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From a former Chief Economist of the World Bank, a brief, balanced, and sobering discussion of globalization trends, their drivers, and effects on inequality.The recent retreat from globalization has been triggered by a perception that increased competition from global trade is not fair and leads to increased inequality within countries. Is this phenomenon a small hiccup in the overall wave of globalization, or are we at the beginning of a new era of deglobalization? Former Chief Economist of the World Bank Group Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg tells us that the answer depends on the policy choices we make, and in this book The Unequal Effects of Globalization, she calls for exploring alternative policy approaches including place-based policies, while sustaining international cooperation.At this critical moment of shifting attitudes toward globalization, The Unequal Effects of Globalization enters the debate while also taking a step back. Goldberg investigates globalization's many dimensions, disruptions, and complex interactions, from the late twentieth century's wave of trade liberalizations to the rise of China, the decline of manufacturing in advanced economies, and the recent effects of trade on global poverty, inequality, labor markets, and firm dynamics. From there, Goldberg explores the significance of the recent backlash against and potential retreat from globalization and considers the key policy implications of these trends and emerging dynamics.As comprehensive as it is well-balanced, The Unequal Effects of Globalization is an essential read on trade and cooperation between nations that will appeal as much to academics and policymakers as it will to general readers who are interested in learning more about this timely subject.

When designing a world trading system for the twenty-first century, “Keep calm and carry on” beats “Move fast and break things.”Global trade is in trouble. Climate change, digital trade, offshoring, the rise of emerging markets led by China: Can the World Trade Organization (WTO), built for trade in the twentieth century, meet the challenges of the twenty-first? The answer is yes, Robert Staiger tells us, arguing that adapting the WTO to the changed economic environment would serve the world better than a radical reset.Governed by the WTO, on the principles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), global trade rules traditionally focus on “shallow integration”—with an emphasis on reducing tariffs and trade impediments at the border—rather than “deep integration,” or direct negotiations over behind-the-border measures. Staiger charts the economic environment that gave rise to the former approach, explains when and why it worked, and surveys the changing landscape for global trade. In his analysis, the terms-of-trade theory of trade agreements provides a compelling framework for understanding the success of GATT in the twentieth century. And according to this understanding, Staiger concludes, the logic of GATT's design transcends many, if not all, of the current challenges faced by the WTO. With its penetrating view of the evolving global economic environment, A World Trading System for the Twenty-First Century shows us a global trading system in need of reform, and Staiger makes a persuasive case for using the architecture of the GATT/WTO as a basis for that reform.

The non-economist's accessible, pocket-sized refresher on the basics of macroeconomics and how it affects local and global economies—from an academic economist and 2-time Chilean Finance Minister. Macroeconomics takes a broad perspective on the economy of a country or region; it studies economic changes in the aggregate, collecting data on production, unemployment, inflation, consumption, investment, trade, and other aspects of national and international economic life. Policymakers depend on macroeconomists'knowledge when making decisions about such issues as taxes and the public budget, monetary and exchange rate policies, and trade policies—all of which, in turn, affect decisions made by individuals and businesses. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers an introduction to the basics of macroeconomics accessible to the non-economist. Readers will gain the tools to interpret such economic events as the 2008 financial meltdown, the subsequent euro crisis, and the current protectionist dynamics seen in some developed countries. You'll also learn about: • Economic development—why some countries flourish while others reamin stagnant • Economic activity and employment • Employment and unemployment rates • The factors behind economic growth • Money, inflation, and exchange rate systems • Fiscal deficits, fiscal policy, and balance of payment crises • Consumption, savings, and investment decisions • The process of globalization and its macroeconomic implications Written by an academic economist and two-time Chilean Finance Minister, this is an easy-to-understand and pocket-sized guide to the fundamentals of macroeconomics.

A comprehensive analysis of GATS that considers its historical context, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.The previous two volumes in The Regulation of International Trade analyzed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the first successful agreement to generate multilateral trade liberalization, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for which the GATT laid the groundwork. In this third volume, Petros Mavroidis turns to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), a WTO treaty that took effect in 1995, and offers a comprehensive analysis that considers the historical context of the GATS, the national preferences that shaped it, and a path to a GATS 2.0.Mavroidis examines the GATS through its negotiating record, considering whether the GATS as it is can appropriately address the concerns of the world trading community. The GATS deals exclusively with non-tariff barriers (NTBs)—precisely the instrument that the WTO has not managed to tame, and one of some significance in light of the digital revolution, which has enlarged the scope of cross-border transactions in which neither supplier nor consumer needs to travel for a service to be consumed. Mavroidis argues that the GATS has brought about a platform to liberalize services, and has locked in some pre-GATS liberalization. What is missing, he contends, is a “GATS-Think” that would generate liberalization from now on.

Empirical studies and theoretical analyses examine the causes and consequences of disruptions in cross-border economic relationships, including political conflict, economic sanctions, and institutional collapse.Cross-border economic relationships gradually strengthened in the decades after World War II; for most of the postwar period, international trade and investment have grown faster than output, a process often termed “globalization.” In recent years, however, economic relationships have grown more fragile, subject to disruption by such factors as political conflict, economic sanctions, and the dissolution of institutional arrangements. This timely CESifo volume offers empirical studies and theoretical analyses that examine the causes and consequences of these disrupted economic relationships.Contributors propose a new theoretical framework for understanding the economic impact of intergroup conflict and develop a predictive model to analyze the contagion of regional wars. They offer empirical studies of the economic effect of targeted sanctions and boycotts, including those imposed upon Iran, Russia, and Myanmar; argue provocatively that natural disasters are associated with increased international trade; analyze trade duration, finding previously identified explanatory factors to be insufficient for explaining variations in trade survival over time; and critically review the hypothesis that oil was a crucial factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union.ContributorsDaniel P. Ahn, Tibor Besedeš, Kilian Heilmann, Wolfgang Hess, Julian Hinz, Melise Jaud, Tristan Kohl, Madina Kukenova, Chenmei Li, Rodney D. Ludema, Volker Nitsch, Maria Persson, Chiel Klein Reesink, Arthur Silve, Enrico Spolaore, Martin Strieborny, Marvin Suesse, Peter A. G. van Bergeijk, Thierry Verdier, Romain Wacziarg

The new edition of a comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy, revised to reflect the end of the “miracle growth” period.This comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy by a noted expert on China's economic development offers a quality and breadth of coverage not found in any other English-language text. In The Chinese Economy, Barry Naughton provides both a broadly focused introduction to China's economy since 1949 and original insights based on his own extensive research. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect a decade of developments in China's economy, notably the end of the period of “miracle growth” and the multiple transitions it now confronts—demographic, technological, macroeconomic, and institutional. Coverage of macroeconomic and financial policy has been significantly expanded.After covering endowments, legacies, economic systems, and general issues of economic structure, labor, and living standards, the book examines specific economic sectors, including agriculture, industry, technology, and foreign trade and investment. It then treats financial, macroeconomic, and environmental issues. The book covers such topics as patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural and urban economies, including rural industrialization and urban technological development; incoming and outgoing foreign investment; and environmental quality and the sustainability of growth.The book will be an essential resource for students, teachers, scholars, business practitioners, and policymakers. It is suitable for classroom use for undergraduate or graduate courses.

