A survey of past financial crises, starting with the great banking collapses of the interwar period. The current turmoil has prompted a number of questions regarding both its origins and ways to avoid its repetition. The historical background and the evolving institutional framework of banking and financial systems are at the center of this book.

This book explores the concept of a map as a fundamental data type. It defines maps at three levels. The first is an abstract level, in which mathematic concepts are leveraged to precisely explain maps and operational semantics. The second is at a discrete level, in which graph theory is used to create a data model with the goal of implementation in computer systems. Finally, maps are examined at an implementation level, in which the authors discuss the implementation of a fundamental map data type in database systems. The map data type presented in this book creates new mechanisms for the storage, analysis, and computation of map data objects in any field that represents data in a map form. The authors develop a model that includes a map data type capable of representing thematic and geometric attributes in a single data object. The book provides a complete example of mathematically defining a data type, ensuring closure properties of those operations, and then translating that type into a state that is suited for implementation in a particular context. The book is designed for researchers and professionals working in geography or computer science in a range of fields including navigation, reasoning, robotics, geospatial analysis, data management, and information retrieval.

State Capacity in East Asia examines states and state capacity in four countries that have experienced rapid economic growth over several decades. The book argues that states still matter, although modern market forces and transnational corporations exert tremendous pressures. The capacity of the East Asian state to adapt and develop new institutions is empirically illustrated as well as theoretically contextualized.

This book looks at entrepreneurship and innovation as ways out of the economic crisis in Europe and other regions, and examines the main theoretical issues and practices related to this analysis. The volume addresses such questions as: From an institutional perspective, how do economic crisis conditions affect different types of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship? Is it useful for public policymakers and entrepreneurs to understand the basic characteristics of entrepreneurial activity, relations between the institutional environment and entrepreneurship and among entrepreneurship, innovation and social change? Featuring case studies from several industries and countries, and a variety of methodological, theoretical, and empirical approaches, the authors build a compelling narrative on the dynamics of entrepreneurship and innovation as drivers of economic growth and organizational renewal. They demonstrate that the strategic and operational relationships that entrepreneurship creates within and outside the enterprise are a fundamental route for leading and mobilizing economic and social resources that permit innovation at the organizational level and in relationships with suppliers, customers, and other stakeholders- in turn, enabling technological innovation, creating new revenue streams through new productive activities and new demand, and ultimately facilitating emergence from economic crisis. The authors consider social, gender, and generational aspects of entrepreneurship, as well as the institutional conditions necessary to promote entrepreneurial activity."

The book examines the economic crisis in the European Union and its consequences for European integration and the member states. Discussing the provisions introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, from the effects of macroeconomic monitoring to the restraints produced by the Fiscal Compact, it offers an analysis of the European Union's current situation and the effects of the measures adopted to manage the crisis, also making reference to how Europe is perceived by its citizens. Moreover, the chapters offer thoughts on the European integration process, in particular the effects that the policies adopted to tackle the crisis have had on the economic and financial sovereignty of the member states. This detailed examination of the situation of the EU between the Treaty of Lisbon and the Fiscal Compact is characterized by an original multidisciplinary approach that offers an articulate reflection on the criticalities that affect the actions of both European and national institutions.

The British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou (1877-59) reconceptualized economics as a theory of economic welfare and a logic of policy analysis. Misconceptions of his work abound. This book, an essay in demystification and the first reading of the entire Pigouvian oeuvre, stresses his pragmatic and historicist premises.

Derivatives and Development engages recent efforts to deploy derivatives as tools for economic development. Even as these complex financial instruments are indicted for their role in the global food and financial crises, they are elsewhere hailed as innovative solutions to poverty and insecurity in rural Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The critical analysis undertaken here reveals that derivatives leave much to be desired as development tools. Breger Bush argues that derivatives markets work in the development context as engines of inequality and instability, aggravating poverty among those they are purported to help and highlighting some of the dangers of neoliberal globalization for the poor.

This study examines the collective progression of Islamic politics between points of dissent and positions of power. It brings about a more a serious understanding of Islamic politics by critically tracing the pathways by which Islamic politics has been transformed in the Middle East and Asia.

