Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Presenting cutting-edge research on the future of energy geopolitics, this visionary and provocative Research Agenda takes a hard look at the pressing issues faced by energy researchers in the new world (dis)order. Analyzing through three distinct lenses of affordability, security and sustainability, this innovative book begins by tracking the history and evolution of energy politics. Leading experts in the field identify the sources of instability within world energy markets, the problems of capital allocation to finance a growing demand for smart and renewable energy, and the benefits and costs of geo-economic shifts. A global range of case studies discuss the future of energy geopolitics, asking pressing questions about the deployment of clean energy technology, the implications of hydrocarbon price climbing, and the feasibility and possibilities of space mining. Ultimately, the book seeks to elucidate the uncertainties, paths, and impacts of the future developments in the energy transition and clearly define a future research agenda for energy politics. In doing so, it attempts to capture the complexity and constraints facing energy and its different sources — some that are complementary, some that compete with one another. Interdisciplinary and international in scope, this book will prove vital to students and scholars interested in energy security, politics and policy, alongside those studying energy markets and finance. It will also prove useful to policymakers and organizations in the energy sector concerned with the future of energy.

Geoffrey Woods is just a boy when his father is diagnosed with cancer-a disease that not only robs his father of his health, but also changes Geoffrey's family dynamics forever. Now an unpredictable man who often subjects his family to outbursts of anger and frustration, Geoffrey's father instills a fear in his wife and his children that never goes away. It is not long before Geoffrey commits himself to wholeheartedly hating the man he once loved with all his heart.

In his poignant story, Geoffrey shares how his relationship with his father became laced with distance, disappointment, and betrayal, causing him to eventually isolate himself from his friends, sports, and the life he once knew. Somehow he survives and accepts God into his heart-even as the distance between Geoffrey and his father grows. As he matures into a young man who is still suffering from his father's constant betrayal, Geoffrey begins to question everything, the crucial first step of a lengthy journey to eventual forgiveness, healing, and inner-peace.

A Case for Wisdom describes how a relationship fueled by distrust and distance is ultimately transformed into a loving bond between father and son based on truth, kindness, and, most importantly, unconditional love.

This Handbook is the first volume to comprehensively analyse and problem-solve how to manage the decline of fossil fuels as the world tackles climate change and shifts towards a low-carbon energy transition. The overall findings are straight-forward and unsurprising: although fossil fuels have powered the industrialisation of many nations and improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people, another century dominated by fossil fuels would be disastrous. Fossil fuels and associated greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to a level that avoids rising temperatures and rising risks in support of a just and sustainable energy transition. Divided into four sections and 25 contributions from global leading experts, the chapters span a wide range of energy technologies and sources including fossil fuels, carbon mitigation options, renewables, low carbon energy, energy storage, electric vehicles and energy sectors (electricity, heat and transport). They cover varied legal jurisdictions and multiple governance approaches encompassing multi- and inter-disciplinary technological, environmental, social, economic, political, legal and policy perspectives with timely case studies from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America and the Pacific. Providing an insightful contribution to the literature and a much-needed synthesis of the field as a whole, this book will have great appeal to decision makers, practitioners, students and scholars in the field of energy transition studies seeking a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges in managing the decline of fossil fuels.

Focusing on five key themes - hydrocarbons, electricity, mining, social license to operate, and arbitration/dispute resolution- via in-depth country and regional case studies, this book seeks to capture the contrasting and sometimes conflicting trends in energy governance in Latin America as it wrestles with a dependence on fossil fuels whilst shifting toward a low carbon future. Energy transition continues to sit at the centre of the Latin American policy debate as the world continues to push for carbon neutrality by 2050. Latin America is undergoing a renewable energy transition, with substantial reserves (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) and many countries in the region setting ambitious renewable energy policies, laws, and regulations to address climate change. However, recent initiatives to promote renewables must be placed in context. Historically, Latin America has developed and improved its economic and social standards due primarily to an economy based on the extractive industries and fossil fuels. This places renewables at the crossroads of multiple drivers, as the region seek to ensure security of supply, attract investment, and facilitate a low carbon energy transition.

