Book Description

‘Given the highly specialised subject matter, which so easily degenerates into rather tedious calculations, this book is really amazingly interesting and competently executed.’

– Mark Blaug, Professor Emeritus, University of London, Professor Emeritus, University of Buckingham, UK, Visiting Professor, University of Amsterdam and Visiting Professor, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

The transition from central planning in Central and Eastern Europe has resulted in a decline in social security. Transformation of Pension Systems in Central and Eastern Europe provides an in-depth examination of systems of social protection for the elderly.

The authors begin by analyzing the urgent measures required to respond to a changing economic system. They also consider the fundamental questions of redesigning old-age financial security which is embedded in an international debate on pension reform, taking into account the political and economic factors from a comparative perspective. Covering the Baltic states, Poland, the Czech and Slovak Republics and Hungary, the development of pension security is traced from the late 1980s to the end of the 1990s. Using local pension experts with academic and administrative backgrounds, the country studies are characterized by a detailed and interdisciplinary perspective, and provide an economic, political, legal and institutional approach to pension systems development. ... Read more

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The high cost of R&D makes pharmaceuticals vulnerable to aggressive price regulation. Yet even stringent price regulatory systems have failed to control total drug expenditures. The challenge for public policy, the author states, is securing a balance between controlling health care spending today and preserving incentives for innovative R&D for health and the quality of life tomorrow.

The author argues that the growing international regulation of drug prices and expenditures already affects the efficiency of drug R&D and of health care -- and could harm patient care now and the quality of life in the future. She examines the effect of existing foreign regulation -- price controls, rate-of-return regulations, and industrial policies -- on U.S. firms, the major producers of innovative drugs. She explores the indirect spillovers from the regulatory use of international price comparisons and the increasing threat from parallel trade, particularly as countries with cheaper labor and low-priced goods join the European Union.

The analysis concludes that competitive U.S. health plans promise more efficiency of drug use and incentives for innovation than does the regulatory approach. ... Read more

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This is the first sustained comparative examination of the importance of media attention on the provision of economic assistance, suggesting that the news media is an important medium for policy makers to gauge potential domestic political pressures and thus the need to be responsive and even anticipatory in addressing problems real or perceived. Particular attention is paid to the responsiveness of bureaucracies, long held to among the most insulated institutions of government. Cross-national in scope, this book looks at the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Japan, facilitating a nuanced understanding of the interaction of international and domestic politics as mediated by the media.
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Reviews (1)

Michael Brecher wrote: "A rigorous analysis of foreign aid"
(From Michael Brecher's review on the back cover) "This is an ambitious--and successful--attempt at theoretical integration, with a valuable empirical component. Basing their analysis on the domestic political imperatives model of foreign policy decision-making and the principal-agent model (agency theory), Van Belle, Rioux and Potter dissect, with laudable rigor, key strands of the politics of foreign aid. Their comparative analysis of overseas development aid (ODA) programs by the five largest developed donor states adds an instructive case study dimension. And they have used their rich, genuinely comparable data to generate important findings. As such, this book goes far beyond the typical one-dimensional studies of the role of the news media and the media-bureaucracy nexus in decision-making relating to foreign aid." ... Read more

Book Description

This paper measures how well international financial markets allocate savings among investment opportunities world-wide by measuring the correlation between national domestic savings and investment ratios. It concludes that financial markets have become more efficient in this respect since the 1960s, but that even in the 1990s capital was a lot less than completely mobile. The paper discusses the obstacles to capital mobility, including official controls, cultural and legal obstacles, and monetary and financial instability. It explores the difficult issues that countries have to face when choosing an exchange rate regime and suggests that the changing nature of the foreign exchange market is an important influence on such decisions. ... Read more

Book Description

The international diffusion of policy ideas and practices is a subject of growing interest, raising such questions as: Why are there increasingly such waves of policy innovation? What prompts one country to emulate another's changes? Is it the influence of powerful international actors like the World Bank? Is it the motivations and interests of domestic actors? And how freely do imitators adapt foreign models to the needs and characteristics of their own countries, rather than simply replicating them?

Essays by leading academic experts and by policy practitioners with academic background address these important questions inLearning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform. Two chapters examine the influence of the international financial institutions. Then experts from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico discuss how foreign models influenced their own decision making in crucial areas of social policy such as pensions, unemployment insurance, and health care.

