Economic integration is one of the most noteworthy issues in international economic policy at the end of the twentieth century. The recent examples of the European Union (EU) and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) have raised important questions about the economic integration process and the possible establishment of economic unions in other parts of the world. Against the backdrop of the financial crisis in Europe and prospects of increasing integration in Asia, this volume showcases research from an international array of researchers to provide a basic understanding of the current issues, problems, challenges, and opportunities for achieving integration, addressing both empirical and theoretical aspects of such topics as monetary union, social policy reform and social union, public finance and technology policy. The chapters in Part 1 are focused primarily on economic issues, while Part 2 covers on social policy, the welfare state, and political reforms, with a particular emphasis on the European Union. Among the questions addressed: What are the main determinants and implications for socio-economic integration? How can economic policy influence the growth and integration process? Why is innovation important for regional economic development? What has been the policy response so far and what lessons have we learned from it? And finally, what are our action lines for the future?

This volume contains essays by or about Jacob Mincer who is a founding father of modern empirical labor economics. This personal collection not only examines Mincer 's research, it also assesses the impact of his work on the careers of several important economists and includes portions of Mincer 's correspondence with those scholars. Contributors to this volume include Gary Becker and James Heckman, each of whom is a Nobel Laureate and former Mincer collaborator.

This volume collects original contributions and research in economic theory and the political economy of unemployment and inflation. These essays, collected in honour of John Cornwall, demonstrate the importance of economic institutions for economic outcomes and share his focus on the need for high-level economic theory to be socially relevant. The book includes an intellectual biography of the honouree by Geoff Harcourt and Mehdi Monadjemi, and a full bibliography of his work.

This book takes a multi-disciplinary critique of economics' first principles: the fundamental and inter-related structuring assumptions that underlie the neo-classical paradigm. These assumptions, that economic agents are rational, self-interested individuals, continue to influence the teaching of economics, research agendas and policy analyses. The book argues that both the theoretical understanding of the economy and the actual working of real-world market economies diminish the scope for thinking about the relation between ethics, economics, and the economy. It highlights how market economies may "crowd out" ethical behavior and our evaluation of them elides ethical reflection. The book calls for a more pluralistic and richer approach to economic theory, one that allows ample room for ethical considerations. It provides insight into understanding human motivations and human flourishing and how a good economy requires reflection on the ethical relations between the self, world, and time.

This volume contains a collection of papers by economists which examine the various strategies for cutting costs and improving productivity in higher education in the United States. The dramatic increase in the cost of attending most colleges and universities in recent years has led to increasing concerns regarding college affordability. In addition, with nearly 35 percent of full-time college students failing to receive a bachelor's degree within six years of enrolling in an institution of higher education, the productivity of colleges and universities has also been called into question. Systematic reform of higher education has intensified as a result of the large amount of public and private dollars flowing into it. The chapters in this volume, while recognizing it may be the primary source of the problem, also understand that the political forces behind the subsidization of higher education are unlikely to wane. The contributors examine several areas of possible reform from an economic perspective, including financial aid systems, athletics, and the organization of universities and university systems with an emphasis on identifying the types of reforms that are most likely to result in improvements as well as those that may make things worse. This volume will be of interest to economists, education researchers and policymakers concerned with education reform.

Can Korea realize its dream of matching the economic performance of the G-7 nations in the next 15 years? The marshalling of capital, and dedicated, low-cost labor by authoritarian governments in the past created double-digit economic growth based on imported technology. How can Korea's young democracy, fledgling science, and liberalizing policies compete against a new level of global competition? Korea must build its research capability, accelerate the development of smaller, high-tech firms, and reduce bureaucratic conflict in support of an innovation-based strategy. This book puts Korea's technological challenge in its historical context, documents the reasons past strategies are no longer viable, and presents a blueprint for the next stage in Korean development. Korean economy is one of the most exciting and dynamic ones in the world. Korea finds itself in the position of being regarded as respected competition by nations and firms which earlier regarded it only as a source of low-cost, high-quality production. As the economy has slowed, the Korean government and private sector have faced the challenge of making a change in strategy in regard to its approach to technology, and how the economy is to be managed. This analysis of where Korea has been and how it will deal with technology and economic management is conducted by prominent Korean and American scholars.

