Most scholars agree that during the sixteenth century, the centre of European international trade shifted from Antwerp to Amsterdam, presaging the economic rise of the Dutch Republic in the following century. Traditionally this shift has been accepted as the natural consequence of a dynamic and progressive city, such as Amsterdam, taking advantage of expanding commercial opportunities at the expense of a more conservative rival hampered by outmoded medieval practices. Yet, whilst this theory is widely accepted, is it accurate? In this groundbreaking study, Cle Lesger argues that the shift of commercial power from Antwerp to Amsterdam was by no means inevitable, and that the highly specialized economy of the Low Countries was more than capable of adapting to the changing needs of international trade. It was only when the Dutch Revolt and military campaigns literally divided the Low Countries into separate states that the existing stable spatial economy and port system fell apart, and a restructuring was needed. Within this process of restructuring the port of Amsterdam acquired a function radically different to the one it had prior to the division of the Netherlands. Before the Revolt it had served as the northern outport in a gateway system centred on Antwerp, but with access of that port now denied to the new republic, Amsterdam developed as the main centre for Dutch shipping, trade and - crucially - the exchange of information. Drawing on a wide variety of neglected archival collections (including those of the Bank of Amsterdam), this study not only addresses specific historical questions concerning the commercial life of the Low Countries, but through the case study of Amsterdam, also explores wider issues of early modern European commercial trade and economic development.

This text provides a comprehensive coverage of the core principles of business and management economics. It considers strategic implications of economic theories and principles on business decisions and organisations.

A cantankerously funny view of books and the people who love them. It does take all kinds and through the misanthropic eyes of a very grumpy bookseller, we see them all--from the "Person Who Doesn't Know What They Want (But Thinks It Might Have a Blue Cover)" to the "Parents Secretly After Free Childcare." From behind the counter, Shaun Bythell catalogs the customers who roam his shop in Wigtown, Scotland. There's the Expert (divided into subspecies from the Bore to the Helpful Person), the Young Family (ranging from the Exhausted to the Aspirational), Occultists (from Conspiracy Theorist to Craft Woman). Then there's the Loiterer (including the Erotica Browser and the Self-Published Author), the Bearded Pensioner (including the Lyrca Clad), and the The Not-So-Silent Traveller (the Whistler, Sniffer, Hummer, Farter, and Tutter). Two bonus sections include Staff and, finally, Perfect Customer--all add up to one of the funniest book about books you'll ever find. Shaun Bythell (author of Confessions of a Bookseller) and his mordantly unique observational eye make this perfect for anyone who loves books and bookshops. "Bythell is having fun and it's infectious."--Scotsman "Virtuosic venting ... misanthropy with bursts of sweetness." Guardian "All the ingredients for a gentle human comedy are here, as soothing as a bag of boiled sweets and just as tempting to dip into."--Literary Review "Any reader finding this book in their stocking on Christmas morning should feel lucky...contains plenty to amuse--an excellent diversion"--Bookmunch

This book analyzes the following four distinct, although not dissimilar, areas of social choice theory and welfare economics: nonstrategic choice, Harsanyi's aggregation theorems, distributional ethics and strategic choice. While for aggregation of individual ranking of social states, whether the persons behave strategically or non-strategically, the decision making takes place under complete certainty; in the Harsanyi framework uncertainty has a significant role in the decision making process. Another ingenious characteristic of the book is the discussion of ethical approaches to evaluation of inequality arising from unequal distributions of achievements in the different dimensions of human well-being. Given its wide coverage, combined with newly added materials, end-chapter problems and bibliographical notes, the book will be helpful material for students and researchers interested in this frontline area research. Its lucid exposition, along with non-technical and graphical illustration of the concepts, use of numerical examples, makes the book a useful text.

Personal consumption accounts for two thirds of GDP, yet recent economic events have emphasised our limited ability to translate consumption patterns into policy. Steven Silver analyses this understudied area, exploring the network memberships that emerge from our everyday lives, and the consumption patterns these create.

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 Keyness 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.

