The editors and contributors tackle a timely subject, and present rigorous research and analysis to demonstrate counter-intuitive results. In so doing, they reinforce the connections between organization and policy in the banking industry and its impact on entrepreneurship, through lending and credit to small and medium-sized businesses. The editors present a carefully organized manuscript that presents both literature reviews and the results of original empirical research that will be of interest to academics and professionals in finance, economics, and policy. The authorship and coverage are global. One of the authors, Michele Fratiani, has close ties to Springer, by virtue of his being a founding editor of Open Economies Review and co-editor of the book series, European and Transatlantic Studies.

Approximately two years ago, the Guido Carli Association charged a group of distinguished economists with studying various aspects of the international monetary system and proposing ways to improve it. The studies were presented at a conference in Florence, Italy, on June 19, 1998 and their edited versions are published in this volume. Ideas for the Future of the International Monetary System consists of two parts: Part I contains the studies commissioned by the Carli Association - those by Dominick Salvatore; Koichi Hamada; Forrest Capie; Michele Fratianni, Andreas Hauskrecht and Aurelio Maccario; Jurgen von Hagen and Ingo Fender, Michael Artis, Marion Kohler and Jacques Melitz; Barry Eichengreen; Michele Fratianni and Andreas Hauskrecht; Paolo Savona and Aurelio Maccario; and Elvio Dal Bosco - and the comments by Paul De Grauwe and William Branson, and the editors' conclusions. Part II contains three papers presented at the Florence conference, by Antonio Fazio, Carl Scognamiglio, and Alberto Predieri.

When the European Monetary System (EMS) was created in 1978, economists on both sides of the Atlantic predicted its early failure. Today, EMS is alive and well, continuing to defy conventional economic wisdom. The authors address three major questions about the European Monetary System (EMS): how it came into being, how it works and how it may evolve into a fully-fledged monetary union.

Is the world globalized as so many pundits claim? The facts say otherwise. Consumption, for example, has a strong domestic bias. Distance and borders are two important reasons for this bias and are a powerful deterrent to globalization. Also, multinational corporations ???the organizations that best symbolize the concept of globalization???do not have a global reach, but rather focus their activities within an area surrounding the home market. These facts suggest that regionalization and not globalization is the appropriate characterization of today??'s economic environment.
This volume explores the drivers of cross-border trade and the forces underlying the expansion of the border from the nation to the regional trade area. The findings of this research cast some doubts on the practicality of striving for a more globalized trade system through costly and time-consuming trade rounds populated by a myriad of players with their agendas and conflicts? Would it not be better to let the world fully play out the regional option before implementing a more global strategy?
*International coverage of global strategic management
*Dicusses multi-national corporation and whether their growth strategy should be regional v. global
*Addresses regional trade situations (i.e., NAFTA, European Union, and Mercosur)

Focusing on the international dimension of macroeconomic policy, this handbook covers the main areas of modern macroeconomic policy in open economies. The emphasis is on policy applications rather than the development of economic theory. There are three basic goals: (1) an understanding of how economic theories affect actual policy making, (2) a description of the institutional and conceptual development of the international economy, and (3) an explanation of the way policy-making institutions deal with the so-called international economy. The handbook consists of an introductory chapter and four parts. The first treats macroeconomic policy-making from the home country versus the rest of the world perspective. The second part stresses policies among interacting and reacting countries. The third part considers the development of world capital markets and the international monetary system as important parts of the policy environment. The final part details macroeconomic policies in the G7 and Latin American countries.

The third volume in Greenwood's Handbook of Comparative Economic Policies, this volume provides an overview and comparison of monetary policies in the United States and the world's leading industrial, or G-7, countries. Although monetary policy is one of the most powerful and frequently used means of combating inflation and unemployment and of promoting long-term economic growth, there are many unresolved questions pertaining to the theory and practice of monetary policy. Moreover, in a world becoming increasingly interdependent, monetary policies in each industrial country have significant repercussions in other countries. This handbook is the only in-depth, up-to-date book providing an exhaustive comparative overview of the theory and practice of monetary policy in developed economies. Following an introduction written by the editors, the volume is divided into three parts. Part I, encompassing 5 chapters, covers the major issues in the theory and practice of monetary policy, including monetary policy and the money supply process, monetary policy and economic activity, monetary policy and inflation, monetary policy and regulation, and monetary policy and bank regulation. Part II, comprised of two chapters, deals with monetary policy in the United States, and part III includes chapters examining monetary policy in each of the other G-7 countries. A final chapter discusses monetary policy coordination in the European Monetary System. The chapters are written by well-known experts in the field of monetary economics. Chapter references and a selected bibliography identify the most important sources of additional information. The work concludes with a selected bibliography and an index.