A noted Chinese economist examines the mechanisms behind China's economic reforms, arguing that universal principles and specific implementations are equally important.As China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, economists have tried to understand and interpret the success of Chinese reform. As the Chinese economist Yingyi Qian explains, there are two schools of thought on Chinese reform: the “School of Universal Principles,” which ascribes China's successful reform to the workings of the free market, and the “School of Chinese Characteristics,” which holds that China's reform is successful precisely because it did not follow the economics of the market but instead relied on the government. In this book, Qian offers a third perspective, taking certain elements from each school of thought but emphasizing not why reform worked but how it did. Economics is a science, but economic reform is applied science and engineering. To a practitioner, it is more useful to find a feasible reform path than the theoretically best way.The key to understanding how reform has worked in China, Qian argues, is to consider the way reform designs respond to initial historical conditions and contemporary constraints. Qian examines the role of “transitional institutions”—not “best practice institutions” but “incentive-compatible institutions”—in Chinese reform; the dual-track approach to market liberalization; the ownership of firms, viewed both theoretically and empirically; government decentralization, offering and testing hypotheses about its link to local economic development; and the specific historical conditions of China's regional-based central planning.

An account of the significant though gradual, uneven, disconnected, ad hoc, and pragmatic innovations in global financial governance and developmental finance induced by the global financial crisis.In When Things Don't Fall Apart, Ilene Grabel challenges the dominant view that the global financial crisis had little effect on global financial governance and developmental finance. Most observers discount all but grand, systemic ruptures in institutions and policy. Grabel argues instead that the global crisis induced inconsistent and ad hoc discontinuities in global financial governance and developmental finance that are now having profound effects on emerging market and developing economies. Grabel's chief normative claim is that the resulting incoherence in global financial governance is productive rather than debilitating. In the age of productive incoherence, a more complex, dense, fragmented, and pluripolar form of global financial governance is expanding possibilities for policy and institutional experimentation, policy space for economic and human development, financial stability and resilience, and financial inclusion. Grabel draws on key theoretical commitments of Albert Hirschman to cement the case for the productivity of incoherence. Inspired by Hirschman, Grabel demonstrates that meaningful change often emerges from disconnected, erratic, experimental, and inconsistent adjustments in institutions and policies as actors pragmatically manage in an evolving world. Grabel substantiates her claims with empirically rich case studies that explore the effects of recent crises on networks of financial governance (such as the G-20); transformations within the IMF; institutional innovations in liquidity support and project finance from the national to the transregional levels; and the “rebranding” of capital controls. Grabel concludes with a careful examination of the opportunities and risks associated with the evolutionary transformations underway.

The impact of host country institutions and policy on innovation by multinational firms in emerging economies.In the past, multinational firms have looked to developing countries as sources of raw materials, markets, or production efficiencies, but rarely as locations for innovation. Today, however, R&D facilities and other indicators of multinational-linked innovation are becoming more common in emerging economies. In this book, Patrick Egan investigates patterns of inward foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries, considering the impact of host country institutions and policy on the innovative activities undertaken by multinational firms. He examines the uneven spread of innovation-intensive foreign direct investment and emerging sectoral distributions, then develops a number of arguments about the determinants of multinational innovation in developing countries. Firms are attracted by a country's supply of skilled labor and are often eager to innovate close to new markets; but, Egan finds, host country institutions and the configuration of the host country's investment policies have a strong impact on firm decisions and evolving country investment profiles.Egan uses econometric analysis to identify determinants of multinational innovation, and examines differences among state institutions as a key variable. He then offers a detailed case study, assessing Ireland's attempts to use foreign direct investment in innovation as a catalyst for development. While FDI is a potential vehicle for industrial upgrading, Egan cautions, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for development. Furthermore, innovation-intensive investments are not likely to develop linkages with local actors or otherwise embed themselves in host economies in the absence of active, discriminating policies channeled through coherent and coordinated institutions.

Issues in debates about foreign currency exposure—the denomination of liabilities or assets in foreign currency.The foreign currency denomination of contracts in international transactions can lead to international currency exposure at the country level with important economic and policy implications. When debts are denominated in foreign currency and revenues in domestic currency, exchange rate fluctuations can result in balance sheet effects for countries with either net asset or liability positions. Moreover, currency mismatch between assets and liabilities can be a cause for crises in developing and emerging economies. This book looks at the issues surrounding foreign currency exposure in today's increasingly integrated world economy.The contributors draw on cross-country as well as country-specific data. They consider international currency risk after the Swiss franc ended its one-sided peg with the euro, for example, and the foreign exchange positions of firms in Turkey and Russia. Other contributors take macroeconomic perspectives, examining the potential effects of exchange rate realignment, the pressure to appreciate on countries with current account surpluses, and the currency exposure in international trade. Finally, contributors consider the issue from finance and political economy perspectives, addressing the phenomenon of the forward premium puzzle and discussing geopolitical aspects ascending currencies.ContributorsFatih Altunok, Huseyin Aytug, Agustín S. Bénétrix, Jörg Breitung, Paul De Grauwe, Eiji Fujii, Peter Garber, Juann H. Hung, Signe Krogstrup, Philip R. Lane, Katja Mann, Arif Oduncu, Gunther Schnabl, Maria V. Sokolova, Cédric Tille

A detailed examination of the GATT regime for international trade, discussing the negotiating record, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created alongside other towering achievements of the post-World War II era, including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. GATT, the first successful agreement to generate multilateral trade liberalization, became the principal institution to administer international trade for the next six decades. In this book, Petros Mavoidis offers detailed examination of the GATT regime for international trade, discussing the negotiating record, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. Mavroidis offers a substantive first chapter that provides a detailed historical background to GATT that stretches from the 1927 World Economic Conference through Bretton Woods and the Atlantic Charter. Each of the following chapters examines the disciplines agreed to, their negotiating record, their economic rationale, and subsequent practice. Mavroidis focuses on cases that have influenced the prevailing understanding of the norm, as well as on literature that has contributed to its interpretation, and the final outcome. In particular, he examines quantitative restrictions and tariffs; the most favored nation clause (MFN), the cornerstone of the GATT edifice; preferential trade agreements and special treatment for products originating in developing countries; domestic instruments; and exceptions to the obligations assumed under GATT. This book's companion volume examines World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements regulating trade in goods.

A detailed examination of WTO agreements regulating trade in goods, discussing legal context, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) has extended its institutional arsenal since the Kennedy round in the early 1960s. The current institutional design is the outcome of the Uruguay round and agreements reached in the ongoing Doha round (begun in 2001). One of the institutional outgrowths of GATT is the World Trade Organization (WT0), created in 1995. In this book, Petros Mavroidis offers a detailed examination of WTO agreements regulating trade in goods, discussing legal context, policy background, economic rationale, and case law. Each chapter examines a given legal norm and its subsequent practice. In particular, he discusses agreements dealing with customs clearance; “contingent protection” instruments, which allow WTO members unilaterally to add to the negotiated amount of protection when a certain contingency (for example, dumping) has occurred; TBT (Technical Barriers to Trade) and SPS (Sanitary and Phyto-sanitary Measures) agreements, both of which deal with such domestic instruments as environmental, health policy, or consumer information; the agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIM); sector-specific agreements on agriculture and textiles; plurilateral agreements (binding a subset of WTO membership) on government procurement and civil aviation; and transparency in trade relations. This book's companion volume examines the GATT regime for international trade.

