The internet and the electronic economy are a technological revolution whose secular importance is apparent. The internet eliminates the temporal and spatial constraints on the exchange of information. It changes deeply the world of production and of labour. It transforms the exchange relationships between producers and consumers as well as between the suppliers within the supply-chain. The electronic economy is able to generate more accurate con sumer profiles and, therefore, a more powerful and effective marketing di rected to the individual consumer. There is no industry that is not undergoing thorough changes caused by the internet. The volume at hand gives an analysis of the internet revolution. It covers questions reaching form the highly controversial thesis of the end of property rights in the internet caused by the non-rivalry of the "consumption" of in formation to questions regarding the repercussions of the internet on our understanding of the human person. Technological changes like the introduction of the electronic economy pose the question of how to handle it and how to manage reasonably its ethi cal problems and dilemmas. The ethical problems and the business ethics of the electronic economy in the fields of production and labour, of consump tion, and in handling trust and the abuse of trust are analysed by the contribu tions from applied ethics and business ethics."

Microeconomic Reform in Britain: Delivering Enterprise and Fairness provides a comprehensive guide to the extensive microeconomic reforms implemented over the last six years in the UK. Building on the foundations of monetary and fiscal reform, the reforms in microeconomic policy described in this volume provide the framework for improving Britain's overall productivity, expanding national wealth and protecting the environment.

In this book, the authors investigate structural aspects of no arbitrage pricing of contingent claims and applications of the general pricing theory in the context of incomplete markets. A quasi-closed form pricing equation in terms of artificial probabilities is derived for arbitrary payoff structures. Moreover, a comparison between continuous and discrete models is presented, highlighting the major similarities and key differences. As applications, two sources of market incompleteness are considered, namely stochastic volatility and stochastic liquidity. Firstly, the general theory discussed before is applied to the pricing of power options in a stochastic volatility model. Secondly, the issue of liquidity risk is considered by focusing on the aspect of how asset price dynamics are affected by the trading strategy of a large investor.

The format of this monograph is three essays, which we arrived at after spending a year writing over one hundred pages of what we even tually realized was a tedious reworking of old material. So we started over determined to write something new. At first we thought this approach might not work as a coherent mono graph, which is why we chose the essay format rather than chapters. As it turns out, there is a common thread-namely the directional distance function, which also gave us our title. As you shall see, the directional distance function includes traditional distance functions and efficiency measures as special cases providing a unifying framework for existing productivity and efficiency measures. It is also flexible enough to open up new areas in productivity and efficiency analysis such as environmen tal and aggregation issues. That we did not see this earlier is humbling; a student at a recent conference raised his hand and asked 'Why didn't you start with the directional distance function in the first place? In deed. This manuscript is intended to make up for our earlier oversights. This monograph contains papers coauthored with Wen-Fu Lee and Osman Zaim and one paper written by two former students, Hiroyuki Fukuyama and Bill Weber. We thank them for their contributions. An other former student, Jim Logan (Logi) read and critiqued the manu script for which we are grateful."

"If you're as interested in Japan as I am, I think you'll find that The Power to Compete is a smart and thought-provoking look at the future of a fascinating country." - Bill Gates, "5 Books to Read This Summer" Father and son entrepreneur and economist search for Japan's economic cure The Power to Compete tackles the issues central to the prosperity of Japan and the world in search of a cure for the "Japan Disease." As founder and CEO of Rakuten, one of the world's largest Internet companies, author Hiroshi Mikitani brings an entrepreneur's perspective to bear on the country's economic stagnation. Through a freewheeling and candid conversation with his economist father, Ryoichi Mikitani, the two examine the issues facing Japan, and explore possible roadmaps to revitalization. How can Japan overhaul its economy, education system, immigration, public infrastructure, and hold its own with China? Their ideas include applying business techniques like Key Performance Indicators to fix the economy, using information technology to cut government bureaucracy, and increasing the number of foreign firms with a head office in Japan. Readers gain rare insight into Japan's future, from both academic and practical perspectives on the inside. Mikitani argues that Japan's tendency to shun international frameworks and hide from global realities is the root of the problem, while Mikitani Sr.'s background as an international economist puts the issue in perspective for a well-rounded look at today's Japan. * Examine the causes of Japan's endless economic stagnation * Discover the current efforts underway to enhance Japan's competitiveness * Learn how free market "Abenomics" affected Japan's economy long-term * See Japan's issues from the perspective of an entrepreneur and an economist Japan's malaise is seated in a number of economic, business, political, and cultural issues, and this book doesn't shy away from hot topics. More than a discussion of economics, this book is a conversation between father and son as they work through opposing perspectives to help their country find The Power to Compete.