"Central bankers worldwide welcome the recent increase of research on payment systems. This volume, providing an expert overview on this timely subject, should be required reading for us all". - Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland Monetary policy has been at the centre of economic research from the early stages of economic thought, but payment system research has attracted increased academic attention only in the past decade. This book's succeeds in merging these two so far largely separated fields. Innovative and groundbreaking, Schmitz and Woods initiate research on the interdependence of institutional change in the payments system and monetary policy, examining the different channels via which payment systems affect monetary policy. It explores important themes such as: conceptualization and methods of analysis of institutional change in the payments system determinants of institutional change in the payments system - political-economy versus technology empirics of institutional change in the retail and in the wholesale payments systems - policy initiatives and new technologies in the payments system implications of institutional change in the payments system for monetary policy and the instruments available to central banks to cope with it. The result is an accessible overview of conceptual and methodological approaches to institutional change in payment systems, and a comprehensive and yet thorough assessment of its implications for monetary policy. The insights this timely book provides will be invaluable for researchers and practitioners in the field of monetary economics.

Many financial institutions have in recent years failed failed either completely, and gone into bankruptcy, or failed in the sense that they have not achieved what their owners or their customers expected them to deliver. This has had significant and adverse effects on customers, taxpayers, shareholders, and sometimes management. There has been much discussion of what should be done about this, and some action has been taken. But has it been the right kind of action?

Crises of the sort being experienced are low probability but high impact events. This volume, from an international group of scholars, deals with two main issues: firstly, how can the governance of the financial sector by the authorities be improved and secondly, how can the governance of firms and institutions within the sector be improved to render the probability and cost of future crises lower?

Poor governance has been one of the major contributors to the global financial crisis. With better governance of and in the financial sector the financial crisis might well have been avoided altogether and certainly could have been much milder in its impact. This is not simply a case of being wise after the event. These problems were widely discussed before the event, but little action was taken. This book explores not only what the contribution of poor governance was to the crisis and to its depth, but also why it is often difficult to improve governance. The volume offers a positive critique of the measures that are being put in place in the light of the experience of the crisis and suggests how they might plausibly be improved.

This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of economics and international finance, but will also prove profitable reading for practitioners and the interested public.

The economic crisis that began in 2008 has underscored the impact not only of embedded and assumed ways of managing the economy, but also that present circumstances are the product of a long period of experimentation and bounded diversity; it is understanding the nature of both that forms a central concern of this collection. This book redefines, develops and extends the emerging literature on internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the extent to which such internal systemic diversity goes beyond mere diffuseness to represent the coexistence of different logics of action within both liberal market and more cooperative varieties of capitalism.

The collection is based on new, fresh material, from leading scholars in the field. The contributors come from a variety of perspectives within the broad socio-economic literature on institutions, and yet they all focus on the limitations of current institutional fixes, and the protracted and durable nature of the current crisis, which, the editors suggest, reflect profound changes in input costs and the utilization of technology. What characterizes this common ground is an inherent pragmatism, combined with an increasing sophistication in the usage of analytical concepts; illustrating the progression since the early work on comparative capitalism in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

This book should be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of economic theory and philosophy as well as political economics and socio-economics.

"Central bankers worldwide welcome the recent increase of research on payment systems. This volume, providing an expert overview on this timely subject, should be required reading for us all". - Erkki Liikanen, Governor of the Bank of Finland Monetary policy has been at the centre of economic research from the early stages of economic thought, but payment system research has attracted increased academic attention only in the past decade. This book's succeeds in merging these two so far largely separated fields. Innovative and groundbreaking, Schmitz and Woods initiate research on the interdependence of institutional change in the payments system and monetary policy, examining the different channels via which payment systems affect monetary policy. It explores important themes such as: conceptualization and methods of analysis of institutional change in the payments system determinants of institutional change in the payments system - political-economy versus technology empirics of institutional change in the retail and in the wholesale payments systems - policy initiatives and new technologies in the payments system implications of institutional change in the payments system for monetary policy and the instruments available to central banks to cope with it. The result is an accessible overview of conceptual and methodological approaches to institutional change in payment systems, and a comprehensive and yet thorough assessment of its implications for monetary policy. The insights this timely book provides will be invaluable for researchers and practitioners in the field of monetary economics.