These case studies yield an unprecedented insider perspective on policy diffusion, in particular showing that the financial institutions have less clout than sometimes appears. They also show the crucial role played by policy specialists inside the public bureaucracy.

Contributors: David Bravo, Sarah M. Brooks, Elena Carrera, José Paulo Zeetano Chahad, Carlos Cruz, Gustavo Demarco, Louise Haagh, Joan M. Nelson, Vinícius C. Pinheiro, and Juan Pablo Uribe.

Book Description

The study of competition and competitiveness has recently seen a great deal of expansion and development. This timely survey reviews the most important developments in policy and practice. It illustrates the complexity of competitive behavior in the real world and provides a framework for understanding the different notions of competition.

Special attention is given to key areas including:competition as a process versus competition as a state of affairsthe behavior of firms and organization of competition new forms of competition and competition policies

The Process of Competition will be essential reading for researchers, practitioners and policymakers concerned with competition policy, industrial economics and strategic management. ... Read more

Book Description

Why did Eastern Europeans protest less about the brutal social consequences of systemic change than the people of Latin America a decade earlier? Why has the region-wide authoritarian or populist turnabout not occurred? Why has democracy in these countries proved to be crisis-proof? In what ways has economic crisis impacted on the politics of the region?

In addressing these questions, this book uses a comparative analysis of the structures, institutions, cultures, and actors shaping both the Eastern European and the Latin American transformations. The author argues that structural, institutional, and cultural factors have put a brake on destabilizing collective actions which have paved the way for the emergence of the enduring, low-level equilibrium between incomplete democracy and imperfect market economy which seems set to characterize the Eastern European experience for the foreseeable future. ... Read more

Book Description

This book goes behind the headlines of the Wall Street Journal to unmask the "bondholding class". Insulated from criticism by a self-serving ideology, the bondholders have redefined the indicators of economic well-being decidedly in Wall Street's favor. Created out of the fiscal folly of Reaganomics, fortified by Federal Reserve officials, and patronized by the Clinton Administration, the bondholding class invented the "Goldilocks economy" (never too hot, never too cold). As this powerful class has amassed the greatest wealth in history, ordinary Americans have been losing ground to the ensuing global financial turbulence. In a tour de force, Ray Canterbery shows how the evaporation of personal savings - "the Angels share" - is as necessary to Wall Street capitalism as it is damaging to growth and wages on Main Street. ... Read more

Book Description

The annual Global Competitiveness Report is widely recognized as the world's leading cross-country comparison of data and information relating to economic competitiveness and growth. Over the years, the Report has become the most authoritative and comprehensive assessment of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of national economies throughout the world. The World Economic Forum continues its tradition of excellence with The Global Competitiveness Report 2002-2003, which provides the most updated and recent data, rankings and analysis of 75 industrialized and emerging economies and the latest thinking and research from prominent academics and international institution leaders on global competitiveness.This year's report begins by presenting the widely quoted global competitive index that really comprises two indices-one for growth and one for productivity. It then provides global and regional analyses, with examinations of the competitive landscapes of Africa., Asia, Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. Essays on a wide range of special topics follow, including national innovative capacity, governance, foreign direct investment, and trade performance. The Report concludes with detailed country profiles, data presentation and an exhaustive survey of senior business executives that touches on business conditions, infrastructure, the character of the regulatory regime, the quality of government, organized labor, corruption and tax evasion. The Global Competitiveness Report 2002-2003 provides essential information for business leaders, government decision-makers and for academics to examine the critical challenges facing a multitude of the world's economies. ... Read more

Book Description

Charles P. Kindleberger's rich and distinguised career has spanned nearly six decades. The essays collected here reflect the author's shift in interests from foreign exchange to international trade, economic growth, and economic history, especially financial history. They also contain dollops of sociology and political science. Kindleberger views himself as a historical economist who tests economic propositions against the historical record in more than one setting. The collection contains many of the jewels of Kindleberger's work. Most of the papers are strong on comparison (within Western Europe and between Europe and the United States), on economic or financial history, and on social science beyond the confines of economics. ... Read more