Social Policy has been a key dimension of dynamic economic growth in East Asia's 'little tigers' and is also a prominent strand of their responses to the financial crisis of the latte 1990s. This systematic comparative analysis of social policy in the region focuses on the key sectors of education, health, housing and social security. It sets these sectoral analyses in wider contexts of debates about developmental states, the East Asian welfare model and globalization.

The book presents the basic models of the most important economic agents (households, firms, the banking system etc.). The influence of ethics on the decisions of persons is discussed within the context of mutual influences of one person on another. It is shown that this leads to a Markov chain which converges to a final situation which in many cases is independent of the initial conditions. Different types of decisions are considered: those in personal life, those on the general political and economics constitution and on the current economic policy, and those of normal economic routine (consumption, investment etc.). The reverse influence is treated as well: that of the economic influence on ethics. In the first volume, the conceptual basis of the whole system is laid. The book helps the reader to understand the interdependence of humanities and economics and how to model this interdependence in economics.

By exploring the price dynamics and business cycle of the Italian economy with reference to the most important international events, this text sheds new light on the country's current situation. Using a long-term analytical framework underpinned by principal theoretical approaches, the analysis places particular emphasis on price dynamics. The text begins with the country's post-war difficulties and then covers the boom-and-bust period of the "Italian miracle," before moving onto the lasting inflationary process of the 70s and 80s, and finally the financial crisis of the 90s and the beginning of the new century. The book also investigates the positive and negative aspects of policy measures. An important implication of this approach is that it assesses the different evolutionary aspects of the Italian economic structure, which in turn gives way to an analysis of the dynamic behaviour of policy makers and social partners.

China has become one of the biggest exporters of goods into the global economy. Yongjin Zhang offers a detailed account of the political and economic context, both domestic and international, in which China's nascent global businesses began to emerge in the late 1980s. The analysis of changing policy regimes for China's outward investment is combined with an institutional investigation of the rise and operation of three prominent Chinese multinationals. The first systematic study available of the political economy of China's emerging global businesses, this book fills a significant gap in the literature on the transformation of the Chinese economy.

This is a history-though, intentionally, a brief history-of the rise of law and economics as a field of thought in the U.S. college and law school academy, though the field has expanded to Europe and South America and will expand further as other legal systems develop. This book explains the origins of the field and the sources of its growth during its formative period. It describes the intellectual roots of the field, and the field's relationship to the understanding of the role of the legal system in directing the functioning of the economy. It describes the effect of the Great Depression and the expansion of governmental power on advancing the functional approach. The book then addresses the work of Aaron Director, during the late 1950s, on focusing economic analysis as a means of understanding the effects of the legal and regulatory system on the allocation of resources in the society. Then it turns to the subsequent intellectual founders of the field-Ronald Coase, Guido Calabresi, and Richard Posner-and attempts to explain the significance of their work. It also discusses the efforts of Robert Bork and Henry Manne toward the influence of law and economics on public policy. The book ends with the founding of the American Law and Economics Association in 1991. This is an essential companion to law and economics texts for undergraduate law and economic students and, especially, a general supplement to first-year casebooks for law school students.

Strategic delegation is a widespread phenomenon in economic and social systems. In many situations the main interested party benefits from appointing a delegate to take action that the principal - were he playing - could not credibly take. This book contributes to the literature studying such a phenomenon, by extending the analysis of its implications for firms' strategy in product markets, by investigating how it may affect the trade union's activity, by studying its dynamic influence on the evolution of strategic interactions that the delegating party is involved in. The welfare effects of strategic delegation turn out to be uncertain and crucially depend on the features of the situation considered, both in static and in dynamic frameworks.

This volume is a collection of selected papers using the framework of inframarginal analysis of the division of labour held at Monash University on 6-7 July 2001. This framework, pioneered mainly by Professor Xiaokai Yang, (with joint researches involving all the three editors and many of the authors), has been recommended by Professor James Buchanan (Nobel Laureate in Economics) as the most important analysis in economics in the world today.