The vast oil resources in Saudi Arabia have for decades encouraged a generous system of oil subsidies, making the Kingdom one of the leading countries in the world with the cheapest domestic price of oil. Such subsidies have, however, encouraged inefficient utilization of oil, which is largely consumed in the power, water and transportation sectors, contributing substantially to CO2 emission in the country. These problems are exacerbated by demographic dynamics, urbanization, changes in income and consumption patterns, and industrialization. On current trends of domestic consumption patterns, Saudi Arabia will consume the whole of the oil it will produce by 2030, which will reflect negatively on the financial capacity of the government to execute its development programs. It is this revenue constraining concern, rather than ecological challenges, that has started to attract policy attention in Saudi Arabia. This book gives a unique perspective on these challenges by looking at them as investment opportunities, not financial constraints on the government budget. Itsets out to examine the nature and extent of the energy and environmental challenges facing Saudi Arabia, and to explore various options for turning these challenges into profitable investment opportunities that could create jobs, boost income, develop capability in clean energy technology and promote environmental sustainability."

This collection addresses the path to a new prosperity after the Great Recession. The contributors ask that if the 2008 crisis proved the unsustainability of the neoliberal development model, what does well-being mean today in advanced western democracies? What kind of production and consumption will be a feature of the coming decades? What are the financial, economic, institutional and social innovations needed to reconcile economy and society after decades of disembedding? The Crisis Conundrum offers an interdisciplinary interpretation of the crisis as an opportunity to reform capitalism and consumption societies, structurally as well as culturally. Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, economics, development studies and European studies, with find this book of interest.

European social democracy is in crisis. In the last decade it has ceased to be about either society or democracy. The authors explore its values, how it can be revived and what kind of political economy it requires to thrive. This book includes a foreword by the two leaders of the 'Building the Good Society' project, Andrea Nahles and Jon Cruddas.

New York Times Bestseller Renowned political scientist Ian Bremmer draws lessons from global challenges of the past 100 years-including the pandemic-to show how we can respond to three great crises unfolding over the next decade. In this revelatory, unnerving, and ultimately hopeful book, Bremmer details how domestic and international conflicts leave us unprepared for a trio of looming crises-global health emergencies, transformative climate change, and the AI revolution. Today, Americans cannot reach consensus on any significant political issue, and US and Chinese leaders behave as if they're locked in a new Cold War. We are squandering opportunities to meet the challenges that will soon confront us all. In coming years, humanity will face viruses deadlier and more infectious than Covid. Intensifying climate change will put tens of millions of refugees in flight and require us to reimagine how we live our daily lives. Most dangerous of all, new technologies will reshape the geopolitical order, disrupting our livelihoods and destabilizing our societies faster than we can grasp and address their implications. The good news? Some farsighted political leaders, business decision-makers, and individual citizens are already collaborating to tackle all these crises. The question that should keep us awake is whether they will work well and quickly enough to limit the fallout-and, most importantly, whether we can use these crises to innovate our way toward a better world. Drawing on strategies both time-honored and cutting-edge, from the Marshall Plan to the Green New Deal, The Power of Crisis provides a roadmap for surviving-even thriving in-the 21st century. Bremmer shows governments, corporations, and every concerned citizen how we can use these coming crises to create the worldwide prosperity and opportunity that 20th-century globalism promised but failed to deliver.

Bridging a gap between economic theory and observed reality, this book examines the most visible central banks, the move to monetary union in Europe, the IMF's new role, the rise of managed market economies, and the elevated importance of central banks. In central banking, attention has often turned to the management of liquidity crises and the attainment of economic stability. In the global economy, the respective market economies are more interconnected, and information regarding crises in one part of the industrialized world is rapidly communicated to other nations, giving the crises themselves a more immediate impact. The Asian debt and liquidity crises of 1997-98 were seen as having an impact on the United States, the European Union countries, and even China. In the effort to attain international stability, the information emanating from central banks at a policy level is crucial. This book aims to depict an ideal central bank for a globally connected country.