Amazon.com

A lot of the arguments passionately advanced by Meredith Bagby in Rational Exuberance: The Influence of Generation X on the New American Economy, will infuriate (or at least baffle) those not born between the years 1965 and 1976. But that's beside the point. Bagby herself is a proud member of this maturing generation, and as an economist--as well as a regular on CNN's Financial News Network--she's developed strong opinions on the fiscal future of a population that reportedly believes more strongly in the current existence of UFOs than the long-term existence of Social Security. With the help of cutting-edge compatriots like pollster Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, presidential-speech writer Jeff Shesol, Wall Street Journal reporter Steve Frank, Cybergrrl marketing maven Aliza Sherman, and a host of other successful twentysomethings, Bagby looks into the political, social, educational, and occupational leanings of her peers with an eye toward the economic impacts that they're likely to have in coming years. Her insights into Gen-X thinking on employment and entrepreneurship, ads and the media that carry them, and consumer staples such as homes, cars, clothes, food, and drink, should prove intriguing whether you're on the inside or the outside of this up-and-coming generation. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Wake Up Call for GenXers
Meredith did a fantastic job decribing where GenXer are coming from and where we are most likely going. The fact that she is an Xer herself gives her the insight to bring us this well researched and comprehensive masterpiece. It is a must read for rising star GenXers. It provides a reality check on many of the social and political issues that we Xers have been ignoring, but will one day have to face as we resume control of the country.

The New Wave
This book describes Generation X people who will be most of your customers, competitors and leaders,especially in the High Tech. They witnessed the downzisings of the 1980s..and today they can decide the future. This book shows their enthusiasm in a wide spectrum of activities.. In one word, how they are rationally exuberant.

Our economy is not doomed
In a clear, concise, and down to earth writing style, Meredith Bagby attacks the generation-x slacker label. With countless examples, Ms. Bagby details the influence that gen-x'ers have had on the economy to-date. More importantly, Rational Exuberance provides inspiration for ever member of gen-x to make a positive impact on society. ... Read more

Book Description

This book examines the political economy of the European Union and the process of economic integration in Western Europe. It argues that a regional economy is rapidly taking shape and that economic order in Europe is also changing. This third, revised edition contains a full discussion of the enlargement of the EU and its recent incorporation of new nations. There is a new chapter on regional and structural issues; the coverage of monetary union issues is fully revised to include events up to the end of 1995; and a new section on EU social policy enables students to receive an introduction to an increasingly important aspect of the EU impact on the lives of its citizens. ... Read more

Book Description

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been facing considerable economic challenges. Left behind by the industrial revolution, overly dependent on oil resources, and on the fringes of the globalization process, a number of MENA countries have embarked on structural reforms to overcome economic stagnation, mounting unemployment, and increasing poverty. At the same time, there is growing awareness worldwide that the knowledge revolution offers new opportunities for growth resulting from the availability of information and communication technologies and from the advent of a new form of global economic development rooted in the concept of the knowledge economy, which is based on the creation, acquisition, distribution, and use of knowledge.

This book, developed from papers prepared for a World Bank sponsored conference, assesses the challenges confronting the region’s countries and analyzes their readiness for the knowledge economy based on a set of indicators. It provides quantitative analysis to help benchmark the countries against worldwide knowledge economy trends, identifies key implementation issues, and presents relevant policy experiences. The basic policy elements that underpin a strategy to prepare for a knowledge-based economy are discussed, including: the renovation of education systems, the creation of a climate conducive to innovation, and the development of an efficient telecommunications infrastructure as the foundation of a new era. The formulation of national visions and strategies is also discussed. Examples from the region and other parts of the world illustrate the chapters. A set of data that makes it possible to benchmark and position countries’ readiness for the knowledge economy is presented in an appendix. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Everyone should read it
In this book, Guy Sorman gives us a very well thought and documented analysis of the economies of subdeveloped countries, and the main failures that have prevented them from reaching economic stability and wealth. And not only it examines the economies and political situation of the featured countries, it also gives a deep insight into many different cultures, from India to Mexico and from Chile to Russia. A great book for everyone. ... Read more