This title was first published in 2002: As the twenty-first century began, it was easy to assume that the reforms to the international financial system undertaken in the last half of the 1990s were adequate to the core tasks of ensuring stability, sustained growth and broadly shared benefits in the world economy. That comfortable consensus has now been shattered. This volume critically assesses fundamental issues including: -the elements and adequacy of recent G7-led efforts at international financial reform -current causes of and prospects for growth in the new global economy -the challenges of crisis prevention -private sector participation and IFI responsibilities -the world's monetary supply and sovereignty in the face of market forces. These key topics are examined by leading economists and scholars of political economy from both academic and policy communities in G7 countries, making it an essential addition to the collections of all those concerned with the challenges facing the world economy in the coming years.

When the European Monetary System (EMS) was created in 1978, economists on both sides of the Atlantic predicted its early failure. Today, EMS is alive and well, continuing to defy conventional economic wisdom. The authors address three major questions about the European Monetary System (EMS): how it came into being, how it works and how it may evolve into a fully-fledged monetary union.

This title was first published in 2002: As the twenty-first century began, it was easy to assume that the reforms to the international financial system undertaken in the last half of the 1990s were adequate to the core tasks of ensuring stability, sustained growth and broadly shared benefits in the world economy. That comfortable consensus has now been shattered. This volume critically assesses fundamental issues including: -the elements and adequacy of recent G7-led efforts at international financial reform -current causes of and prospects for growth in the new global economy -the challenges of crisis prevention -private sector participation and IFI responsibilities -the world's monetary supply and sovereignty in the face of market forces. These key topics are examined by leading economists and scholars of political economy from both academic and policy communities in G7 countries, making it an essential addition to the collections of all those concerned with the challenges facing the world economy in the coming years.

On its 30th anniversary in 2004 responsibility for hosting the G8 Summit fell into the hands of an allegedly unilateralist America. An America still reeling from the shock of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the resulting economic recession, bitter divisions with its NATO allies and disappointment with the United Nations Institutions over the 2003 Iraq war. So why does America still need the G8? New Perspectives on Global Governance offers new insight into the role of the Group of Eight's major market democracies and challenges the assumption that the G8 is simply a forum for binding a unilateralist hegemonic America. In contrast to seeing the G8 as a means of imposing an American world order this unique collection of new writings suggests that a now vulnerable America must rely on the G8 as a central instrument of foreign policy. America needs the G8 to achieve its security, economic and political interests in the world and to shape the twenty-first central global order it so desperately wants.

The critical challenge of financing development and sustainability is a key focus for the world's international financial institutions, led by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and, above all, the G8. This volume assesses the current practice and perspectives of the major developed world countries that dominate the boards of the IMF and the World Bank and comprise the G8. It looks at the prospects for meeting the Millennium Development Goals in the most impoverished region of Africa, the way trade and finance instruments can help, and how the challenges of energy security and climate change control will affect the results. This volume offers in-depth analysis of: * how the Millennium Development Goals are to be met * North-to-South resource transfers * the challenges of controlling climate control beyond Kyoto In sum, this volume provides a critical and creative examination of what the G8 governments, especially at and after the 2005 Gleneagles summit, have done and what they should do to promote development and sustainability.

On its 30th anniversary in 2004 responsibility for hosting the G8 Summit fell into the hands of an allegedly unilateralist America. An America still reeling from the shock of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the resulting economic recession, bitter divisions with its NATO allies and disappointment with the United Nations Institutions over the 2003 Iraq war. So why does America still need the G8? New Perspectives on Global Governance offers new insight into the role of the Group of Eight's major market democracies and challenges the assumption that the G8 is simply a forum for binding a unilateralist hegemonic America. In contrast to seeing the G8 as a means of imposing an American world order this unique collection of new writings suggests that a now vulnerable America must rely on the G8 as a central instrument of foreign policy. America needs the G8 to achieve its security, economic and political interests in the world and to shape the twenty-first central global order it so desperately wants.