Two developments heighten the need for such an operations/policy-based ideal: the lessons learned from the European moves to monetary union and the establishment of the European Central Bank, and the increased awareness of banking problems in Asia during the 1997-98 debt and liquidity crises. This timely work will be of interest to economists, bank officials, government policy makers and political scientists.

In a unique undertaking, Andrew Yuengert explores and describes the limits to the economic model ofthe humanbeing.He develops a careful accoun of human action and motivation known as a background account that is both non-mathematical and comprehensive. Approximating Prudence provides an alternative account of human choice, to which economic models can be compared.Yuengert emphasizes those aspects which are most likely to contrast with the economic account of choice: the nature of the ends of practical wisdom; the necessity to act in highly contingent environments; practical wisdom as virtue; the synthetic character of choice; and the unformulability of practical wisdom. He then presents a clear account of practical wisdom, emphasizing those aspects which resist mathematical modeling. Economists have attempted in the past to explain human choice based on the boundaries of practical wisdom, but this book will map the limits of those economic models.

People's basic values are shaped by major changes in environmental conditions, such as scarcity of resources and hostility in the political and socioeconomic system. Based on the extensive research of the International Consortium for Management Studies, this work examines the values and perceptions of a variety of issues in eight countries with different socioeconomic and political systems. Cultural, family, and workplace values are among some of the critical issues discussed. A sequel to "Cross-Cultural Analysis of Values and Political Economy Issues" (Praeger, 1994), specialists in developmental, regional, and political economics will find this a timely contribution to understanding emerging developments in diverse cultures.

This book introduces a radically spatialised approach to knowledge creation and innovation. Reflecting on an array of European urban and regional developments, it offers an updated notion of milieu as the conceptual and material space of knowledge and innovation in line with the interpretative turn in social sciences and humanities. In view of the unwillingness of mainstream economics to accommodate such a trend, the authors pursue a broadly understood hermeneutic approach that expands on the triad of knowledge-space-innovation. The book's main findings are that space is an essential intermediary in the connection between knowledge and innovation, and that a renewed notion of milieu provides the knowledge-space-innovation triad with both an analytical basis and operational power. It also offers fresh insights into the significance and potential of the knowledge economy. A number of empirical European case studies on various scales (organisations, cities and territories) support the findings and suggest new policy directions.

Whether a natural event turns into a disaster depends on the severity of the hazard as well as the condition of the social sphere of its potential victims, i.e., vulnerability. We focus on regional vulnerability considering the fact that regional socioeconomic conditions determine the aspects of the damage and thus the risk management policy. This book provides the theory and methodology to understand and cope with regional vulnerability through an interdisciplinary approach. The fields mainly included in this work are welfare and environmental economics, the planning and management area of civil engineering, and risk management. In particular, we focus on hazard and vulnerability surrounding water issues and provide readers with knowledge of how the regional analysis is incorporated into the vulnerability analysis. Also considered is what risk management should be when the diversified regional background of the vulnerability is taken into account. A feature of this book is that it provides contrastive regional coverage: the vulnerability of a developed country-urban and regional areas of Japan-and that of a developing country, Bangladesh. The contents consist of three parts: (1) Socioeconomic Vulnerability in a Regional Perspective, (2) Evaluation of Regional Vulnerability, and (3) Coping with Regional Vulnerability. This book is highly recommended to researchers who need an up-to-date and interdisciplinary approach to deal with risk management where regional vulnerability plays an important role.

The study deals with challenging questions of long-term future of global economy and the mankind. Focusing not only on what happens in the economic sphere but also on cultural, social, political, demographic, technological, and ecological processes. It employs a holistic approach to answer fundamental questions about the course of the future.

This book offers an analysis of European capitalist welfare societies, centering on the questions of sustainability and the financing of social rights. Capitalism is defined as a multi-model economy, comprising of a market economy (including production, distribution and exchange), a state welfare economy (based on compulsory transfers, such as taxes and social contributions), a household economy and a voluntary economy. The resources for the welfare economy are produced by some activities of the life course, and used by other activities, once rights over these resources are acquired. Setting out a new conceptual framework that integrates an adapted version of the theory of instituted economic processes with the changing structuration of the life course in European countries, the book argues that European capitalist welfare societies are not sustainable in their present form and that the future financing of social rights is conditional on substantial transformations. The book also analyzes relevant data on the socio-economic positioning of women and migrants.