Investigations of the propagation and influence of global shocks among the economies of developed and developing countries.One lens through which to view global economic interdependence and the spillover of shocks is that of decoupling (and then recoupling). Decoupling between developed and developing countries can be seen in the strong economic performance of China and India relative to that of the United States and Europe in the early 2000s. Recoupling then took place as developing countries sank along with the developed world during the deepening financial crisis of 2008. This volume examines patterns of global economic interdependence and the propagation of shocks in an increasingly integrated world economy.The contributors discuss such topics as the transmission of exogenous shocks; causes of business cycle synchronicity; the differences between global and regional shocks; the South-South trade relationship and its effect on decoupling; vertical specialization and Mexico's manufacturing exports; growth prospects in China, the United States, and Europe after the financial crisis; and the evolving role of the U.S. dollar in international monetary architecture.ContributorsHelge Berger, Rossella Calvi, Yin-Wong Cheung, Gianluca Cubadda, Justino De La Cruz, Filippo di Mauro, Michael Dooley, Eiji Fujii, Linda S. Goldberg, Barbara Guardabascio, Alain Hecq, Hideaki Hirata, Robert B. Koopman, M. Ayhan Kose, Marco J. Lombardi, Steven Lugauer, Nelson C. Mark, Volker Nitsch, Christopher Otrok, Tuomas Antero Peltonen, Gabor Pula, Pierre L. Siklos, Zhi Wang, Shang-Jin Wei, Frank Westermann

Writings by Wu Jinglian map not only China's path to economic reform but also the intellectual evolution of China's most influential economist.For more than thirty years, Wu Jinglian has been widely regarded as China's most celebrated and influential economist. In the late 1970s, Wu (b. 1930) was one of a small group of economic thinkers who broke with Marxist concepts and learned the principles of a market economy. Since then he has been at the center of economic reform in China, moving seamlessly as an “insider outsider” between academic and policy roles. In recent years, Wu has emerged as a prominent public intellectual fighting not just for market reform but also for a democratic society backed by the rule of law. This book presents many of Wu's most important writings, a number of them appearing in English for the first time. Each section offers an informative introductory essay by Barry Naughton, the volume's editor and an expert on China's economy.The book begins with Wu's most recent articles, which make clear his belief that gradual marketization combined with institutional development will make Chinese society fairer and less corrupt. Biographical writings follow, accompanied by a richly insightful text by Naughton on Wu's life and career. Writings from the 1980s and 1990s, written originally for a small audience of policy makers, demonstrate how Wu shaped China's early reform path; essays and articles from the late 1990s and early 2000s reflect Wu's new role as an advocate for broader reforms. Taken together, these texts map not only China's path to economic reform but also Wu's own intellectual evolution.

Maps capture data expressing the economic complexity of countries from Albania to Zimbabwe, offering current economic measures and as well as a guide to achieving prosperityWhy do some countries grow and others do not? The authors of The Atlas of Economic Complexity offer readers an explanation based on'Economic Complexity,'a measure of a society's productive knowledge. Prosperous societies are those that have the knowledge to make a larger variety of more complex products. The Atlas of Economic Complexity attempts to measure the amount of productive knowledge countries hold and how they can move to accumulate more of it by making more complex products.Through the graphical representation of the'Product Space,'the authors are able to identify each country's'adjacent possible,'or potential new products, making it easier to find paths to economic diversification and growth. In addition, they argue that a country's economic complexity and its position in the product space are better predictors of economic growth than many other well-known development indicators, including measures of competitiveness, governance, finance, and schooling.Using innovative visualizations, the book locates each country in the product space, provides complexity and growth potential rankings for 128 countries, and offers individual country pages with detailed information about a country's current capabilities and its diversification options. The maps and visualizations included in the Atlas can be used to find more viable paths to greater productive knowledge and prosperity.

Essays by leading scholars suggest that insights from international business could enrich firm heterogeneity research in international economics.Despite their common roots, international economics (IE) and international business (IB) have developed into two distinct fields of study. Economists have directed their efforts at formalizing the workings of international trade and investment at the macroeconomic level; business scholars have relied more on data-driven conceptual narratives than mathematical tools. But the recent focus of IE literature on firm heterogeneity suggests that IE would benefit from IB analyses of the behavior and organization of the internationalizing firm. The contributions to this volume investigate ways that insights from IB can enrich IE research in firm heterogeneity.The contributors discuss firm-specific advantages in international trade and investment, considering the firm as the unit of analysis and managerial inputs as a variable in market entry decisions; analyze interactions between a firm and its external environment, including local corporate philanthropy and institutional settings; examine the boundaries of the firm and organizational choices such as the make-or-buy decision; and investigate technology transfer and innovation offshoring, discussing the role of subsidiaries, inventor employment, and other related topics. Although IE and IB look at international firms from different perspectives, these contributions make it clear that there is a potential for a productive exchange of insights and information between the two disciplines.ContributorsLaura Abramovsky, Carlo Altomonte, Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, Bruce Blonigen, Pamela Bombarda, Steven Brakman, Julia Darby, Rodolphe Desbordes, Filippo Di Mauro, María García-Vega, Harry Garretsen, Elena Huergo, Florian Mayneris, Quyen T. K. Nguyen, Verena Nowak, Cheyney O'Fallon, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Michael Pflüger, Filomena Pietrovito, Sandra Poncet, Alberto Franco Pozzolo, Alan M. Rugman, Armando Rungi, Stephan Russek, Davide Sala, Luca Salvatici, Christian Schwarz, Roger Smeets, Jens Suedekum, Hans van Ees, Vincent Vicard, Ian Wooton, Erdal Yalcin

Experts analyze four factors in China's economic growth: exchange rate policy, savings and investments, monetary policy, and foreign direct investments.China is now the world's second largest economy and may soon overtake the United States as the world's largest. Despite its adoption of some free-market principles, China considers itself a “socialist-market economy,” suggesting that the government still plays a major role in the country's economic development. This book offers a systematic analysis of four factors in China's rapid economic growth: exchange rate policy, savings and investment, monetary policy and capital controls, and foreign direct investment (FDI).Contributors offer fresh perspectives on the undervaluation of the renminbi, the dollar peg, and China's macroeconomic relationships with the rest of the world. They review factors shaping China's saving dynamics and analyze the growth of the private sector despite limited access to external finance. They examine the monetary policy independence of the People's Bank of China, offshore markets for China's currency, and the effectiveness of China's capital controls. Finally, they consider Chinese FDI in terms of China's growing demand for energy and raw materials, exploring the factors that drive China's FDI in the conventional oil-producing countries and in Africa.

An empirically rich study of the influence of social networks on corporate governance across countries and the emergence of a new transnational community.The financial crisis of 2008 laid bare the hidden network of relationships in corporate governance: who owes what to whom, who will stand by whom in times of crisis, what governs the provision of credit when no one seems to have credit. This book maps the influence of these types of economic and social networks—communities of agents (people or firms) and the ties among them—on corporate behavior and governance. The empirically rich studies in the book are largely concerned with mechanisms for the emergence of governance networks rather than with what determines the best outcomes. The chapters identify “structural breaks”—privatization, for example, or globalization—and assess why powerful actors across countries behaved similarly or differently in terms of network properties and corporate governance.The chapters examine, among other topics, the surprisingly heterogeneous network structures that contradict the common belief in a single Anglo-Saxon model; the variation in network trajectories among the formerly communist countries including China; signs of convergence in response to the common structural breaks in Europe; the growing structural power of women due to gains in gender diversity on corporate governance in Scandinavia; the “small world” of merger and acquisition activity in Germany and the United States; the properties of a global and transnational governance network; and application of agent-based models to understanding the emergence of governance.