This collection of essays covers a diverse set of topics related to household behavior and welfare. Prices play a key role in several of the essays, particularly the distributional implications of price movements, and the effects of changes in relative prices on inequality and poverty. This book shows the shift in the literature on prices from being an exclusively macro topic featuring the study of inflation and cross-country comparisons to one that is firmly rooted in micro theory-based analysis of household behavior. It also includes recent developments in the poverty measurement literature, documenting the shift from the exclusively money metric and unidimensional poverty measures to multidimensional poverty encompassing a wider view of deprivation. Largely, but not exclusively, focusing on India, the book also features global comparisons of welfare. Intra country spatial comparisons along with cross country comparisons of household behavior and welfare feature in several of the essays in this book. The book also compares the effects of selected public delivery schemes in India on the health of its children. It is a useful resource for researchers and serves as reading material for advanced graduate courses on development in India and elsewhere.

This book offers the reader a state-of-the-art overview on theory and empirics of business cycle synchronisation, structural reform and economic integration. Focusing on the ongoing integration process in the euro area and the EU, it analyses the integration process that has taken place since the 1980s and which is marked by the advent of the euro and the substantial enlargement that resulted from the accession of 12 new Member States in East and Southern Europe.

In The Political Economy of Indigo in India, 1580-1930: A Global Perspective Ghulam A. Nadri explores the dynamics of the indigo industry and trade from a long-term perspective and examines the local and global forces that affected the potentialities of production in India and elsewhere and caused periods of boom and slump in the industry. Using the commodity chains conceptual framework he examines the stages in the trajectory of indigo from production to consumption. Nadri shows convincingly that the growth or decline in indigo production and trade in India was a part of the global processes of production, trade, and consumption and that indigo as a global commodity was embedded in the politics of empire and colonial expansion.

Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in financial competition, intensified by globalization. Excessive risk taking leading to inevitable business failures at times reached worrying proportions. A contributing factor arose from the complexities of the derivative and other new markets. This volume attempts to analyze and explain financial market developments at the turn of the millennium with the emphasis on the need for greater responsibility and a more ethical approach to financial decision making.

Sebastian Dullien gives a novel explanation for unemployment and inflation in the Euro-Zone. He argues that unemployment stems from a lack of cooperation between unions and monetary authorities: In an economy with endogenous money as EMU, wage setters are responsible for price stability while the central bank is responsible for the level of output. Cooperation between both actors is necessary for high employment and low inflation. The current institutional set-up is found to be unable to assure cooperation.

This book provides a fascinating analysis of the external and internal linkages that have for decades impeded economic and political reforms in the Arab world, and presents a new and coherent framework that enables policy makers and practitioners to better understand, identify and deal with the root causes of terrorism.

Seventy-two percent of South Sudan's population is under thirty years of age. It is this generation that must create a new South Sudanese identity that is inclusive of all its nationalities. In The Power of Creative Reasoning, author Lual A. Deng shows how the ideas and concepts touted by Dr. John Garang could facilitate the advancement of the ideals of freedom, liberty, and human dignity.

The Power of Creative Reasoning provides an insider's perspective on Garang, a visionary leader who used a combination of strategic thinking and a path-goal approach to resolve complex societal problems. Deng has coined the term "Garangism" as the pursuit of Sudanese commonality with conviction, courage, consistency, and creativity to end all forms of marginalization.

Deng shows how Garang employed symbolic logic in the form of Venn Diagrams to articulate the vision of New Sudan and presents ten power-ful ideas to help the Sudanese as they are facing serious challenges of leadership, democratic governance, sustained peace, economic growth, poverty, and corruption. The Power of Creative Reasoning communicates that the leadership of the new Sudan can manage these challenges by internalizing Garang's ideas.