Oil revenue has been an economic curse for Iraq. In the second half of the 20th century the international oil sector shaped IraQ's economy, forcing it to rely too heavily on revenue brought in by oil production and exports. IraQ's failure to use copious oil rents to diversify the economy has proven disastrous for its people and economy. Its over-reliance on oil revenues coupled with the consequences of its war with Iran, the Gulf War, and the ensuing economic sanctions have led the country to economic destruction, sanctions, and enormous debt.

Iraq is a major oil producing country, a founding member of OPEC, and possesses the world's second highest amount of oil reserves. Yet few studies exist on IraQ's oil industry and its impact on the economic and political fortunes of the country. Alnasrawi remedies this by helping us understand this important Arab, Middle Eastern, oil-exporting country that has been a constant focus of U.S. foreign policy since 1990. Alnasrawi concludes that the availability of capital is an insufficient condition for economic development, and may in fact retard it, as it did in this now reviled and wrecked country.

Worldwide, postal and delivery economics is the subject of considerable interest. The postal industry's business model is in drastic need of change. Notably, the European Commission and member states are still wrestling with the problems of implementing liberalization of entry into postal markets, addressing digital competition, and maintaining the universal service obligation. In the United States, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 has, perhaps, exacerbated some of the problems faced by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Currently, the USPS has serious financial problems because of difficulties it faces in making changes and the failure of the Act to address problems that have been long-standing. Electronic competition is severe and affects post offices (POs) worldwide, which have been slow to address the threat. This book addresses this new reality and includes discussion of how POs may attempt to reinvent themselves. Parcels and packets will play a major role in developing new business models for postal operators. This book is of use not only to students and researchers interested in the field, but also to postal operators, consulting firms, utilities, regulatory commissions, Federal Government Departments and agencies of the European Union and other countries.

Subversive thought is none other than the cunning of reason when confronted with a social reality in which the poor and miserable are required to sustain the illusion of fictitious wealth. Yet, this subsidy is absolutely necessary in existing society, to prevent its implosion. The critique of political economy is a thoroughly subversive business. It rejects the appearance of economic reality as a natural thing, argues that economy has not independent existence, expounds economy as political economy, and rejects as conformist rebellion those anti-capitalist perspectives that derive their rationality from the existing conceptuality of society. Subversion focuses on human conditions. Its critical subject is society unaware of itself. This book develops Marx's critique of political economy as negative theory of society. It does not conform to the patterns of the world and demands that society rids itself of all the muck of ages and founds itself anew.

The selected papers in this volume were prepared under the research project on "EU Eastern Neighborhood: Economic Potential and Future Development (ENEPO)" funded by the EU Sixth Framework Program. They discuss the broad spectrum of development issues in the EU Eastern Neighborhood and economic relations between the enlarged EU and its Eastern neighbors in the former USSR. Individual chapters address areas of economic and social development, trade, energy, investment, migration, costs and benefits of economic reforms, development assistance and political economy of policy reforms. In particular, they examine interrelations and mutual synergies between trade liberalization, inflow of foreign investment, economic and institutional reforms and a reduction of income and development disparities. The publication thus closes an important knowledge gap in respect to the economic, social and institutional development of the CIS region and its economic relations with the EU.

Prolonged economic downturn is forcing policy makers and professors to examine how to improve economic development. State and regional governments are therefore moving from public sector-led strategies to private sector-led strategies to enact substantial business-friendly policy reforms. This view of growing economic development sparks interest among public policy, public administration, urban planning, and other academic programs to teach about how America goes about implementing economic development strategies at the state and local level. The Energy Economy is a public policy and current affairs focused economics book targeted toward a public policy and current affairs audience. It offers practical and topical discussions about the most important economic issue of current times: energy.