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

Offering a critical reappraisal of the causes of the 1997 Asian crisis and of its impact on the strategies of firms, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how firms have responded to the changes brought about by the crisis, and what the major structural developments have been in the Asian economies since the late 1990s. Through the use of up-to-date statistical data and theoretical tools the contributors convey the excitement that pervades recent developments in Asia.

This book contains a systematic analysis of allocation rules related to cost and surplus sharing problems. Broadly speaking, it examines various types of rules for allocating a common monetary value (cost) between individual members of a group (or network) when the characteristics of the problem are somehow objectively given. Without being an advanced text it o?ers a comprehensive mathematical analysis of a series of well-known allocation rules. The aim is to provide an overview and synthesis of current kno- edge concerning cost and surplus sharing methods. The text is accompanied by a description of several practical cases and numerous examples designed to make the theoretical results easily comprehensible for both students and practitioners alike. The book is based on a series of lectures given at the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen Business School for graduate students joining the math/econ program. I am indebted to numerous colleagues, conference participants and s- dents who during the years have shaped my approach and interests through collaboration, commentsandquestionsthatweregreatlyinspiring.Inparti- lar, I would like to thank Hans Keiding, Maurice Koster, Tobias Markeprand, Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, Herv e Moulin, Bezalel Peleg, Lars Thorlund- Petersen, Jorgen Tind, Mich Tvede and Lars Peter Osterdal."

This authoritative book, bringing together the reports of the Competitiveness Advisory Group, identifies actions to improve European competitiveness politically, economically and socially. The objective is to raise living standards and maintain social cohesion. The Competitiveness Advisory Group has the mission of advising the European Commission and the Heads of State and Government of the European Union. The members of this independent group, which includes leading industrialists, trade unionists, politicians and academics, have adopted a 'bottom-up' approach, seeking to draw lessons from the experience of countries, industries and firms: they rely on 'benchmarking' in order to identify best practice. In the context of increasing interdependence of world trade and consequent globalization of the international economy new policy prescriptions are required for growth and employment, greater efficiency and higher standards of living. In relation to this, the Group discusses the need to close the worldwide technology gap, for Europe to develop deeper relations with the fast growing Asia Pacific region and argues for greater European solidarity in international trade negotiations. Within the European Union itself, it emphasizes the need to achieve the internal market for the free flow of goods, services and people. In addition, it stresses that Europe needs to catch-up, construct and eventually lead the development of the information society in which workers are recognized as a major asset to be invested in. The Group concludes that, although unemployment remains high, European competitiveness now has a brighter future with the movement towards economic and monetary union, and the enlargement of the European Union eastwards. This book will be essential reading for policymakers, government advisers, industrialists and academics concerned with the future of European economies and societies.

Regulations to promote health and safety may be costly relative to the expected health and safety benefits, and may actually have negative effects on health and safety. These negative effects, or costs, may be due to reduced private spending on health and safety, moral hazard, or the creation of new risks. This volume considers the use of costs--benefit analysis, risk--risk analysis, and health--health analysis to determine the mortality cost associated with regulatory expenditures.

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.

Preface - List of Contributors - Abbreviations and Acronyms - Acknowledgements - Scientific Programme Committee - Addresses at the Inaugural Session: Gerardo Ortega, President of the General Council of the Colleges of Economists of Spain, Victor L.Urquidi, President of the International Economic Association, 1980-83, Felipe Gonzalez, President of the Government of Spain - PART 1 INTRODUCTION; V.L.Urquidi - PART 2 PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE PLENARY SESSION; O.Bogomolov, F.Herrera, J.Lesourne, J.P.Lewis, H.M.A.Onitiri, L.A.Rojo & A.Sen - PART 3 COMMENT ON THE PAPERS OF THE PLENARY SESSION; J.Pajestka & L.B.M.Mennes - PART 4 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS OF THE CONGRESS - Addresses at the Closing Session: Abdon Fernandez Cabrero, Dean of the Colegio de Economistas, Madrid, Kenneth J.Arrow, President of the International Economic Association, 1983-86, Victor L.Urquidi, President of the International Economic Association, 1980-83, H.M. The King of Spain, Don Juan Carlos - Index