Economists explore the relationship between expanding international trade and the parallel growth in illicit trade, including illegal drugs, smuggling, and organized crime.As international trade has expanded dramatically in the postwar period—an expansion accelerated by the opening of China, Russia, India, and Eastern Europe—illicit international trade has grown in tandem with it. This volume uses the economist's toolkit to examine the economic, political, and social problems resulting from such illicit activities as illegal drug trade, smuggling, and organized crime.The contributors consider several aspects of the illegal drug market, including the sometimes puzzling relationships among purity, price, and risk; the effect of globalization on the heroin and cocaine markets, examined both through mathematical models and with empirical data from the U.K; the spread of khat, a psychoactive drug imported legally to the U.K. as a vegetable; and the economic effect of the “war on drugs” on producer and consumer countries. Other chapters examine the hidden financial flows of organized crime, patterns of smuggling in international trade, Iran's illicit trading activity, and the impact of mafia-like crime on foreign direct investment in Italy.

The evolution of a rapidly growing mode of offshoring, captive centers: basic models, strategies, and case studies of Fortune Global 250 firms.In today's globalized economy, firms often consider offshoring when confronted by rising costs and fierce competition. One mode of offshoring has continued to grow despite the current global economic turmoil: the captive center. Captive centers are offshore subsidiaries or branch offices that provide the parent company with services, usually in the form of back-office activities. In Offshoring Strategies, Ilan Oshri examines the evolution of the captive center. He identifies basic captive center models, examines the captive center strategies pursued by Fortune Global 250 firms, describes current captive center trends, and offers detailed individual case studies that illustrate each model. His analysis highlights the strategic paths available to firms that want to maximize the returns offered by captive centers. Oshri outlines six models for captive centers that range from the basic wholly owned branch office to hybrids and joint ventures and identifies evolutionary paths along which the basic model develops. He analyzes firms'strategies during initial set-up, then tracks the changes as strategies evolve to meet different business needs. The case studies, all based on the Fortune Global 250, include the development of a basic captive unit into a complex hybrid structure; the evolution a captive center into a shared service center offering services to other international firms; the divestment of a captive center to a private equity firm; and the migration of a captive center to a location where costs were lower.

An investigation into monetary cooperation in East Asia that examines options ranging from informal policy coordination to the introduction of a common currency.East Asian countries were notably uninterested in regional monetary integration until the late 1990s, when the Asian financial crisis revealed the fragility of the region's exchange rate arrangements and highlighted the need for a stronger regional financial architecture. Since then, the countries of East Asia have begun taking steps to explore monetary and financial cooperation, establishing such initiatives as regular consultations among finance ministers and central bank governors and the pooling of foreign exchange reserves. In this book, Ulrich Volz investigates the prospects for monetary cooperation and integration in East Asia, using state-of-the-art theoretical and empirical tools to analyze the most promising policy options. Volz points out that monetary cooperation can be defined broadly to include options ranging from informal policy consultations to European-style monetary union. He recommends a gradual approach toward monetary integration in East Asia, one that pursues less extensive forms of monetary cooperation before tackling such highly challenging projects as a regional exchange rate system or a regional monetary union. The simpler, less demanding forms of policy coordination would, Volz argues, allow East Asian countries to develop an integrationist spirit and gain experience in cooperation. Monetary integration is not an end in itself, Volz reminds us, but a means to promote economic and financial development and create a stable macroeconomic environment that is conducive to investment and growth. After providing an in-depth analysis of the costs and benefits of monetary integration, Volz examines different options for East Asian countries. He then proposes a strategy whereby countries first opt for a managed float of exchange rates guided by a regional currency basket into which an “Asian currency unit” is introduced as a virtual parallel currency to circulate alongside national currencies.

An analysis of the operation and consequences of exchange rate regimes in an era of increasing international interdependence.The exchange rate is sometimes called the most important price in a highly globalized world. A country's choice of its exchange rate regime, between government-managed fixed rates and market-determined floating rates has significant implications for monetary policy, trade, and macroeconomic outcomes, and is the subject of both academic and policy debate. In this book, two leading economists examine the operation and consequences of exchange rate regimes in an era of increasing international interdependence.Michael Klein and Jay Shambaugh focus on the evolution of exchange rate regimes in the modern era, the period since 1973, which followed the Bretton Woods era of 1945–72 and the pre-World War I gold standard era. Klein and Shambaugh offer a comprehensive, integrated treatment of the characteristics of exchange rate regimes and their effects. The book draws on and synthesizes data from the recent wave of empirical research on this topic, and includes new findings that challenge preconceived notions.

Analyses and studies of public-private partnerships in education and the varied forms they take in different parts of the world.Public-private partnerships in education exist in various forms around the world, in both developed and developing countries. Despite this, and despite the importance of human capital for economic growth, systematic analysis has been limited and scattered, with most scholarly attention going to initiatives in the United States. This volume hlelps to fill the gap, bringing together recent studies on public-private partnerships in different parts of the world, including Asia, North and South America, and Europe. These initiatives vary significantly in form and structure, and School Choice International offers not only comprehensive overviews (including a cross-country analysis of student achievement) but also detailed studies of specific initiatives in particular countries. Two chapters compare public and private schools in India and the relative efficacy of these two sectors in providing education. Other chapters examine the use of publicly funded vouchers in Chile and Colombia, reporting promising results in Colombia but ambiguous findings in Chile; and student outcomes in publicly funded, privately managed schools (similar to American charter schools) in two countries: Colombia's “concession schools” and the United Kingdom's City Academies Programme. Taken together, these studies offer important insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers into the purposes, directions, and effects of different public-private educational initiatives.ContributorsFelipe Barrera, Cristian Bellei, Eric P. Bettinger, Rajashri Chakrabarti, Geeta G. Kingdon, Michael Kremer, Norman LaRocque, Stephen Machin, Karthik Muralidhara, Thomas Nechyba, Harry A. Patrinos, Paul E. Peterson, Ludger Woessmann

Many countries have experienced major economic changes since the mid-1980s as a result of the deregulation and liberalization of national financial systems—two key aspects of globalization—with some experiencing boom and bust in rapid succession. The small Northern European country of Finland has been hailed as a success story for achieving renewed economic growth and prosperity after a financial crisis and deep depression in the early 1990s. Economic Prosperity Recaptured offers a detailed analysis of the rapid swings in Finland's recent economic development, from initial overheating in the late 1980s through deep crisis in the early 1990s to recovery and growth since the mid-1990s.Finland's complex road to recovery offers excellent examples of both unsuccessful and successful policy responses to changing circumstances. The authors examine the three relatively distinct periods of Finland's recent experience, analyzing the adequacy of the macroeconomic policy response in each case. They assess the real economic effects of financial constraints and look for evidence of the'credit channel'of the monetary system. Finland's rapid economic growth since the mid-1990s is largely the result of its structural transformation into a high-tech economy; Nokia is the most famous example of this information and communication technology success. Elaborating on Finland's ICT revolution, the authors demonstrate that well-designed economic policies contributed to Finland's economic turnaround.CESifo Book series

Practitioners and scholars from a range of disciplines discuss how midsize farms can better connect with consumers, organize collectively to develop markets for their products, and promote public policies that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues.Agriculture in the United States today increasingly operates in two separate spheres: large, corporate-connected commodity production and distribution systems and small-scale farms that market directly to consumers. As a result, midsize family-operated farms find it increasingly difficult to find and reach markets for their products. They are too big to use the direct marketing techniques of small farms but too small to take advantage of corporate marketing and distribution systems. This crisis of the midsize farm results in a rural America with weakened municipal tax bases, job loss, and population flight. Food and the Mid-Level Farm discusses strategies for reviving an “agriculture of the middle” and creating a food system that works for midsize farms and ranches. Activists, practitioners, and scholars from a variety of disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics, consider ways midsize farms can regain vitality by scaling up aspects of small farms'operations to connect with consumers, organizing together to develop markets for their products, developing food supply chains that preserve farmer identity and are based on fair business agreements, and promoting public policies (at international, federal, state, and community levels) that address agriculture-of-the-middle issues. Food and the Mid-Level Farm makes it clear that the demise of midsize farms and ranches is not a foregone conclusion and that the renewal of an agriculture of the middle will benefit all participants in the food system—from growers to consumers.