In modern economies a substantial proportion of resources is increasingly allocated to transaction costs. An improvement in the definition of transaction costs to include both the information role and efficiency role requires an integration of the approaches of positive economics and normative economics. In The Economics of Transaction Costs P.K. Rao provides a comprehensive analytical treatment of the subject and suggests a few directions for formal economic models.

The realizationoftheresearch project documented in thisstudy wouldnot have been possible without the kind support and help of several people. I want totaketheopportunitytoexpressmygratitudetothem. Myfirstand foremost thanks go to my thesis supervisor Claude Hillinger. He steadily supported my work with a host of ideas, criticism and encouragement. He has been influential and inspiring in his comments and criticism on alllev elsofdevelopment ofthisdissertation. My sincerethanksare dueto Ulrich Woitek, teachingmefromtheverybeginninginprogrammingandlettingme participate from his expert knowledgeintimeseriesanalysis. UlrichWoitek and Michael Reiter kindly provided me with software and encouraged me throughoutthe whole dissertation project with their comments and in dis cussionsduringtheir staysat Munichand via e-mail. Theyhavehelped me totake many hurdles, particularly in the early stages ofthe project. I am indebted tomyco-supervisor Stephan Klasen forhisengagement andopen minded interest in mythesis. To makethe present work more readable, my friendsin the US, JeanCzerlinskyandRadovanVadovic, madegreat efforts to correct language and style. lowe a great debt of gratitude to them. I alsothankReginaRiphahnandBurkhardHeer fortheir encouragement and helpful guidance. Special thanksgo to Barbara Dluhosch, JakobdeHaan, Burkhard Heer andGerhardIlling. Astheirteachingassistanttheyallgavemetheresources andnecessaryscopeofdevelopmentformydissertationprojectinastimulat ingenvironmentattheEconomics DepartmentoftheUniversity ofMunich. Ithank BeatriceDumpertand BrigitteGebhardfor their maternal motiva tional support and help in administrative matters. Finally, I am indebted to MaximilianFreier for hisreliablesupportand forcross-readingnumerous preliminarydraftsofthethesis. I gratefully acknowledge the Bavarian Young Scientists Grant (Pro motionsstipendium nach dem Gesetz zur Forderung des bayerischen wis senschaftlichen Nachwuchses) for financial support during the first years of my dissertation project. Munich, August 2002 BerndSilssmutli Contents 1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. 1 BusinessCycle Research:21st CenturyPerspective 1 1. 1. 1 TheClassicView. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1. 1. 2 From CBC toRBC School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."

This book presents a comprehensive view of the financial and non-financial consequences of criminal behavior, crime prevention, and society's response to crime. Crime costs are far-reaching, including medical costs, lost wages, property damage and pain, suffering, and reduced quality of life for victims and the public at large; police, courts, and prisons; and offenders and their families who may suffer consequences incidental to any punishment they receive for committing crime. The book provides a comprehensive economic framework and overview of the empirical methodologies used to estimate costs of crime. It provides an assessment of what is known and where the gaps in knowledge are in understanding the costs and consequences of crime. Individual chapters focus on victims, governments, as well as the public at large. Separate chapters detail the various methodologies used to estimate crime costs, while two chapters are devoted to policy analysis - both cost-effectiveness and benefit-cost analysis. The second edition is completely updated and expanded since the first edition in 2005. All cost estimates have also been updated. In addition, due to a significant increase in the number of studies on the cost of crime, new chapters focus on the costs to offenders and their families; white-collar and corporate crime; and the cost of crime estimates around the world. Understanding the costs of crime can lead to important insights and policy conclusions - both for criminal justice policy and other social ills that compete with crime for government funding. Thus, the target audience for this book includes criminologists and policy makers who are seeking to apply rigorous social science methods to assist in developing appropriate criminal justice policies. Note that the book is non-technical and does not assume the reader is conversant in economics or statistics.