What is the significance of entrepreneurship in an economy? Scholars have argued that when the market is viewed as a process of perpetual adjustment to various forces, and not as a set of end-state prices and quantities simply arrived at, the role of the entrepreneur comes to the fore. What then are fruitful ways to conceive of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurs both respond to and shape larger forces in the economy? In what ways can political institutions and government regulation shape the decisions made by entrepreneurs, and their responsiveness to consumers? How does the cultural environment influence the types of opportunities that an entrepreneur will notice and act on? Finally, is entrepreneurial behavior strictly limited to activity we see in the market? This edited volume-comprised of chapters by scholars and students studying from the disciplines of sociology and economics-examines entrepreneurship theoretically and applied to various cases. It provides an overview of the economic literature on entrepreneurship and puts forth a framework for understanding the market process, as well the policy implications of government intervention and cultural considerations in the market. It will be of use to any scholars, students, practitioners or policymakers interested in entrepreneurship.

This book analyzes the highly contentious payday lending industry, presenting valuable new data collected during Canada's recent regulatory reviews and demonstrating its relevance to payday lending conversations taking place worldwide. The authors treat the industry with a balanced hand by establishing its importance as an example of financialization and acknowledging the complex impact of payday lending services on low-income and credit-constrained clients. Up-to-date data from an interdisciplinary mix of financial, econometric, legal, behavioral economic, and socioeconomic sources-all in the context of an established Canadian industry-provide both proponents and opponents of payday lending with valuable evidence for their discussions of how much regulation is required to minimize harmful consequences. These insights from Canada expand a US-centric conversation and provide a key resource for the growing list of countries in which the industry is present, from the UK and Poland to South Africa and Australia.

Traditional economic and financial theory is being challenged because normative, prescriptive models derived from it are not predicting the behavior of successful producers, investors, or consumers as well as anticipated. Economists and psychologists are documenting anomalies at the individual level, in financial markets, and in natural economic settings. This opens the larger question of the importance of psychological, sociological, and other phenomena for financial and economic behavior. It even raises the issue of what economic rationality really is. This book surveys and examines the increasing evidence of economic anomalies. It argues for an eventual, comprehensive behavioral framework for economics and finance, but in the interim, indicates how the tendency to use rules of thumb might be taken into account to improve predictions about decision making.

The book is aimed at those, including business executives and students, with intermediate-level preparation in economics or finance. Part I, however, is accessible to those with only an introductory course. Part II should prove useful to professionals in economics and finance who seek a solid introduction to this area. The presentation speculates about possible applications of a behavioral analysis to past and present public policy issues. It closes with guidelines for decision making that suggest how, in the absence of a comprehensive behavioral theory of economics and finance, to improve prediction about decision making by taking into account the heuristics, or rules of thumb, used by decision makers and the biases that those heuristics involve.

Decisions, Games and Markets is designed to stimulate new developments in decision theory, game theory and general equilibrium theory, as well as in their applications to economics. The book is divided into three parts - Decision Theory, Game Theory, and the Theory of Markets. Though its orientation is primarily methodological, some articles are more applied. The consistent use of formal analysis and methodological individualism constitutes the unifying theme of the book. Decisions, Games and Markets will be of considerable interest to both students and teachers of microeconomics and game and decision theory.