In a rapidly shrinking world, governments everywhere find themselves increasingly obliged to deal with international economic issues. When dealing with such issues, their processes of decisionmaking prove strikingly different from those employed in the handling of political or strategic problems. This unique volume by Raymond Vernon, Debora L. Spar, and Glenn Tobin provides a close-up view of the decisionmaking process within the U.S. establishment as it has wrestled with a series of greatly publicized economic issues in recent years. The book synthesizes a literature that has been accumulating over three decades, deriving from this literature a model of the processes of decisionmaking in the field of U.S. foreign economic policy. Five detailed case studies are presented, each covering a major economic plan or agreement that raised significant controversy.

Since the process by which economic decisions are reached involves institutions and characteristics quite different from those encountered in political decisionmaking, Iron Triangles and Revolving Doors emphasizes the persistent regularities to be found in the United States when it comes to economic decisionmaking. The opening chapter offers a model of the characteristics of the foreign economic policymaking process. The next five chapters examine the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement; the battle over the codevelopment of the FSX fighter plane with Japan; the problem of international debt and the creation of the Brady plan; and U.S. trade policy and security export controls in light of the Toshiba-Kongsberg affair. Each of these cases is linked to the overall model of U.S. economic policy presented by the authors. This volume will be an excellent text for university or graduate courses in foreign economic policy, U.S. foreign policy, and international political economy. It will also be of interest to political scientists, economists, government officials, policy analysts, and others looking for insights into economic decisionmaking.

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This book on Classical micro- and macrodynamics includes revised versions of papers which were written between 1983 and 2000, some jointly with co-authors, and it supplements them with recent work on the issues which are raised and treated in them. It attempts to demonstrate to the reader that themes of Classical economics, in particular in the tradition of Smith, Ricardo and Marx, can be synthesized into a coherent whole, from the perspective of formal model building. This is accomplished by means of mathematical techniques which, on the one hand, provide a consistent accounting framework (labor values and prices of p- duction) as point of reference for Classical micro- and macro-dynamics and which, on the other hand, attempt to apply these accounting schemes - or suitable ext- sions of them - by showing their usefulness as tools of analysis of the implications of technological change (labor values) and as potential tools for understanding the dynamics of market prices and of income distribution around their centers of gravity (production prices and the wage-pro't curve).

Most economic evaluations of health care programmes at the moment are cost effectiveness and cost-utility analyses. The problem with these methods is that their theoretical foundations are unclear. This has led to confusion about how to define the costs and health effects and how to interpret the results of these studies. In the environmental and traffic safety fields it is instead common to carry out traditional cost-bene: fit analyses of health improving programmes. This striking difference in how health programmes are assessed in different fields was the original motivation for writing this book. The aim of the book is to tty and provide a coherent framework within cost-bene: fit analysis and welfare economics for the different methods of economic evaluation in the health care field. The book is written in an easily accessible manner and several examples of applications of the different methods are provided. It is my hope that it will be useful both for teaching purposes and as a guide for practitioners in the field. Glenn C. Blomquist, John D. Graham, Rich O'Conor and four anonymous referees provided helpful comments on previous versions of the manuscript. I would also like to express my gratitude to the following persons for helping me to prepare the manuscript: Carl-Magnus Berglund, Carin Blanksvard, Ann Brown, and Ziad Obeid."

In this innovative and very practical book, L. Randall Wray argues that full employment and price stability are not the incompatible goals that current economic theory and policy assume. Indeed, he advances a policy that would generate true, full employment while simultaneously ensuring an even greater degree of price stability than has been achieved in the 1990s. Wray's clearly written argument incorporates incisive historical analysis, modern monetary theory, and an examination of policy alternatives that rises above the doctrinal debates among monetarists, supply-siders and Keynesians over natural or non-inflationary rates of unemployment. Understanding Modern Money proclaims that a labor buffer stock program would guarantee full employment and increase labor productivity and economic growth, while reducing inflationary pressures. Wray's analysis shows that, contrary to popular belief, the dangers of a government budget deficit are largely imaginary. He outlines a program in which the government acts as employer of last resort, thereby providing employment and training to the otherwise unemployed, and stabilizing the wage scale which acts as a brake on inflation. This permits greater price stability without requiring conventional methods such as wage and price controls or countercyclical monetary policy. This ground-breaking book offers important new ways of thinking for policymakers, students, and general readers interested in economics, employment policies, and monetary theory.

