With the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, it seemed that market capitalism had triumphed and that democracy might replace authoritarian regimes. Economic reformers in the former Eastern Bloc rushed to liberalize prices and transfer state assets to private hands. They assumed that private owners in a market setting would have no choice but to behave rationally-that is, to invest in restructuring privatized enterprises so as to maximize profits. They also assumed that these owners would perceive a stable institutional environment as conducive to economic success and thus become a powerful lobby in favor of the rule of law, paving the way for democracy. The post-communist reality turned out to be very different. Private owners found that in a weak state with limited laws and regulations and ineffective corporate governance structures, it was more lucrative to steal enterprise assets and exploit opportunities for arbitrage than to restructure enterprises. The lesson learned is that not all forms of private ownership are the same. As this book's in-depth political history of privatization in Central and Eastern Europe demonstrates, the way that assets are privatized matters, both with respect to national economic performance and the successful development of the rule of law. Andrew Harrison Schwartz had unprecedented access to high-level Czech government officials during the Czech Republic's privatization process. This book is the result of the unique insights he gained and the innovative analytical framework he subsequently developed-ownership regime theory-which for the first time places ownership structures at the center of political transition analysis. Engaging and important, The Politics of Greed applies ownership regime theory to a broad range of post-communist privatization cases, including those of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Russia, and Ukraine.

This book rests on the proposition that the information techology revolution of the last ten years marks the beginning of a fundamental economic transformation. This transformation will affect every activity in which organization, information processing, or communication is important. It may well require changes in ideas about ownership, property, and control--the way in which governments regulate economies in the broadest sense of that term. The e-commerce transformation presents remarkable opportunities for businesses, governments, and other organizations to remake themselves, recreate what it is that they can do, and reconstruct their relationships with customers, citizens, and constituents. A project of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), this volume analyzes the way this transformation will affect market structure and pricing models in several major industries: retail financial services, air travel, music, automobiles, semiconductors, hearing instruments, food, textiles, and trucking.

Green growth has proven to be politically popular, but economically elusive. "Can Green Sustain Growth?" asks how we can move from theoretical support to implementation, and argues that this leap will require radical experimentation. But systemic change is costly, and a sweeping shift cannot be accomplished without political support, not to mention large-scale cooperation between business and government.
Insightful and timely, this book brings together eight original, international case studies to consider what we can learn from the implementation of green growth strategies to date. This analysis reveals that coalitions for green experimentation emerge and survive when they link climate solutions to specific problems with near-term benefits that appeal to both environmental and industrial interests. Based on these findings, the volume delivers concrete policy recommendations for the next steps in the necessary shift towards sustainable prosperity.

How do high wage countries stay rich in a global digital economy? How Revolutionary was the Digital Revolution constructs a framework for analyzing the international digital era: one that examines the ability of political actors to innovate and experiment in spite of, or perhaps because of, the constraints posed by digital technology. In order to assess the revolutionary nature of the digital era, this book takes four overlapping approaches. First, it examines the reaction of nations, specifically Finland, Japan, and emerging markets, to the dual challenges of globalization and technological change. This section identifies both successful and failed national experiments intended to deal with these dual pressures. Second, it assesses corporate attempts to leverage digital technology to reorganize work. A broad range of issues including off-shoring, open source production systems, and knowledge management are addressed. Third, devoting detailed analysis to the case of mobile telephones, the book offers insights into the political economy of market evolution in the digital era. The final section considers the political ramifications of information technology for critical societal debates ranging from privacy to intellectual property. The contributors to the book map out how the digital revolution shakes up politics, creating new economic and political winners and losers. In order to do so, they connect theories of political economy to the implications of digital technology for international as well as national markets.

Given the powerfully negative and ongoing impact of the Great Recession on western economies, the question of whether historically wealthy nations--the US, Western European countries, Japan--can stay wealthy has become an overriding concern for virtually every interested observer. Can their middle classes remain comfortable as more and more good and technically jobs disappear to other parts of the world? Can they support themselves as they devote more and more economic resources to an aging population base? In The Third Globalization, eminent political economists Dan Breznitz and John Zysman gather some of the discipline's leading scholars to assess the prospects for growth and prosperity among advanced industrial nations. Throughout, they examine the core transformation in the economies of the advanced countries, the character of the challenge from the emerging economies, and the varied policy responses of the advanced countries. And, via a series of case studies, the contributors consider the central challenges these countries face internally and the nature of their responses.In particular, they ask what governments might do to achieve the goal of generating and retaining highly productive economic activity, which they collectively regard as necessary for sustained growth. In total, the book directly challenges a number of core policy and academic assumptions about the dynamics of contemporary advanced economies by looking at the problem from three different angles: a) a macro perspective, which considers the forces changing the policy and political economy landscape after the crisis; b) a sectoral perspective, which explains how these forces unleashed major shifts within critical domains and industries; and c) a policy perspective that concentrates on the responses to the Great Recession of both the already rich nations and the new, game transforming, competitors such as China and India. All told, the book's powerful analysis of a current global problem--weak growth in the world's longtime growth engines--that is of concern to everyone will make this essential reading for scholars and policymakers from across the social sciences.

