and allows the reader to appreciate the intricate balance required to sustain life on Earth.