Book Description

When anthropologists and other students of culture want to compare different societies in such areas as the organization of land, labor, trade, or barter, they often discover that individual researchers use these concepts inconsistently and from a variety of theoretical approaches, so that data from one society cannot be compared with data from another.In this book, Rhoda Halperin offers an analytical tool kit for studying economic processes in all societies and at all times. She uniquely organizes the book around key concepts: economy, ecology, equivalencies, householding, storage, and time and the economy. These concepts are designed to facilitate the understanding of similarities, differences, and changes between contemporary and past economies. While this is not only a "how-to" book or handbook, it can be used as such. It will be of great value to scholars and students of archaeology and history, as well as to ethnographers and economists. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Not quite that bad, I'd say
I have read the book in its entirety and did not find it difficult to follow in the least.However, I had the advantage of having recently read some of Polanyi's best known books.

While I acknowledge that Halperin's book did draw quite heavily on Polanyi's work, it would be most unfair to state that Polanyi's ideas have died and that Halperin's work along these lines is useless.

Most scholars acknowledge that the formalist/substantivist debate Polanyi initiated was less than fruitful and historians have poked some holes in his economic history.Some errors are to be expected in multidisciplinary work - especially when written at a time when it was politically unacceptable for Polanyi to acknowledge some of his source of inspiration.

Though Polanyi's history was flawed, his arguments could have been instantiated by ethnographic work, which was a key source of inspiration for his approach.

Halperin extracts a valuable conceptual approach from Polanyi's work.I emphasize VALUABLE because Polanyi's concept of embeddedness has been modernized and extended by Mark Granovetter, who in turn has been very influential not only within economic sociology and anthropology but also within new institutional economics.

While many economic anthropologists cast irrelevant or impotent critiques at the easily misunderstood giant which is economic science, Polanyi's critiques called attention to a weakness in neoclassical economic theory that nobel prize winner Ronald Coase was to write about just 3 years later in The Theory of Social Costs.

Polanyi's notion of embeddedness - that economic transactions are not independent of their social and institutional millieu - is sweeping through economics like wildfire and even encouraging a few bold economists to read classic ethnography in search of better insights and justification for their analysis.

It is ironic that the substantivist/formalist debate be labelled as unfruitful precisely when economists are so fervently striving to close the social gap first identified by Karl Polanyi and subsequently by Ronald Coase between "Blackboard economics" and economic reality.

It may be the case that anthropologists become bored of novel ideas and theories before working out their enormous implications for interdisciplinary research and reformulation of existing theory.

I would submit that few ideas within economic anthropology have had as large an effect on mainstream economics as those of Karl Polanyi.As such, distilling and revisiting his core concepts may be more fruitful than expected.

For researchers wishing to participate in these exciting new interdisciplinary developments within academia or policy, accessible, modernized, expanded, and refined versions of Polanyi's arguments may be highly relevant.

Disappointing, hard to follow, an ode to Polanyi
Its hard to tell what the author's goal is in this book. It purports to beabout economic anthropology, but does not cover any of the important workin that field over the last 20 years. The author sometimes claims this is awork that ties together cultural anthropology and archaeology, but againthere is almost no reference to other relevant work in either field.

Thebook reinvents not just one wheel, but enough to support a tractor-trailer.But in most cases the wheels are old, cracked, and flat. This is becausethe author's single inspiration seems to be the work of a long-deadhistorical economist, Karl Polanyi. The book is basically a long ode to howbrilliant Polanyi was, how he figured out everything important, andanswered every question.

This is not an easy book to read. There neverseems to be any clear line of thought, progression , or narrative. Theexamples are thrown together with no coherent order - they are a mish-mashtaken at random from ethnography and archaeology.

I cannot see how thisbook would be of any use to a student starting out in economicanthropology, unless you wanted to confuse them and put them to sleep.Professionals in the field are not likely to get much out of it either.Most anthropologists already know what Polanyi said, and dont need anendless exegesis of ideas which have largely not withstood the test oftime. The author appears to be massively uninformed about what has gone onin social theory since Polanyi died.

I don't get it. University of TexasPress usually does careful peer review, and most of their books areexcellent. Why do they keep publishing Halperin's lame stuff? ... Read more

Book Description

Business, Work, and Community: Into the New Millenium systematically examines the relationships between business, work, andthe community in Australia. ... Read more