Green growth has proven to be politically popular, but economically elusive. Can Green Sustain Growth? asks how we can move from theoretical support to implementation, and argues that this leap will require radical experimentation. But systemic change is costly, and a sweeping shift cannot be accomplished without political support, not to mention large-scale cooperation between business and government. Insightful and timely, this book brings together eight original, international case studies to consider what we can learn from the implementation of green growth strategies to date. This analysis reveals that coalitions for green experimentation emerge and survive when they link climate solutions to specific problems with near-term benefits that appeal to both environmental and industrial interests. Based on these findings, the volume delivers concrete policy recommendations for the next steps in the necessary shift toward sustainable prosperity.

Given the powerfully negative and ongoing impact of the Great Recession on western economies, the question of whether historically wealthy nations--the US, Western European countries, Japan--can stay wealthy has become an overriding concern for virtually every interested observer. Can their middle classes remain comfortable as more and more good and technically jobs disappear to other parts of the world? Can they support themselves as they devote more and more economic resources to an aging population base? In The Third Globalization, eminent political economists Dan Breznitz and John Zysman gather some of the discipline's leading scholars to assess the prospects for growth and prosperity among advanced industrial nations.
Throughout, they examine the core transformation in the economies of the advanced countries, the character of the challenge from the emerging economies, and the varied policy responses of the advanced countries. And, via a series of case studies, the contributors consider the central challenges these countries face internally and the nature of their responses. In particular, they ask what governments might do to achieve the goal of generating and retaining highly productive economic activity, which they collectively regard as necessary for sustained growth. In total, the book directly challenges a number of core policy and academic assumptions about the dynamics of contemporary advanced economies by looking at the problem from three different angles: a) a macro perspective, which considers the forces changing the policy and political economy landscape after the crisis; b) a sectoral perspective, which explains how these forces unleashed major shifts within critical domains and industries; and c) a policy perspective that concentrates on the responses to the Great Recession of both the already rich nations and the new, game transforming, competitors such as China and India. All told, the book's powerful analysis of a current global problem--weak growth in the world's longtime growth engines--that is of concern to everyone will make this essential reading for scholars and policymakers from across the social sciences.

How do high wage countries stay rich in a global digital economy? How Revolutionary was the Digital Revolution constructs a framework for analyzing the international digital era: one that examines the ability of political actors to innovate and experiment in spite of, or perhaps because of, the constraints posed by digital technology. In order to assess the revolutionary nature of the digital era, this book takes four overlapping approaches. First, it examines the reaction of nations, specifically Finland, Japan, and emerging markets, to the dual challenges of globalization and technological change. This section identifies both successful and failed national experiments intended to deal with these dual pressures. Second, it assesses corporate attempts to leverage digital technology to reorganize work. A broad range of issues including off-shoring, open source production systems, and knowledge management are addressed. Third, devoting detailed analysis to the case of mobile telephones, the book offers insights into the political economy of market evolution in the digital era. The final section considers the political ramifications of information technology for critical societal debates ranging from privacy to intellectual property. The contributors to the book map out how the digital revolution shakes up politics, creating new economic and political winners and losers. In order to do so, they connect theories of political economy to the implications of digital technology for international as well as national markets.

The deterioration in the economic performance of the advanced industrial democracies during the 1970s provoked an intense debate about the role of government in economic adjustment and growth. In Governments, Markets, and Growth, John Zysman makes a significant contribution to our understanding of these critical international issues by demonstrating that there is a direct relationship between a nation's financial system and its government's ability to restart the growth engine.

Professor Zysman argues that there are three distinct types of financial systems, each with different consequences for the political ties between financial markets, industry, and government. Zysman tests his argument by analyzing and comparing the patterns of industrial adjustment in five advanced nations. He contrasts the differing strategies of industrial adjustments primarily in France and Great Britain, but also in Japan, West Germany, and the United States. Governments, Markets, and Growth will be invaluable to the international banking and business community, a wide variety of government officials, and students of political science, economics, and business administration.