This volume deals with the monetary history of Italy from its independence in 1861 to 1992. It provides the first complete analysis of a country which has experienced diverse and often dramatic monetary conditions. The authors interpret Italian monetary history through the looking glass of a model which, while monetarist in flavour, is open to other interpretations. A key theme is that public finance is at the root of the (relatively) high Italian inflation rates. The authors argue that there is a strong relationship between the government budget deficit and monetary policy, and that the monetary authorities are too dependent on government. The book contributes in a novel way not only to the monetary debate, but also to fiscal and institutional questions. It combines economic theory, statistical data and history in an accessible way which should prove useful to both economic historians and monetary economists.

The peristence of European unemployment stands in striking contrast to the cyclical pattern of unemployment in the US. Many people attribute the rise in European unemployment to increased imbalances between the pattern of labour demand and supply - in other words, to greater mismatch, but existing mismatch indicators do not support this view. However, the obvious inference is not legitimate because the evidence is based on trended data, and thus gives rise to spurious statistical results. To get around the problem, the author uses the dynamic flow approach to structural unemployment and disaggregated data. The reader will find new results on "non-spurious" mismatch tendencies, occupational reallocation, the matching of apprentices, and the importance of matching and mobility for wage differentials.

The editors and contributors tackle a timely subject, and present rigorous research and analysis to demonstrate counter-intuitive results. In so doing, they reinforce the connections between organization and policy in the banking industry and its impact on entrepreneurship, through lending and credit to small and medium-sized businesses. The editors present a carefully organized manuscript that presents both literature reviews and the results of original empirical research that will be of interest to academics and professionals in finance, economics, and policy. The authorship and coverage are global. One of the authors, Michele Fratiani, has close ties to Springer, by virtue of his being a founding editor of Open Economies Review and co-editor of the book series, European and Transatlantic Studies.

Approximately two years ago, the Guido Carli Association charged a group of distinguished economists with studying various aspects of the international monetary system and proposing ways to improve it. The studies were presented at a conference in Florence, Italy, on June 19, 1998 and their edited versions are published in this volume. Ideas for the Future of the International Monetary System consists of two parts: Part I contains the studies commissioned by the Carli Association - those by Dominick Salvatore; Koichi Hamada; Forrest Capie; Michele Fratianni, Andreas Hauskrecht and Aurelio Maccario; Jurgen von Hagen and Ingo Fender, Michael Artis, Marion Kohler and Jacques Melitz; Barry Eichengreen; Michele Fratianni and Andreas Hauskrecht; Paolo Savona and Aurelio Maccario; and Elvio Dal Bosco - and the comments by Paul De Grauwe and William Branson, and the editors' conclusions. Part II contains three papers presented at the Florence conference, by Antonio Fazio, Carl Scognamiglio, and Alberto Predieri.

This volume deals with the monetary history of Italy from its independence in 1861 to 1992. It provides the first complete analysis of a country which has experienced diverse and often dramatic monetary conditions. The authors interpret Italian monetary history through the looking glass of a model which, while monetarist in flavour, is open to other interpretations. A key theme is that public finance is at the root of the (relatively) high Italian inflation rates. The authors argue that there is a strong relationship between the government budget deficit and monetary policy, and that the monetary authorities are too dependent on government. The book contributes in a novel way not only to the monetary debate, but also to fiscal and institutional questions. It combines economic theory, statistical data and history in an accessible way which should prove useful to both economic historians and monetary economists.

The intensifying pace of globalization has led to a questioning of the traditional approaches to governance at the corporate, national and international levels. The crash of the dot-com bubble and the outbreak of corporate accounting scandals in the United States, along with the debt burden of financial institutions in Japan and Europe, have led to demands for major reforms. Consequently, national governments are confronting stronger demands for new ways to regulate corporations to fulfil their social responsibilities and generate growth in a competitive world. This volume explores three central questions: what forms of corporate governance are most desirable for the globalizing world of the twenty-first century? What forms of public governance are most appropriate in this new age? And how well are the world's leading national governments pioneering the needed policies and practices? The book offers an analysis of the G8's role in assisting governments and corporations to work together to design and deliver a superior approach.