Leading economists analyze topical issues in pension policy, including structural reform of pay-as-you-go systems, the political sustainability of pension reforms, and the need for private, funded systems.Demographic realities will soon force developed countries to find ways to pay for longer retirements for more people. In Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States, leading economists analyze topical issues in pension policy, with a focus on raising the retirement age, increasing retirement savings, and the political sustainability of reforms that will accomplish these goals. After a substantive and wide-ranging introduction by the editors that weaves together the demographic and economic strands of the story, the chapters present cutting-edge research, offering both theoretical and empirical analyses. Contributors examine such topics as the reform of key structural features of existing pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension systems, analyzing how benefits should vary with the age of retirement, labor supply elasticity after France's 1993 pension reform, and fiscal response to a demographic shock; the feasibility of PAYG reforms in the United States and the competition among state pension systems that results from labor mobility in Europe; and private, funded systems (increasingly perceived as necessary adjuncts to PAYG systems) in the UK, the US, and the Netherlands, and in terms of individual portfolio management. The editors conclude the volume with a study of recent German and UK reforms and their effects on personal savings.ContributorsTheodore C. Bergstrom, A. Lans Bovenberg, Antoine Bozio, Woojen Chung, Juan C. Conesa, Gabrielle Demange, Richard Disney, Carl Emmerson, Robert Fenge, Luisa Fuster, Carlos Garriga, Christian Gollier, John L. Hartman, Ayse Imrohoroglu, Selahattin Imrohoroglu, Thijs Knaap, Georges de Ménil, Pierre Pestieau, Eytan Sheshinski, Matthew Wakefield

Top experts in the field discuss how to improve the effectiveness of foreign aid, proposing practical solutions to specific problems rather than a utopian master plan.The urgency of reducing poverty in the developing world has been the subject of a public campaign by such unlikely policy experts as George Clooney, Alicia Keyes, Elton John, Angelina Jolie, and Bono. And yet accompanying the call for more foreign aid is an almost universal discontent with the effectiveness of the existing aid system. In Reinventing Foreign Aid, development expert William Easterly has gathered top scholars in the field to discuss how to improve foreign aid. These authors, Easterly points out, are not claiming that their ideas will (to invoke a current slogan) Make Poverty History. Rather, they take on specific problems and propose some hard-headed solutions. Easterly himself, in an expansive and impassioned introductory chapter, makes a case for the “searchers”—who explore solutions by trial and error and learn from feedback—over the “planners”—who throw an endless supply of resources at a big goal—as the most likely to reduce poverty. Other writers look at scientific evaluation of aid projects (including randomized trials) and describe projects found to be cost-effective, including vaccine delivery and HIV education; consider how to deal with the government of the recipient state (work through it or bypass a possibly dysfunctional government?); examine the roles of the International Monetary Fund (a de-facto aid provider) and the World Bank; and analyze some new and innovative proposals for distributing aid. Contributors Abhijit Banerjee, Nancy Birdsall, Craig Burnside, Esther Duflo, Domenico Fanizza, William Easterly, Ruimin He, Kurt Hoffman, Stephen Knack, Michael Kremer, Mari Kuraishi, Ruth Levine, Bertin Martens, John McMillan, Edward Miguel, Jonathan Morduch, Todd Moss, Gunilla Pettersson, Lant Pritchett, Steven Radelet, Aminur Rahman, Ritva Reinikka, Jakob Svensson, Nicolas van de Walle, James Vreeland, Dennis Whittle, Michael Woolcock

Top economists examine one of the key forces in globalization from a wide range of theoretical and empirical perspectives.The multinational firm and its main vehicle, foreign direct investment, are key forces in economic globalization. Their importance to the world economy can be seen in the fact that since 1990 foreign direct investment has grown more rapidly than the world GDP and world trade. Despite this, the causes and consequences of multinational firm activity are little understood and until recently relatively unexamined in the theoretical literature. This CESifo volume fills this gap, examining the multinational enterprise (MNE) and foreign direct investment (FDI) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. In the theoretical chapters, leading scholars take a wide range of modern analytical approaches—from new growth and trade theories to new economic geography, industrial organization, and game theory. Taking current theoretical work on MNE and FDI as a starting point and aiming to extend the existing theoretical framework, the contributors consider such topics as investment liberalization and firm location, tax competition, and welfare consequences of FDI and outsourcing. The empirical chapters test several of the key hypotheses of recent theoretical work on MNE and FDI, examining topics that include productivity effects on Italian MNEs, the different effects of outsourcing in Austria and Poland, location decisions of MNEs in the European Union, and other topics. ContributorsOscar Amerighi, Bruce A. Blonigen, Steven Brakman, Davide Castellani, Ronald B. Davies, Alan V. Deardorff, Fabrice Defever, Harry Garretsen, Anders N. Hoffman, Andzelika Lorentowicz, James R. Markusen, Charles van Marrewijk, Dalia Marin, James R. Marukusen, Alireza Naghavi, Helen T. Naughton, Giorgio Barba Navaretti, J. Peter Neary, Gianmarco Ottaviano, Alexander Raubold, Glen R. Waddell

An encouraging account of the potential of foreign aid to reduce poverty and a challenge to all aid organizations to think harder about how they spend their money.With more than a billion people now living on less than a dollar a day, and with eight million dying each year because they are simply too poor to live, most would agree that the problem of global poverty is our greatest moral challenge. The large and pressing practical question is how best to address that challenge. Although millions of dollars flow to poor countries, the results are often disappointing. In Making Aid Work, Abhijit Banerjee—an'aid optimist'—argues that aid has much to contribute, but the lack of analysis about which programs really work causes considerable waste and inefficiency, which in turn fuels unwarranted pessimism about the role of aid in fostering economic development. Banerjee challenges aid donors to do better. Building on the model used to evaluate new drugs before they come on the market, he argues that donors should assess programs with field experiments using randomized trials. In fact, he writes, given the number of such experiments already undertaken, current levels of development assistance could focus entirely on programs with proven records of success in experimental conditions. Responding to his challenge, leaders in the field—including Nicholas Stern, Raymond Offenheiser, Alice Amsden, Ruth Levine, Angus Deaton, and others—question whether randomized trials are the most appropriate way to evaluate success for all programs. They raise broader questions as well, about the importance of aid for economic development and about the kinds of interventions (micro or macro, political or economic) that will lead to real improvements in the lives of poor people around the world. With one in every six people now living in extreme poverty, getting it right is crucial.

This comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy by a noted expert on China's economic development offers a quality and breadth of coverage not found in any other English-language text. In The Chinese Economy, Barry Naughton provides both an engaging, broadly focused introduction to China's economy since 1949 and original insights based on his own extensive research. The book will be an essential resource for students, teachers, scholars, business people, and policymakers. It is suitable for classroom use for undergraduate or graduate courses.After presenting background material on the pre-1949 economy and the industrialization, reform, and market transition that have taken place since, the book examines different aspects of the modern Chinese economy. It analyzes patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural economy, including agriculture and rural industrialization; industrial and technological development in urban areas; international trade and foreign investment; macroeconomic trends and cycles and the financial system; and the largely unaddressed problems of environmental quality and the sustainability of growth.The text is notable also for placing China's economy in interesting comparative contexts, discussing it in relation to other transitional or developing economies and to such advanced industrial countries as the United States and Japan. It provides both a broad historical and macro perspective as well as a focused examination of the actual workings of China's complex and dynamic economic development. Interest in the Chinese economy will only grow as China becomes an increasingly important player on the world's stage. This book will be the standard reference for understanding and teaching about the next economic superpower.