This six volume set includes "The Supply and Control of Money in the USA - Lauchlin B. Currie", "Banking Policy and the Price Level and Money - Dennis H. Robertson", "The Problem of Unemployment - P.H. Douglas and A. Director", "The Art of Central Banking - R.A. Hawtrey", and "Balanced Deflation, Inflation, or More Depression - J. Viner". During a long, varied, influential and productive career as a macroeconomic policy advisor, Lauchlin B. Currie developed and applied theoretical insights and new data sources to improve national well-being. From 1934 to 1945, Currie advised the New Deal on monetary and fiscal policies for recovery, full employment, maximum production for war and price stability. He sought public policies that would allow competitive markets to yield high saving and investment required for productivity and stable growth. Dennis H. Robertson studied economics at Cambridge, and in 1914 was elected to Fellow of Trinity College, followed by Reader in the University of Cambridge. In 1938 he left to become a Professor in the University of London, but during his time in that post he was seconded to the Treasury on war-related work. Elected in 1944 to succeed Pigou in the

An original and insightful book, this work focuses on domestic and overseas firms operating in those Central Asian and Eastern European countries considered to be the transitional economic periphery. Chapters shed light on their distinct forms of capitalism, and how it influences and adapts the firms located there. The eminent authors show how, in a post-state socialist world, there are several implications for both domestic and overseas firms functioning successfully in the transitional periphery. With the complex mix of political and market mediation and informal personal ties, chapters explore the delicate balance of liberalisation in transitional economies. Detailed examples from specific countries in Eurasia and Central Asia such as Belarus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia are discussed alongside broader thematic issues of economic and social change, labour relations and human resource management. Most importantly, it is shown that liberalisation has little connection to short-term business growth. To succeed in such contexts, international firms need to be both pragmatic and creative, in coping with malleable yet durable forms of institutional mediation. Providing a unique perspective on the transitional economic periphery and much-needed insights from international business, this book is essential reading for researchers and graduate students studying transitional economies, non-traditional business models, institutional persistence and change, political and economic development and management in economically transitioning countries.

This book offers comprehensive coverage of current energy policy in Scotland focussing on non-fossil fuel energy options: renewables, nuclear power and energy efficiency. Covering issues of policy and practice, planning, legislation and regulation of a range of sustainable energy technologies in the context of devolved government, key experts explore these issues in terms of the ongoing Scottish independence debate, Brexit and further devolution in this vitally important and timely book. The book emphasises two further distinctive areas: constitutional change and the role of sub-national authorities in renewable and low carbon energy policy and practice. The clear focus on renewable and low carbon energy policy and practice and sub-national authority level of governance of energy means that it will be of particular relevance as a case study for those countries either in the process of deploying renewable and/or low carbon energy technologies or looking to do so. The authors discuss the many lessons to be learnt from the Scottish and UK experience. By providing a critical analysis of Scottish renewable and low carbon energy policy and practice, this book is invaluable to students, practitioners and decision-makers interested in renewable and low carbon energy transitions, energy planning and policy.

This book sets out, in straightforward, accessible terms, crucial aspects of monetary economics. It opens with an exposition of the fundamental question of what money is and what it does. Distinguished contributors then examine the key role of price stability and how to achieve it. Core issues addressed include: an examination of the long run effect of money on prices an analysis of the complex and variable relationship between money and fluctuations in the real economy an investigation of inflation and its dangerous consequences an analysis of the effect of regulation on the stability of financial systems in developed and developing countries the relationship between the money supply regime and economic performance the effect of monetary fluctuations on the interest rate the choice of targets for monetary policy. This book will be extremely useful to practising economists, students and scholars of financial and monetary economics.