Providing the poor with access to financial services is one of many ways to help increase their incomes and productivity. In many countries, however, traditional financial institutions have failed to provide this service. Microcredit and co-operative programmes have been developed to fill this gap. Their purpose is to help the poor become self-employed and thus escape poverty. Many of these programmes provide credit using social mechanisms, such as group-based lending, to reach the poor and other clients, including women, who lack access to formal financial institutions. With increasing assistance from the World Bank and other donors, microfinance is emerging as an instrument for reducing poverty and improving the poor's access to financial services in low-income countries. This book examines the experiences of the Grameen Bank and two other major microcredit programs in Bangladesh in order to quantify the potential and limitations of microcredit programmes as an instrument for reducing poverty and delivering financial sevices to the poor.

These proceedings, from a conference held at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis on October 17-18, 1991, attempted to layout what we currently know about aggregate economic fluctuations. Identifying what we know inevitably reveals what we do not know about such fluctuations as well. From the vantage point of where the conference's participants view our current understanding to be, these proceedings can be seen as suggesting an agenda for further research. The conference was divided into five sections. It began with the formu lation of an empirical definition of the "business cycle" and a recitation of the stylized facts that must be explained by any theory that purports to capture the business cycle's essence. After outlining the historical develop ment and key features of the current "theories" of business cycles, the conference evaluated these theories on the basis of their ability to explain the facts. Included in this evaluation was a discussion of whether (and how) the competing theories could be distinguished empirically. The conference then examined the implications for policy of what is known and not known about business cycles. A panel discussion closed the conference, high lighting important unresolved theoretical and empirical issues that should be taken up in future business cycle research. What Is a Business Cycle? Before gaining a genuine understanding of business cycles, economists must agree and be clear about what they mean when they refer to the cycle."

The aim of the book is to highlight the law and economics issues confronting civil law countries. The following questions are addressed in this volume: to what extent have the existing codes in civil law countries been designed to incorporate economic considerations? Can the modifications made to codified rules over time be explained by a will to react to new economic constraints? Which economic problems are at the root of the revision of codes? And, given that the code is not the only source of law in civil law countries, the volume also explores the relationship between law and economics in the context of both the legislature and the courts.

This book provides a set of critical perspectives on the economic crises of 2000-1 focusing on both the origins and consequences of the crises. Attention is drawn to the role of domestic actors as well as key external actors such as the International Monetary Fund in precipitating the twin crises.
A major objective of the book is to assess the prospects for the future and the authors try to tackle the challenging of whether the twin crises constitute a radical turning point in the Turkish experiment with neo-liberal reforms question from a variety of different perspectives.

Rewarding is Campagna's broad-sweep analysis of US macroeconomic policy under the several political regimes since WW I, evaluating whether these policies were justified, successful, and rational. Impressive historical scholarship brings alive the views and personalities of the times and provides immense detail concerning economic settings and problems of each period. Choice This book examines the various economic problems of the past 70 years and critically evaluates what has been done to solve them. Claiming that previous macroeconomic policies have not been successful largely because of political problems, the book presents a cogent argument for the need for new institutions to conduct rational policies in the future.