This book provides an intellectual portrait of Robert Heilbroner. It traces the development of his work and places it within the literature of economic thought. The book finds that Heilbroner is a writer of political economy in the classical sense. His work is more reminiscent of Smith or Marx than of contemporary economic theorists. Heilbroner's economics is built on a solid foundation of social psychology, evolutionary dynamics and human history. This holistic approach affords Heilbroner a wide latitude to define the economic process and the discipline that studies it.

The Chinese government has more control over more wealth than any other government in world history. With the Communist Party controlling the "commanding heights" of the world's second-largest economy, China appears ideally structured to pursue economic statecraft, using economic resources to advance its foreign policy goals. Yet as this book shows, domestic complications frequently constrain Chinese leaders. They have responded with a distinctive approach to economic statecraft: orchestration. Drawing upon extensive field research across Asia and Europe, Orchestration traces the origins, operations, and effectiveness of China's economic statecraft. In this book, James Reilly examines the ideas and institutions at the heart of China's approach to economic statecraft, and assesses Beijing's orchestration in four cases: Myanmar, North Korea, Western Europe, and Central/Eastern Europe. China's unique experience as a planned economy, and then a developmental state, all under a single Leninist party, left Chinese leaders with unchallenged authority over their economy. However, despite successfully mobilizing companies, banks, and local officials to rapidly expand trade and investment abroad, Chinese leaders largely failed to influence key policy decisions overseas. For countries around the world, economic engagement with China thus yields more benefits with fewer costs than generally assumed. Orchestration engages three central questions. First, why does China deploy economic statecraft in this particular fashion? Secondly, when is China's economic statecraft most effective? Finally, what can the China case tell us about economic statecraft more broadly? The findings show how China uses economic resources to exert influence abroad and identify when Beijing is most effective. By exploring the domestic drivers of China's economic statecraft, this book helps launch a new research field: the comparative study of economic statecraft.

The book is the first attempt to offer a holistic and integrated exploration of the political-economic framework underpinning economic regionalism. In doing so it provides a much-needed contribution to the literature on international political economy, international relations and Asian political economy in relation to economic regionalism. The existing literature provides broad generalizations and limited discussion on economic integration (i.e. free trade agreements, FTA) with most analyses of regionalism generally contained to the field of economics with a focus on the welfare implications of FTAs, both for participating countries and the world as a whole. Readers of this book can view economic regionalism from a variety of perspectives with input from Chinese, Japanese and Korean research institutes, business and industry groups, and government officials. Drawing on the considerable country experience and expertise of the authors, the book attempts to unravel the paradox of the market-driven economic globalization process (regionalism) and address a serious gap in the current literature relating to the political-economic characteristics and strategies of China, Japan and Korea in relation to economic regionalism.

This book describes the contrast between the strong economic growth and democratization that have occurred in Africa and its stalling political progress. It presents and discusses fragility as the phenomenon that has caused the state to remain weak and faltering and has led to at least one third of the continent's citizens living in fragile states. Following the examination of the drivers of fragility and the impact of fragility on citizens and neighbouring states, the book discusses capacity building approaches. This part shows how effective states can be built on the African continent, a process that would result in a change from state fragility to state resilience. It is based on lessons learnt from close studies of the nations where the state has been most developed in the region, in Eastern and Southern Africa. The book provides and responds to the most recent and up-to-date information on African development and uses insights of people who have lived and worked in the continent for most of their lives.

"A World Fit for People" examines what impact the many dramatic worldwide changes--political, economic, social, cultural--are having on the lives of people all over the world. A collaborative effort of more than fifty thinkers from countries throughout the world, this remarkable book contains a range of specific proposals intended to convert threats to opportunities and fears to hopes, in order to foster an environment of peace, prosperity, and social harmony.

Part One examines political aspects of changing systems and the links between democracy, development, and the market economy, addressing such issues as rising regionalism, "The West and the Rest," northern policies and southern responses, and the global role of transition countries. Part Two focuses on economic aspects of systemic change. Topics include the role of markets and governments in a free market economy, the plight of developing countries, conditions for aid, and the collapsing vision of global development.