This inspiring Handbook brings together alternative perspectives from a range of disciplines to shed light on the nature of institutions and their relationship to firm-level practices and outcomes across a wide range of national settings. Expertly written by leading scholars from a range of different starting points, this compendium presents a synthesis of recent work relating to institutionally-informed accounts from transitional and emerging markets, as well as from mature economies. It specifically focuses on the linkage between institutions and what goes on inside firms, and the relationship between setting, strategic choice and systemic outcomes. The Handbook is explicitly multi-disciplinary, encompassing perspectives from a range of the functional areas of management studies. It will prove invaluable for postgraduate students and faculty in international business, and the wider research community in the areas of international business, corporate governance, socio-economics, and comparative HRM. Contributors: M.L. Aldred, F. Allen, M.M.C. Allen, A. Arslan, B.R. Barnes, N. Beech, J.A. Clampit, D.G. Collings, K.M. Conroy, R. Croucher, A. Cuervo-Cazurra, M. Demirbag, D. Demirbas, F. Filippaios, M. Fovargue-Davies, N.T. Gaffney, M.E. Genc, A. Giroud, J. Godard, G. Greig, N. Haworth, J.J. Hotho, S. Hughes, B. Karademir, B.L. Kedia, G. Klerck, S. Konzelmann, J. Larimo, M. McGuinness, B. McSweeney, H. Mirza, G. Morgan, C. Morrison, H. Patrick, T. Pedersen, R. Stepanov, C. Stoian, Z. Stone, M. Upchurch, K.H. Wee, G. Wood, A. Yaprak, D.A. Yen, A. Yukhanaev

Recent failures and rescues of large banks have resulted in colossal costs to society. In wake of such turmoil a new banking union must enable better supervision, pre-emptive coordinated action and taxpayer protection. While these aims are meritorious they will be difficult to achieve. This book explores the potential of a new banking union in Europe. This book brings together leading experts to analyse the challenges of banking in the European Union. While not all contributors agree, the constructive criticism provided in this book will help ensure that a new banking union will mature into a stable yet vibrant financial system that encourages the growth of economic activity and the efficient allocation of resources. This book will be of use to researchers interested in Banking, Monetary Economics and the European Union.

Trade Unions and Democracy explores the role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. As civil society agents, unions may promote democracy within the wider society, especially in the case of authoritarian regimes or other rigid political systems, by acting as watchdogs and protecting hard-won democratic gains.Established democratic institutions in many advanced societies are facing new challenges. The problem with using trade unions for this purpose is that they remain locked in a cycle of political marginalization and decline. Beyond this, there are, ironically, serious questions about whether unions themselves internally function as democracies. Certainly there are tensions between rank and file membership and an authoritarian leadership, with this infighting having possible effects on strategic deals or alliances and member accountability and actions. On the other hand, trade unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialized countries, and in many case, they have a demonstrated capacity for working with other elements of civil society. Looking forward, trade unions may be able to play a vital role in channeling and focusing spontaneous popular upsurges. In the process, they may revitalize themselves through use of greater internal democracy and become geared toward more diverse constituencies. The question is, will they fulfill this promise or continue to suffer from internal breakups and external breakdowns? Can trade unions save themselves and democracy, or will both deteriorate in time?Trade Unions and Democracy brings together a distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field and provides a critical assessment of the current role of trade unions in society. It explores their capacity to affect political policies to ensure greater accountability and fairness. It also explores the nature of and extent to which internal representative democracy actually operates within trade unions themselves.Mark Harcourt is a professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Leadership at Waikato University in New Zealand.

Available for the first time in paperback, this book explores the role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. The crisis facing established democratic institutions in the advanced societies has been widely noted. In response, there has been increasing interest in the role of civil society actors, ranging from established socio-political collectives to new grassroots organisations. On the one hand, conventional wisdom holds that organised labour in the advanced societies has remained locked in a cycle of political marginalisation and decline. On the other hand, unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialised countries. Indeed, in many cases, they have demonstrated a capacity for effective renewal and for co-ordinating their efforts with other civil society actors as part and parcel of the current groudswell of public opinion against the neo-liberal orthodoxy. The book brings together a distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field, and provides a critical assessment of the current role of unions in society, their capacity to impact on state policies in such a manner as to ensure greater accountability and fairness, and the nature and extent of internal representative democracy within the labour movement. This volume will be of interest to students and academics in the fields of industrial relations, critical management studies, political studies and sociology, as well as trade union and community activists. -- .