Contents:
Chapter 1. Introduction. The Nature of Development Control. Forms of Control. Actors in the Process. The Themes of the Book. Chapter 2: The Origins of Development Control. Medieval Controls. The Development of Markets in Land and the Necessity of Landlord Control. The Extension of Public Controls. Leasehold Agreements and their Efforts. The Privatization of Public Control. The Administration of Control in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Chapter 3: The Failure of Leasehold Control and the Rise of Public Intervention. The Failure of the Leasehold System. Leasehold Reform. By-Law Control and the Extension of Public Control. The Weakness of By-Law Regulation. Chapter 4: Development Control in the Early Planning System. The 1909 Act: Control in the First Planning Schemes. Compensation and Betterment. The Maturing of the System in the 1920s. Circular 1305. Control Over Land-Use. The 1932 Act and Interim Development Control. Discretionary Power. Chapter 5: The 1947 Act: Universal Control of Development. The Purpose of Development Control in the 1947 act. The Nationalization of Development Rights. Compensation and Betterment. Development Control in the 1950s and 1960s. The Reform of the Development Plans System. The 1967 Management Study of Development Control. Chapter 6: The Call for Reforms: Development Control in the 1970s. Property Speculation 1970-73 and its Impact on Development Control. The Dobry Report. The 8th Report of the Expenditure Committee. Chapter 7: Development Control Under the Conservatives. Planning Control and Deregulation. Limiting Local Authority Power. Development Control in the Service of Economic Development. Local and National Policy: Plans v. Government Circulars. Planning Gain. Design Control. Development in the Green Belt. Chapter 8: Development Control in the 1990s: a Plan-Led System? The Planning and Compensation Acts and its Effects. Planning Obligations. The Role of Plans in Development Control. Chapter 9: Conclusion: The Future of Development Control. The Strengths and Weaknesses of British Development Control. Future Directions.

'It provides the best complete discussion I know of the economics of repressed inflation' F.W. Paish. The Economics of Repressed Inflation is a micro-economic analysis of the effects of a partially controlled inflation in a peacetime economy. This analysis suggests that the combination of inflationary pressures and the control of consumption has economic effects on the price level and on the distribution of resources which may be as serious for the economy as the more widely recognized effects of an uncontrolled inflation.

Written during the Second World War against the background of the economic and political futility of the 1930s, this book deals with the changing role of government, and particularly fiscal policy as an instrument for regulating the national income and its distribution. Arguing that the war had an economic basis - the inability of the great industrial nations to provide full employment at rising standards of real income - the book discusses how the failure to achieve a world order in the political sphere must be sought in the facts of economic frustration.

This book is a key example of the emergence of public choice theory by an economist who was to become one of its major exponents. It combines a detailed, critical study of the Monopolies Commission, with an analysis of the economic issues involved in monopoly supervision and control.

Summarizing the facts about the prevailing sizes of industrial firms or plants and the patterns of industrial location in Britain and America, this text also interprets the facts in basic terms such as technical requirements and consumer habits. Examining investment and human resource management, the contrasts and (unexpected) similarities in the industrial structure and government of the two countries are analysed. The book includes new research into the real seat of power in the British joint stock company and compares the results with the realities of the American corporation.

Covering the period 1550-1939, this book examines the history and development of theories of international pricing and trade. The work of the following economists is covered: Locke; Barbon; Vaderlint; Harris; Hume; Smith; Ricardo; Malthus; Bosanquet; Mill; Torrens; Marshall; Haberler; Austin; Stirling; Chevalier; Carines; Jevons; Leslie; Goschen; Bagehot; Wicksell; Sidgwick; Pigou; Viner; Heckscher; Ohlin; Keynes; Taussig; and Pareto.

Technological Infrastructure Policy provides a systematic treatment of technological infrastructure (TI) and Technological Infrastructure Policy (TIP) which are emerging fields of interest both for academic economists and for policy makers in both advanced and developing economies. The specific topics covered include: the role of TI in economic growth and development; the nature and definition of TI; TI-components; the relationships between TI and markets; salient features of TIP. Technological Infrastructure Policy reflects the distinction made between basic and advanced TI. Basic TI involves the collective absorption of foreign technology for subsequent diffusion to domestic firms. Several chapters explicitly deal with this process with an emphasis on the supply of advisory services to small and medium enterprises. Advanced TI involves precompetitive, cooperation research and development in cutting edge technologies undertaken by consortia of firms. Several examples of advanced TIP are given. The novel integration of various conceptual and practical aspects of TI and TIP is the strong point of this book.

The creation of the ECU in 1979 as part of the newly established European Monetary system was greeted with widespread scepticism, few predicted the success it would have in private financial markets. The macroeconomic and microeconomic implications of the ECU and its significance for monetary integration in Europe are considered by a variety of contributors from academics to those in banking circles. Current research is examined and the theoretical and empirical aspects of the emergence of the ECU as a vehicle for European policy-making are considered to provide insights as to its future development.