BE 2002 is the second in a series of conferences on eCommerce, eBusiness, and eGovemment organised by the three IFIP committees TC6, TC8, and TCll. As BE 2001 did last year in Zurich, BE 2002 continues to provide a forum for users, engineers, and researchers from academia, industry and government to present their latest findings in eCommerce, eBusiness, and eGovernment applications and the underlying technologies which support those applications. This year's conference comprises a main track with sessions on eGovernment, Trust, eMarkets, Fraud and Security, eBusiness (both B2B and B2C), the Design of systems, eLearning, Public and Health Systems, Web Design, and the Applications of and Procedures for eCommerce and eBusiness, as well as two associated Workshops (not included in these proceedings): eBusiness Models in the Digital Online Music and Online News Sectors; and eBusiness Standardisation - Challenges and Solutions for the Networked Economy. The 47 papers accepted for presentation in these sessions and published in this book of proceedings were selected from 80 submissions. They were rigorously reviewed (all papers were double-blind refereed) before being selected by the International Programme Committee. This rejection rate of almost 50% indicates just how seriously the Committee took its quality control activities.

Experimental Economics has experienced a steadily growing interest by economists during the last decade. This may not surprise since laboratory and field experiments obviously provide a further valuable source of empirical evidence of economic behavior besides statistics, econometrics, polls, interviews and simulations. In an overview of the recent developments in Experimental Economics, the present book concentrates on three central themes standing in the actual research focus: bargaining, cooperation and election markets. For each one of these topics the volume presents several state-of-the-art survey articles by experts in the field, accompanied by detailed comments. While the experimental approach sheds new light on the microeconomic standard topics of bargaining and cooperation, the election market approach as a new field may provide better forecasts for political elections - and for soccer World Championships.

Risk Management and Business Continuity are essential for the competitive capacity of any international corporation. The temporary unavailability of technology and services can endanger the existence of any company. It is cruical to develop an international strategy to deal with these problems. This book provides theoretical analysis and practical solutions on these topics.

This book has its focus on the dynamics of oligopoly games. Several contributions show how easily the unique Nash equilibria in some most traditional oligopoly models may lose stability, giving way to complex phenomena, such as periodic/chaotic processes, and to multi stability of coexistent attractors. The bifurcations producing these phenomena are studied by means of recently accumulated global methods, based on the use of critical curves. These tools are explained in a separate methodological chapter. The book also contains some historical background of the present theory. In this way the book becomes suitable also as an advanced text for industrial organisation courses. The various models presented in the book focus both classical Cournot types, and Hotelling`s "ice cream vendor" problems, including location choice. The author list comprises some of the most prolific contributors to current dynamic oligopoly modelling.

We live in a culture of credit. As wages have stagnated, we've seen a dramatic surge in private borrowing across the western world; increasing numbers of households are sucked into a hopeless vortex of spiralling debt, fuelled by exploitative lending. In this book Johnna Montgomerie argues that the situation is chronically dysfunctional, both individually and collectively. She shows that abolishing household debts can put an end to austerity and to the unsustainable forward march of debt-dependent growth. She combines astute economic analysis with the elements of an accessible guide to practical policy solutions such as extending unconventional monetary policy to the household sector, providing pragmatic and affordable refinancing options, and writing off the most pernicious elements of household debt. This framework, she contends, can help us to make our economy fairer and to tackle both the housing crisis and accelerating inequality.

This book enables the reader to understand labour markets and shows how to forecast the need for skills in developing countries. The forecasting of these skills has recently fallen into disrepute with the notion that all forecasting techniques that assessed the labour market requirements of the future were dubious and that the future lay with labour market analysis and labour market signalling. This book disputes this but acknowledges that the models of the past should be supplemented with better data and improved labour market analysis and in doing so produces its own model for analysing the needs of labour markets.

This book uses a unique survey of manufacturing firms in Zimbabwe to analyze firm-level responses to economic liberalization. The focus on labor and financial markets, investment behaviour, the determinants of entrepreneurship, productivity growth and efficiency, export performance, firm growth, and resource shifts between different manufacturing activities. Understanding these determinants is crucial to evaluating the success or failure of structural adjustment.

This book uses a unique and extensive data survey of manufacturing firms in Zimbabwe to analyse firm-level responses to economic liberalization. The focus on labour and financial markets, investment behaviour, the determinants of entrepreneurship, productivity growth and efficiency, export performance, firm growth, and resource shifts between different manufacturing activities. Understanding these determinants is crucial evaluating the success or failure of structural adjustment.

How can we explain the persistent worsening of the income distribution in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s? 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 behaviour, and the macroeconomics of household saving behaviour. Specifically, 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.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Electronic Commerce, WELCOM 2001, held in Heidelberg, Germany in November 2001.The 17 revised full papers presented together with two invited contributions were carefully reviewed and selected from 34 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on trade and markets, security and trust, auctions, profiling, and business interaction.