Recent failures and rescues of large banks have resulted in colossal costs to society. In wake of such turmoil a new banking union must enable better supervision, pre-emptive coordinated action and taxpayer protection. While these aims are meritorious they will be difficult to achieve. This book explores the potential of a new banking union in Europe. This book brings together leading experts to analyse the challenges of banking in the European Union. While not all contributors agree, the constructive criticism provided in this book will help ensure that a new banking union will mature into a stable yet vibrant financial system that encourages the growth of economic activity and the efficient allocation of resources. This book will be of use to researchers interested in Banking, Monetary Economics and the European Union.

In this volume, a wide range of leading policy makers and practitioners reflect on the aims and objectives of monetary policy and on what it can achieve, The contributors include: * Tony Blair * Sir Samuel Brittan * Gordon Brown * Kenneth Clarke * Eddie George * Geoffrey Howe * Nigel Lawson * Peter Liley * Gordon Richardson * Lionel Robbins * Jonathon Sacks * Hans Tietmeyer. Policy Makers on Policy represents twenty five years of monetary policy. This topical collection brings together major politicians and thinkers, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with contemporary policy-making, economics or politics.

This book explores the changing role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. Despite conventionally being portrayed as politically marginalised and in terminal decline, trade unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialised countries and have demonstrated a capacity for revival and renewal in the face of difficult corcumstances. It brings together a distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field, and provides a critical assessment of the current role of trade unions in society, their capacity to impact on state policies in such a manner as to ensure greater accountability and fairness, and the nature and extent of internal representative democracy within the labour movement. This volume will be of interest to students and academics in industrial relations, critical management studies, political studies and sociology. -- .

Monetary policy is still one of the most contested areas of modern economics, and since the original publication of Policy Makers on Policy much has changed. This new edition collects contributions from leading policy makers and practitioners to reflect on the aims and objectives of monetary policy and on what it can achieve, combining the old chapters from Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Kenneth Clarke, Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson, and others, with new perspectives from Mervyn King, Jean-Claude Trichet, Ernst Welteke, Otmar Issing, and Alastair Darling. A new far-reaching introduction from the editors Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood puts these important contributions to the discussion of economic policy in the new context. They look at what lessons can be learnt from the earlier discussions, what anticipations of present difficulties can be found in them and what, in other words, the comparatively recent past teaches us about how to deal with the turbulent present. The second edition of Policy Makers on Policy brings together otherwise inaccessible commentaries and reflections on policy by those involved in making it, along with a commentary on and context for their remarks. Thus the book will be of great interest and use to students of economics and politics, and indeed anyone with an interest in current economic developments and their roots in the past.

Trade Unions and Democracy explores the role of trade unions as products of, and agents for, democracy. As civil society agents, unions may promote democracy within the wider society, especially in the case of authoritarian regimes or other rigid political systems, by acting as watchdogs and protecting hard-won democratic gains.

Established democratic institutions in many advanced societies are facing new challenges. The problem with using trade unions for this purpose is that they remain locked in a cycle of political marginalization and decline. Beyond this, there are, ironically, serious questions about whether unions themselves internally function as democracies. Certainly there are tensions between rank and file membership and an authoritarian leadership, with this infighting having possible effects on strategic deals or alliances and member accountability and actions. On the other hand, trade unions continue to represent a significant component of society within most industrialized countries, and in many case, they have a demonstrated capacity for working with other elements of civil society. Looking forward, trade unions may be able to play a vital role in channeling and focusing spontaneous popular upsurges. In the process, they may revitalize themselves through use of greater internal democracy and become geared toward more diverse constituencies. The question is, will they fulfill this promise or continue to suffer from internal breakups and external breakdowns? Can trade unions save themselves and democracy, or will both deteriorate in time?