A provocative argument that unless Europe takes serious action soon, its economic and political decline is unavoidable, and a clear statement of the steps Europe must take before it's too late.Unless Europe takes action soon, its further economic and political decline is almost inevitable, economists Alberto Alesina and Francesco Giavazzi write in this provocative book. Without comprehensive reform, continental Western Europe's overprotected, overregulated economies will continue to slow—and its political influence will become negligible. This doesn't mean that Italy, Germany, France, and other now-prosperous countries will become poor; their standard of living will remain comfortable. But they will become largely irrelevant on the world scene. In The Future of Europe, Alesina and Giavazzi (themselves Europeans) outline the steps that Europe must take to prevent its economic and political eclipse.Europe, the authors say, has much to learn from the market liberalism of America. Europeans work less and vacation more than Americans; they value job stability and security above all. Americans, Alesina and Giavazzi argue, work harder and longer and are more willing to endure the ups and downs of a market economy. Europeans prize their welfare states; Americans abhor government spending. America is a melting pot; European countries—witness the November 2005 unrest in France—have trouble absorbing their immigrant populations. If Europe is to arrest its decline, Alesina and Giavazzi warn, it needs to adopt something closer to the American free-market model for dealing with these issues.Alesina and Giavazzi's prescriptions for how Europe should handle worker productivity, labor market regulation, globalization, support for higher education and technology research, fiscal policy, and its multiethnic societies are sure to stir controversy, as will their eye-opening view of the European Union and the euro. But their wake-up call will ring loud and clear for anyone concerned about the future of Europe and the global economy.

Detailed case studies of debt defaults by Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Ecuador, Moldova, and Uruguay, framed by a comprehensive discussion of the history, economic theory, legal issues, and policy lessons of sovereign debt crises.The debt crises in emerging market countries over the past decade have given rise to renewed debate about crisis prevention and resolution. In Debt Defaults and Lessons from a Decade of Crises, Federico Sturzenegger and Jeromin Zettelmeyer examine the facts, the economic theory, and the policy implications of sovereign debt crises. They present detailed case histories of the default and debt crises in seven emerging market countries between 1998 and 2005: Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, Ecuador, Argentina, Moldova, and Uruguay. These accounts are framed with a comprehensive overview of the history, economics, and legal issues involved and a discussion from both domestic and international perspectives of the policy lessons that can be derived from these experiences.Sturzenegger and Zettelmeyer examine how each crisis developed, what the subsequent restructuring encompassed, and how investors and the defaulting country fared. They discuss the new theoretical thinking on sovereign debt and the ultimate costs entailed, for both debtor countries and private creditors. The policy debate is considered first from the perspective of policymakers in emerging market countries and then in terms of international financial architecture. The authors'surveys of legal and economic issues associated with debt crises, and of the crises themselves, are the most comprehensive to be found in the literature on sovereign debt and default, and their theoretical analysis is detailed and nuanced. The book will be a valuable resource for investors as well as for scholars and policymakers.

Experts on the Japanese economy examine Japan's prolonged period of economic underperformance, analyzing the ways in which the financial system, monetary policy, and international financial factors contributed to its onset and duration.After experiencing spectacular economic growth and industrial development for much of the postwar era, Japan plunged abruptly into recession in the early 1990s and since then has suffered a prolonged period of economic stagnation, from which it is only now emerging. Japan's malaise, marked by recession or weak economic activity, commodity and asset price deflation, banking failures, increased bankruptcies, and rising unemployment, has been the most sustained economic downturn seen in the industrial world since the 1930s. In Japan's Great Stagnation, experts on the Japanese economy consider key questions about the causes and effects of Japan's prolonged period of economic underperformance and what other advanced economies might learn from Japan's experience. They focus on aspects of the financial and banking system that have contributed to economic stagnation, the role of monetary policy, and the importance of international financial factors—in particular, the exchange rate and the balance of payments.Among the topics discussed are bank fragility and the inaccuracy of measuring it by the'Japan premium,'the consequences of weak banking regulation, the controversial policy of'quantitative easing,'and the effectiveness of currency devaluation for fighting deflation. Taken together, the contributions demonstrate the importance of a sound financial sector in fostering robust growth and healthy economies—and the enormous economic costs of a dysfunctional financial system.ContributorsYoichi Arai, Robert Dekle, Zekeriya Eser, Eiji Fujii, Kimie Harada, Takeo Hoshi, Michael M. Hutchison, Takatoshi Ito, Ken Kletzer, Nikolas Müller-Plantenberg, Kunio Okina, Joe Peek, Eric S. Rosengren, Shigenori Shiratsuka, Mark M. Spiegel, Frank Westermann, Nobuyoshi Yamori

Experts evaluate the varied outcomes of privatization experiences in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.The trend toward privatization, which began with privatization experiments in the UK under Margaret Thatcher and the deregulation of the telecommunications sector in the United States, has attracted the attention of policymakers over the past two decades. Privatization is broadly supported by most academic economists, but the results of actual privatization efforts seem mixed. In the UK, for example, telecom rates fell sharply after privatization, but privatized rail service was widely perceived to have declined dramatically in quality. In this CESifo volume, international experts examine the experiences of 10 EU countries, evaluating the real outcomes of privatization policies in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.The effects of privatization—which includes not only changes in ownership of public activitiesand entities but also liberalization of markets and deregulation—are difficult to distinguish from the effects of other economywide influences. The studies in this volume meet this methodological challenge by using a well-defined set of criteria, including reducing consumer prices, increasing quantity, and improving quality, by which to make their assessments. Background chapters provide a conceptual framework for considering the issues.ContributorsPablo Arocena, Sean D. Barrett, Ansgar Belke, Michel Berne, Henrik Christoffersen, Andrea Goldstein, Günter Knieps, David Newbery, Martin Paldam, David Parker, Gérard Pogorel, Friedrich Schneider, Eric van Damme, Ingo Vogelsang, Johan Willner

Leading international economists examine the different patterns and long-term trends behind persistent unemployment across Western Europe in light of recent developments in labor market theory. Structural unemployment, or persistently high levels of unemployment that do not follow the ups and downs of a typical business cycle, varies significantly across industrialized countries. In this CESifo volume, leading labor economists analyze the widely diverging patterns of long-term unemployment across Western Europe. Drawing on recent developments in labor market theory and macroeconomics to explain the emergence and persistence of unemployment, the studies look for fundamental explanations and common patterns that might lead to policy solutions.The two opening chapters offer overviews of the problem: European labor market expert Stephen Nickell highlights the unemployment situation in the'Big Four'continental European states of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and American economist Edmund S. Phelps focuses on new theoretical approaches that examine institutional factors influencing unemployment in a given country. Following these introductory essays, prominent economists consider the experiences of their home countries, in chapters on Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. By taking advantage of the richness of research conducted at a national level and making the work accessible to an international audience, this volume contributes to a new understanding of structural unemployment and how it can be overcome through labor market reforms and other economic policy measures.ContributorsTorben Andersen, Samuel Bentolila, Norbert Berthold, Guiseppe Bertola, Rainer Fehn, Pietro Garibaldi, Bertil Holmlund, Juan F. Jimeno, Erkki Koskela, Stephen J. Nickell, Jan C. van Ours, Edmund S. Phelps, Jean Pisany-Ferry, Christopher Pissarides, Roope Uusitalo, Brendan Walsh, Martin Werding