Today, industrial organization can hardly be imagined without long-term supply relationships. Firms use this specific type of alliance to acquire or develop (complementary) competencies. These are necessary to be able to survive and be successful in an increasingly dynamic environment. Rather than studying particular features in isolation, this book analyzes the overall, underlying causal structure of long-term supply relationships. De Jong and Nooteboom develop an encompassing theoretical model that brings together important firm- and relation-specific characteristics such as trust, commitment, dependence, uncertainty, dedicated investments, and the exchange of information. The relationships between these main characteristics build the overall, underlying causal structure and determine the nature of long-term supply relationships. The model is based on an extended theory of transactions that includes trust next to opportunism and the development of competencies. The model is tested in the automobile industries of the United States, Japan and Europe. The empirical evidence indicates that there are strong similarities between the three regions in the underlying causal structure. There are differences but these differences seem small, particularly relative to the expectations one may have on the basis of perceived views of systemic differences between Japanese' and Western' contracting. Thus, if indeed there were large differences between the Triad's regions, there now appears to be considerable convergence towards a common underlying logic' of long-term supply relationships. The Causal Structure of Long-Term Supply Relationships is a primary source for scholars and students who want tolearn about industrial organizations in an international perspective. It reviews the main theories, defines many concepts, offers an overview of literature on alliances, and provides insights into the statistical techniques of LISREL. Little background knowledge is required, since concepts are developed as the book progresses.

The post-war emergence of West Germany as the dominant economic power in Europe gave rise to the mythology of the 'economic miracle' and the model policies of the 'social market economy'. This study reveals a mundane reality of class politics in which democratic institutions have become increasingly marginalised by big capital and by an unelected central bank. Economic policy has failed to halt the recent slide into mass unemployment and has reverted optimistically to the plan-less export drives of the fifties. The absence of the earlier advantages, the author claims, bodes ill for the future of 'model Germany'.

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.

Value added reporting provides a better measure of the wealth produced by a firm than other methods, says Riahi-Belkaoui in this research-based analysis. It is more useful generally to investors and other users of accounting information, and to policy makers throughout the financial services and related industries. Empirical studies of its uses in Europe support the author's contention and provide a compelling argument for its use in the United States. An important book for professionals and academics alike.

The quick recovery of Asian economies from the recent global recession can be partly attributed tothe effect of positive aggregate-demand externalitiesin their self-employment sectors, which are overwhelmingly large in these economies. This book undertakes a behavioural analysis of self-employing producers to lay a microeconomic foundation for this effect, particularly in cases where markets are not perfectly competitive, as is the case during aggregate economic contractions. Where some marketsare not perfectly competitive, the market prices and rates fail to be relevant and internal prices and rates are instead formed toaid theorganization of family firm and consumption choice. The effects of these externalitiesare explored in this volume; the authors undertake a detailed analysis of records of labour force surveys, national incomes and product accounts of selected economies.

This book focuses on the factors that support the strengths of international airlines in general and the Asian airline carriers in particular. Defining the quality of human capital as the level of education and the competence of airline employees, it analyzes the efficiency of 39 airlines in various regions, both in terms of production and cost structures. It argues that, despite Asia's well-developed and globally competitive manufacturing sector, aided by open market practices, its overall service sector still lags far behind more advanced economies. As this does not stop Asia-based carriers from generally being more efficient than their counterparts in Europe and North America, the book investigates how competitiveness analysis of the airline industry can help Asian policymakers better prepare for the liberalization of the service sector, given how crucial this aspect is for the future growth of the Asia-Pacific region. Efficiency and Competitiveness of International Airlines offers a valuable resource for policymakers, airline employees, and researchers and students of microeconomics.

In July 2010, the US Treasury finally released its delayed currency report, which said that China's currency is undervalued, but stopped short of claiming that China is manipulating its exchange rate. This book was first published in ebook form on VoxEU to coincide with the original April 2010 deadline for the Treasury report. At that time commentators such as Paul Krugman, as well as members of Congress, were arguing the case for getting toughA" with China over its exchange rate manipulation. The release of the Treasury report in July appeared to bring a measure of calm to the debate, but this was shortlived and the controversy has erupted again this month. The 28 short essays in this book provide the best available economic, legal, political, and geopolitical thinking on the causes and likely consequences of the dispute.

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.

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.