The roles of women and family, ethnic conflict, and religion and, more generally, the human, social, cultural, and ecological aspects of change, are considered in Part Three. The contributors advocate a respect for human rights and ethnic and religious diversity as a means of ensuring a pluralistic society. Part Four, which pays special attention to countries trying to overcome the legacy of "the old order," is devoted to such issues as the integration of underdeveloped countries into the global order; the privatization process; trade and payments reforms; and the risks of rapid transformation.

"A World Fit for People" will serve as a useful guide to international economists, diplomats, political scientists, and students of international affairs.

The two main arguments in the book are to contest the reduction of African civil wars to ethnic conflicts, and to point out the emergence of civil wars as the result of political struggles. The construction of Africa as the "other" has entailed that factors commonly used to explain war elsewhere have been neglected in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book aims at bringing the political power struggle as it evolves around the state to the forefront in analyses of civil wars and societal conflict.

When General Motors and Chrysler declared bankruptcy in 2009 and immediately targeted thousands of dealerships for closure, tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars were on the line. Staring down two of the largest manufacturers in the world - as well as President Obama's Automotive Task Force - a determined triumvirate of car dealers banded together and went to Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard. Alan and Alison Spitzer's fast-paced memoir takes readers behind the scenes as "citizen's lobbyists" traverse throughout all of the major corridors of power in the nation's capital to make their case and bring justice to thousands of small business across the country.

The ability of societies to manage the current transition to an innovation-driven learning economy is determined by the capacity of existing institutions to facilitate the changes underway. Individual and social learning dynamics are critical to the innovation process and essential for developing and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. The crucial issue is: how well suited are the institutions of a region, nation or international regime to the task of coping with the dramatic changes currently underway in the global economy?

This book is a collection of articles that present the most recent cutting edge results on specification and estimation of economic models written by a number of the world's foremost leaders in the fields of theoretical and methodological econometrics. Recent advances in asymptotic approximation theory, including the use of higher order asymptotics for things like estimator bias correction, and the use of various expansion and other theoretical tools for the development of bootstrap techniques designed for implementation when carrying out inference are at the forefront of theoretical development in the field of econometrics. One important feature of these advances in the theory of econometrics is that they are being seamlessly and almost immediately incorporated into the "empirical toolbox" that applied practitioners use when actually constructing models using data, for the purposes of both prediction and policy analysis and the more theoretically targeted chapters in the book will discuss these developments. Turning now to empirical methodology, chapters on prediction methodology will focus on macroeconomic and financial applications, such as the construction of diffusion index models for forecasting with very large numbers of variables, and the construction of data samples that result in optimal predictive accuracy tests when comparing alternative prediction models. Chapters carefully outline how applied practitioners can correctly implement the latest theoretical refinements in model specification in order to "build" the best models using large-scale and traditional datasets, making the book of interest to a broad readership of economists from theoretical econometricians to applied economic practitioners.

Central to the dynamics of India's post-interventionist era has been the performance of its corporate sector. A lot of hope has been placed on its ability to deliver increased growth rates and levels of 'development'. In the light of this view, the author here examines critically the nature of the Indian corporate sector as a specific socio-historical and political-economic formation. Particular emphasis is placed on the nature of corporate profitability in India, its historical roots and its effects on development.

While contemporary academia has successfully exposed the negative effects of power - wars, expansionism, ideological impositions, exportation of domestic economic constraints - less attention is paid to the legitimacy of power exercised exclusionarily to reward only allies, even if not aggressively aimed to harm others. This book explores the exclusionary dimensions of the postwar liberal economic system created under US hegemonic leadership, limitations which deny the US-led postwar economic liberalism legitimacy as a public good and undermined its efficacy.

This work discusses the unequal impact of development policies in East Asia and Latin America. Written by economists and political scientists from Brazil, Chile, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and the US, chapters in the book share a political economy perspective and are the result of collaborative work co-ordinated by researchers at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. In addition to chapters on particular countries and on broad subjects, there are three chapters presenting detailed comparisons of pairs of countries - Brazil and Korea, Indonesia and Mexico, Chile and Malaysia.