The increasingly integrated economies of East Asia—China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand—face the dilemma of how to achieve exchange-rate security in the absence of a unifying'Asian euro.'The US dollar has become the region's dominant intraregional trading currency as well as the monetary anchor to which East Asian economies informally peg their currencies. In this timely and original analysis of the benefits and risks of an East Asian dollar standard, Ronald McKinnon takes issue with the conventional view that urges flexible exchange rates on financially fragile economies. He argues instead that East Asian countries should coordinate their policies to keep their exchange rates stable against the dollar. McKinnon develops a conceptual framework to show where the conventional wisdom on exchange rates has gone wrong. Pressure on the'virtuous'high-saving dollar-creditor East Asian nations to appreciate their currencies leads to a'conflicted'choice between a possible deflationary slump if they do appreciate and threatened trade sanctions if they do not. Analyzing interactions among the East Asian economies, McKinnon explains the rationale, and the need, for greater exchange-rate security in the region, pointing to the soft-dollar pegs adopted by these nations as steps in the right direction. He suggests that the dollar standard in East Asia could be rationalized through collective action by national governments and considers the effect of American monetary and trade policies on the East Asian economy.

How Brazil's monetary and fiscal policies survived a series of severe economic shocks and the policy lessons for other countries.Inflation targeting—when central bank policies set specific inflation rate objectives—is widely used by both developed and developing countries around the world (although not by the United States or the European Central Bank). This collection of original essays looks at how Brazil's policy of inflation targeting, coupled with a floating exchange rate, survived a series of severe economic shocks and examines the policy lessons that can be drawn from Brazil's experience.After a successful start in early 1999, Brazil's policy regime had to manage mounting difficulties, including a sudden reversal of capital flows and its effects on the exchange rate and public debt, the contagion of Argentina's severe economic problems, a domestic energy crisis, and the political uncertainty of the 2002 presidential campaign. The contributors, prominent Brazilian and international economists, draw important lessons from Brazil's experience, including the necessity of accompanying monetary policy with fiscal improvement, the trade-offs involved in dollar-linked debt, the importance of fiscal institutions in an emerging market economy, and the importance of keeping inflation under control.

An examination of the debates on European Central Bank monetary policy, focusing on issues of transparency, credibility, and accountability and the effect of the ECB's decentralized structure.The adoption of the euro in 1999 by 11 member states of the European Union created a single currency area second in economic size only to the United States. The euro zone's monetary policy is now set by the European Central Bank (ECB) and its Governing Council rather than by individual national central banks. This CESifo volume examines issues that have arisen in the first years of ECB monetary policy and analyzes the effect that current ECB policy strategy and structures may have in the future. After a detailed description and assessment of ECB monetary policy making that focuses on such issues as price stability and the predictability of policy decisions, the book turns to two important issues faced by European central bankers: the transparency and credibility of decision making and the ECB's decentralized structure. After showing that transparency in decision making enhances credibility, the book discusses the ECB's efforts at openness, its political independence as guaranteed by law, and its ultimate accountability. The book then considers the effects of the decentralized ECB structure, focusing on business cycle synchronization, inflation differentials, and differences in monetary policy transmission in light of the enlargement of the monetary union. The book also discusses options for ECB institutional reforms, including centralization, vote weighting, and cross-border regional banks.

An analysis of the welfare state from a political economy perspective that examines the effects of aging populations, migration, and globalization on industrialized economies.In The Decline of the Welfare State, Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka use a political economy framework to analyze the effects of aging populations, migration, and globalization on the deteriorating system of financing welfare state benefits as we know them. Their timely analysis, supported by a unified theoretical framework and empirical findings, demonstrates how the combined forces of demographic change and globalization will make it impossible for the welfare state to maintain itself on its present scale. In much of the developed world, the proportion of the population aged 60 and over is expected to rise dramatically over the coming years—from 35 percent in 2000 to a projected 66 percent in 2050 in the European Union and from 27 percent to 47 percent in the United States—which may necessitate higher tax burdens and greater public debt to maintain national pension systems at current levels. Low-skill migration produces additional strains on welfare-state financing because such migrants typically receive benefits that exceed what they pay in taxes. Higher capital taxation, which could potentially be used to finance welfare benefits, is made unlikely by international tax competition brought about by globalization of the capital market. Applying a political economy model and drawing on empirical data from the EU and the United States, the authors draw an unconventional and provocative conclusion from these developments. They argue that the political pressure from both aging and migrant populations indirectly generates political processes that favor trimming rather than expanding the welfare state. The combined pressures of aging, migration, and globalization will shift the balance of political power and generate public support from the majority of the voting population for cutting back traditional welfare state benefits.

Analysis of financial crises in emerging market economies, including Mexico, Argentina, and Russia; traces the evolution of crisis theory and challenges the conventional wisdom.Since the mid-1990s, emerging market economies have been hit by dramatic highs and lows: lifted by large capital inflows, then plunged into chaos by constrained credit and out-of-control exchange rates. The conventional wisdom about such crises is strongly influenced by the experience of advanced economies. In Emerging Capital Markets in Turmoil, Guillermo Calvo examines these issues instead from the perspective of emerging market economies themselves, taking into account the limitations and vulnerabilities these economies confront. A succession of crises—Mexico in 1994-5, East Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998, and Argentina in 2001—prompted an urgent search in economic policy circles for cogent explanations. Calvo begins by laying the groundwork for a new approach to these issues. In the theoretical chapters that follow, he argues that financial crisis theory regarding emerging markets has progressed from focusing on such variables as fiscal deficits, debt sustainability, and real currency devaluation to stressing the role of the financial sector—emphasizing stocks rather than flows as well as the role credibility plays in containing financial crises. He then returns to a more empirical analysis and focuses on exchange-rate issues, considering the advantages and disadvantages of flexible exchange rates for emerging market economies. Coming after a decade of ongoing crises, Calvo's timely reassessment of the importance of external factors in making emerging market economies safer from financial turmoil offers important policy lessons for dealing with inevitable future episodes of financial crises.

Leading international economists assess the effects of the 2004 expansion of the European Union.In May 2004 the European Union will undergo the largest expansion in its history when ten countries—Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia—become members. The number of new members and their diversity make this'big bang'enlargement particularly challenging. Not only do these countries vary widely in language, culture, and geography, but also their per capita income is less than half that of existing members. EU officials believe that expanded integration will serve the EU's objectives of peace, stability, prosperity, and democracy; but the less abstract questions of costs and benefits of enlargement are more complex.Each of the chapters in this CESifo volume addresses a different aspect of EU expansion. The contributors, all leading international practitioners and scholars, consider such topics as the effect of euro zone expansion on European Central Bank monetary policy making; using the euro as an external anchor for a national currency; worker migration and income differentials; the Swiss experience with immigration policy in a direct democracy framework; detailed sector analysis using a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy; investment and job creation and destruction in incumbent member countries; and the asymmetric effects of enlargement on high- and low-income incumbent countries. Taken together, the chapters provide useful guidance in shaping the EU policies of the future.

Studies examining the policy challenges posed by European monetary integration, including asymmetry problems and fiscal concerns.The success of European monetary integration—called by the editors of this CESifo volume'one of the most far-reaching, real world experiments in monetary policy to date'—is not assured. Policy makers have been forced to deal with challenges posed by formulating a uniform monetary policy for countries with asymmetric business cycles and economies in different stages of development as well as with the fiscal and financial implications of a unified currency.The contributors to European Monetary Integration, all prominent economists and scholars, combine theoretical analysis and policy recommendation in their examination of these difficulties. In the first three chapters they consider issues raised by asymmetry problems, including imperfect labor and goods markets, the problem of monetary policy objectives when'one size does not fit all,'and the possibility of a bias toward smaller countries in the'one country, one vote'constitutional structure of the European Central Bank. In the last three chapters, they discuss fiscal concerns, including the distribution of seignorage revenues and the interaction of European Central Bank monetary policies and asset price dynamics.