Trade Unions and Democracy brings together a distinguished panel of leading and emerging scholars in the field and provides a critical assessment of the current role of trade unions in society. It explores their capacity to affect political policies to ensure greater accountability and fairness. It also explores the nature of and extent to which internal representative democracy actually operates within trade unions themselves.

Mark Harcourt is a professor in the Department of Strategic Management and Leadership at Waikato University in New Zealand.

International human resource management (IHRM) is a key area of research in the sphere of international business and management. Described as a field in its infancy in the 1980s, IHRM has quickly advanced through adolescence and into maturity. Today, it is a vibrant and diverse discipline which boasts a large and active body of researchers across the globe. This volume examines cutting-edge themes, with the input of contributions from both established and emerging scholars. The Routledge Companion to International Human Resource Management gives a state-of-the-art overview of the key themes, topics and debates in the discipline, with valuable insights into directions for future research. Drawing on a large and respected international contributor base and with its focus on mature and emerging markets, this book is an essential resource for researchers, students and IHRM professionals alike.

The economic crisis that began in 2008 has underscored the impact not only of embedded and assumed ways of managing the economy, but also that present circumstances are the product of a long period of experimentation and bounded diversity; it is understanding the nature of both that forms a central concern of this collection. This book redefines, develops and extends the emerging literature on internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the extent to which such internal systemic diversity goes beyond mere diffuseness to represent the coexistence of different logics of action within both liberal market and more cooperative varieties of capitalism. The collection is based on new, fresh material, from leading scholars in the field. The contributors come from a variety of perspectives within the broad socio-economic literature on institutions, and yet they all focus on the limitations of current institutional fixes, and the protracted and durable nature of the current crisis, which, the editors suggest, reflect profound changes in input costs and the utilization of technology. What characterizes this common ground is an inherent pragmatism, combined with an increasing sophistication in the usage of analytical concepts; illustrating the progression since the early work on comparative capitalism in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This book should be an invaluable resource for students and researchers of economic theory and philosophy as well as political economics and socio-economics.

Many financial institutions have in recent years failed - failed either completely, and gone into bankruptcy, or failed in the sense that they have not achieved what their owners or their customers expected them to deliver. This has had significant and adverse effects on customers, taxpayers, shareholders, and sometimes management. There has been much discussion of what should be done about this, and some action has been taken. But has it been the right kind of action? Crises of the sort being experienced are low probability but high impact events. This volume, from an international group of scholars, deals with two main issues: firstly, how can the governance of the financial sector by the authorities be improved and secondly, how can the governance of firms and institutions within the sector be improved to render the probability and cost of future crises lower? Poor governance has been one of the major contributors to the global financial crisis. With better governance of and in the financial sector the financial crisis might well have been avoided altogether and certainly could have been much milder in its impact. This is not simply a case of being wise after the event. These problems were widely discussed before the event, but little action was taken. This book explores not only what the contribution of poor governance was to the crisis and to its depth, but also why it is often difficult to improve governance. The volume offers a positive critique of the measures that are being put in place in the light of the experience of the crisis and suggests how they might plausibly be improved. This book will be of particular interest to students and researchers of economics and international finance, but will also prove profitable reading for practitioners and the interested public.

One of the most influential debates across business and management studies has centered on the relative impact of institutions on the fortunes of firms and nations. However, analyses have primarily focused on institutional effects on societal features, rather than actual firm practices. This volume brings together recent trends in comparative institutional analysis with a rich body of data on firm-level human resource management practice, consolidating and extending more than a decade of research on the topic."

Human Resource Management and the Institutional Perspective" explores the overlapping and distinct elements in work and employment relations both within and across country lines. The authors focus on intra-firm relations, internal diversity within varieties of capitalism, and the uneven and experimental nature of systemic change, all the while employing an impressive level of theoretical rigor and empirical evidence. In a single volume, this text unites soundly based, theoretically strong and empirically new chapters that bring advances in institutional theory to bear on the subject of international and comparative human resource management.

This book is a valuable resource for students and scholars interested in contemporary developments in institutional theory, the relationship between regulation and practice, and innovation and continuity in human resource management.