History and analysis of European monetary integration and related economic, financial, monetary, and international political issues: an accesible guide.This history and analysis of the euro and the European Central Bank traces the process of European monetary integration from its beginnings as a utopian vision in the aftermath of World War II through the establishment of a single currency managed by a central bank. Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, a central banker who has been involved in the making of European monetary unification since 1979, offers an accessible guide to the euro and the European Central Bank for scholars, students, and the general reader, discussing the related economic, financial, monetary, and international political issues. In the process he also provides an overview of central banking in general and the multiple activities of a central bank; as the case of the European Central Bank illustrates, central banking involves not only monetary analysis and policy but much else, including banknote printing and handling, market operations, payment systems, bank supervision, and coordinating with other public institutions.Padoa-Schioppa begins with the historical background of European monetary integration, starting with the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which lay the foundation for the Common Market, and covering the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the development of an anchor currency, and the'euroskepticism'of the U.K. Subsequent chapters are devoted to economic policy, monetary policy, the euro as unifier in the financial system, the payment system, the euro as an international actor outside'euroland,'and the challenges ahead for the still relatively young project of European monetary integration.

By 2002, all but a handful of countries were connected to the Internet. The intertwining of the Internet and the globalization of finance, corporate governance, and trade raises questions about national models of technology development and property rights. The sudden ability of hundreds of millions of users to gain access to a global communication infrastructure spurred the creation of new firms and economic opportunities. The Internet challenged existing institutions and powerful interests: technology was global, but its economic and business development was molded in the context of prevailing national institutions.Comparing the experiences of seven countries—France, Germany, India, Japan, Sweden, South Korea, and the United States—this book analyzes the rise of the Internet and its impact on changing national institutions. Each country chapter describes how the Internet developed, evaluates the extent to which the Silicon Valley model was adopted, and suggests why certain sectors and technologies developed faster than others. The book also analyzes specific Internet sectors and regulations across countries. It shows that the Internet's effects are more evolutionary than revolutionary. At the same time, the impact of broad cultural change on entrepreneurial aspirations is clearly visible in certain nations, especially India and Sweden.

The implications of capital mobility for growth and stability are some of the most contentious and least understood contemporary issues in economics. In this book, Barry Eichengreen discusses historical, theoretical, empirical, and policy aspects of the effects, both positive and negative, of capital flows. He focuses on the connections between capital flows and crises as well as on those between capital flows and growth.Eichengreen argues that international financial liberalization, like other forms of economic liberalization, can positively affect the efficiency of resource allocation and the rate of economic growth. But analyses of both recent and historical experience also show an undeniable association between capital mobility and crises, especially when domestic institutions are weak and the harmonization of capital account liberalization and other policy reforms is inadequate. In his conclusion, Eichengreen makes suggestions for policy design to maximize the benefits of international financial liberalization while minimizing the risks of financial instability.

Despite the great importance of multinational firms in international economics, theoretical and empirical research on these firms has generally been conducted separately from that on international trade. In this book, James Markusen provides a comprehensive integration of the two fields. Drawing on twenty years of research, he focuses on the interaction of scale economies, trade costs, factor endowments, and imperfect competition. He analyzes decisions about whether to build or acquire a foreign plant separately from decisions about where to raise the financing.Markusen begins with the simplest possible partial equilibrium models and works systematically toward a full-fledged general equilibrium model with both horizontal and vertical foreign direct investment. He offers empirical tests of hypotheses derived from the theoretical models. The notation is unified throughout, distinctions between models are explained with thoroughly explained derivations, and numerous graphs support the analysis.

World trade is governed by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO sets rules of conduct for the international trade of goods and services and for intellectual property rights, provides a forum for multinational negotiations to resolve trade problems, and has a formal mechanism for dispute settlement. It is the primary institution working, through rule-based bargaining, at freeing trade.In this book, Kyle Bagwell and Robert Staiger provide an economic analysis and justification for the purpose and design of the GATT/WTO. They summarize their own research, discuss the major features of the GATT agreement, and survey the literature on trade agreements. Their focus on the terms-of-trade externality is particularly original and ties the book together. Topics include the theory of trade agreements, the origin and design of the GATT and the WTO, the principles of reciprocity, the most favored nation principle, terms-of-trade theory, enforcement, preferential trade agreements, labor and environmental standards, competition policy, and agricultural export subsidies.

Most of the literature on exchange rate regimes has focused on the developed countries. Since the recent crises in emerging markets, however, attention has shifted to the choice of exchange rate regimes for developing countries, especially those that are more integrated into the world capital markets. In Too Sensational, W. Max Corden presents a systematic and accessible overview of the choice of exchange rate regimes. Reviewing many types of regimes, he shows how the choice of an exchange rate regime is related to both fiscal policy and trade policy.Building on the theory of optimum currency areas, Corden develops an analytic framework of three approaches (nominal anchor, real targets, and exchange rate stability) and three polar exchange rate regimes (absolutely fixed, pure floating, and fixed but adjustable). He considers all other regimes to be mixtures of two or three of the polar regimes.Beginning with theory and later turning to case studies of countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Corden focuses on how economies react to negative and positive shocks under various exchange rate regimes. He examines in particular the Asian and Latin American currency crises of the 1990s. He concludes that although'too sensational'crises have discredited fixed but adjustable regimes, the extremes of absolutely fixed regimes or pure floating regimes need not be chosen.

Why economists'attempts to help poorer countries improve their economic well-being have failed.Since the end of World War II, economists have tried to figure out how poor countries in the tropics could attain standards of living approaching those of countries in Europe and North America. Attempted remedies have included providing foreign aid, investing in machines, fostering education, controlling population growth, and making aid loans as well as forgiving those loans on condition of reforms. None of these solutions has delivered as promised. The problem is not the failure of economics, William Easterly argues, but the failure to apply economic principles to practical policy work.In this book Easterly shows how these solutions all violate the basic principle of economics, that people—private individuals and businesses, government officials, even aid donors—respond to incentives. Easterly first discusses the importance of growth. He then analyzes the development solutions that have failed. Finally, he suggests alternative approaches to the problem. Written in an accessible, at times irreverent, style, Easterly's book combines modern growth theory with anecdotes from his fieldwork for the World Bank.

This is the first broad cross-country assessment of the ties between financial structure—the mix of financial instruments, institutions, and markets in a given economy—and economic growth since Raymond Goldsmith's 1969 landmark study. Most studies focus on developed countries and compare bank-based and market-based systems. Debates over the relative merits of the two systems have relied on case studies of Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, countries with similar long-run growth rates. The absence of data on developing countries limits the usefulness of such studies for policy makers.The book contains recently acquired cross-country data from almost 150 countries. It includes information on the size, efficiency, and activity of banks, insurance companies, pension and mutual funds, finance companies, and stock and bond markets. It also incorporates information on each country's political, economic, and social environment. The chapters contain a mix of case studies, cross-country studies, macro- and micro-oriented approaches, and analytical and empirical work. The conclusions point not to markets versus banks, but to markets and banks. It is how well a financial system functions that is critical for long-run economic growth. The research suggests that strong legal rights for outside investors and the overall efficiency of contract enforcement are effective tools for developing the financial sector and the economy. The book includes a CD containing World Bank data.