The growth of world trade has been stagnant in recent times; trade liberalisation now has been challenged. The recent rise of anti-globalisation calls for a better integration in East Asia. How ...should East Asia manage its openness? This book provides profound analyses on rules of origins, non-tariff measures, restrictiveness in services and investment. It gives insight into how East Asian countries should shape its trade, investment and industrial policies. This book helps to answer what kind of a better integration it should be, and how East Asia can realise it. “The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/10.4324/9780429433603, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.”
Do external imbalances increase the risk of financial crises? This paper studies the experience of 14 developed countries over 140 years (1870-2008). It exploits the long-run data set in a number of ...different ways. First, the paper applies new statistical tools to describe the temporal and spatial patterns of crises and identifies five episodes of global financial instability in the past 140 years. Second, it studies the macroeconomic dynamics before crises and shows that credit growth tends to be elevated and short-term interest rates depressed relative to the "natural rate" in the run-up to global financial crises. Third, the paper shows that recessions associated with crises lead to deeper slumps and stronger turnarounds in imbalances than during normal recessions. Finally, the paper asks to what extent external imbalances help predict financial crises. The overall result is that credit growth emerges as the single best predictor of financial instability. External imbalances have played an additional role, but more so in the pre-WWII era of low financialization than today.
Why has capitalism produced economic growth that so vastly dwarfs the growth record of other economic systems, past and present? Why have living standards in countries from America to Germany to ...Japan risen exponentially over the past century? William Baumol rejects the conventional view that capitalism benefits society through price competition--that is, products and services become less costly as firms vie for consumers. Where most others have seen this as the driving force behind growth, he sees something different--a compound of systematic innovation activity within the firm, an arms race in which no firm in an innovating industry dares to fall behind the others in new products and processes, and inter-firm collaboration in the creation and use of innovations.
While giving price competition due credit, Baumol stresses that large firms use innovation as a prime competitive weapon. However, as he explains it, firms do not wish to risk too much innovation, because it is costly, and can be made obsolete by rival innovation. So firms have split the difference through the sale of technology licenses and participation in technology-sharing compacts that pay huge dividends to the economy as a whole--and thereby made innovation a routine feature of economic life. This process, in Baumol's view, accounts for the unparalleled growth of modern capitalist economies. Drawing on extensive research and years of consulting work for many large global firms, Baumol shows in this original work that the capitalist growth process, at least in societies where the rule of law prevails, comes far closer to the requirements of economic efficiency than is typically understood.
Resounding with rare intellectual force, this book marks a milestone in the comprehension of the accomplishments of our free-market economic system--a new understanding that, suggests the author, promises to benefit many countries that lack the advantages of this immense innovation machine.
Africa's Information Revolution was recently announced as the2016 prizewinner of the Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences - congratulations to the authorsJames T. Murphy and Padraig Carmody! Africa's ...Information Revolution presents an in-depth examination of the development and economic geographies accompanying the rapid diffusion of new ICTs in Sub-Saharan Africa. * Represents the first book-length comparative case study ICT diffusion in Africa of its kind * Confronts current information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) discourse by providing a counter to largely optimistic mainstream perspectives on Africa's prospects for m- and e-development * Features comparative research based on more than 200 interviews with firms from a manufacturing and service industry in Tanzania and South Africa * Raises key insights regarding the structural challenges facing Africa even in the context of the continent's recent economic growth spurt * Combines perspectives from economic and development geography and science and technology studies to demonstrate the power of integrated conceptual-theoretical frameworks * Include maps, photos, diagrams and tables to highlight the concepts, field research settings, and key findings
In his new book, Arvind Subramanian presents the following possibilities: What if, contrary to common belief, China's economic dominance is a present-day reality rather than a faraway possibility? ...What if the renminbi's takeover of the dollar as the world's reserve currency is not decades, but mere years, away? And what if the United States's economic pre-eminence is not, as many economists and policymakers would like to believe, in its own hands, but China's to determine? Subramanian's analysis is based on a new index of economic dominance grounded in a historical perspective. His examination makes use of real-world examples, comparing China's rise with the past hegemonies of Great Britain and the United States. His attempt to quantify and project economic and currency dominance leads him to the conclusion that China's dominance is not only more imminent, but also broader in scope, and much larger in magnitude, than is currently imagined. He explores the profound effect this might have on the United States, as well as on the global financial and trade system. Subramanian concludes with a series of policy proposals for other nations to reconcile China's rise with continued openness in the global economic order, and to insure against China becoming a malign hegemon.
When Poland and Ukraine introduced their political, social and economic system reforms at the beginning of the 1990s, both economies were at a similar level of economic development (GDP $9,500 per ...capita). However, in 2018, Ukrainian GDP per capita had remained at the same levels since 1991, while in Poland, it had increased significantly, to more than $27,000 per capita. This book assesses the reasons for the growing gap between the level of economic development in Ukraine and Poland. It examines the course of events and evaluates the effectiveness of the system transformations, both in the context of the economy, as a whole, and in individual regions (Polish ‘voivodeships’ (provinces) and Ukrainian ‘oblasts’). It also analyzes the consequences of the 2008–2009 Ukrainian-Russian gas conflict and 2013–2014 Euromaidan events for the Ukrainian economy. Additionally, the authors offer an insight into the migration movements, which have recently been observed in Poland and Ukraine. This is the first comprehensive, comparative analysis concerning the spatial diversification of economic development in these two countries, and the authors highlight the ways in which these reforms have proved effective in Poland and hardly effective in Ukraine. This analysis helps to identify the basic interrelations between the core macroeconomic variables at the regional level and the impact of political events from both a national and regional perspective. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy makers interested in the economic and political changes in these two countries, in a comparative setting and on national and regional levels, as well as those working on issues of EU integration.
Given the rising criticisms of and growing doubts about globalisation, this timely edited volume looks at globalisation and its economic impact on eight countries in Asia and the Pacific region, ...namely Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, the United States (US), and Vietnam. The eight selected countries are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and yet the economies of these member countries have benefited differently from globalisation. This book summarises findings from existing academic literature in a coherent framework and reviews them critically to provide a balanced analysis. It also identifies the mechanisms through which globalisation impacts economies and explains how understanding of such mechanisms can be useful for formulating policies, which would benefit from globalisation while achieving inclusive economic growth in the context of rising nationalism and protectionism. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/10.4324/9781003138501, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Poverty, Inequality and Health: An International Perspective raises new and critical issues about health inequalities. It is unique in that it provides the first truly international perspective on ...this problem, with contributions from the developed and developing world. The outcome of a Public Health Forum organised by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, this book brings together material from internationally recognised contributors from a wide range of disciplines and countries. The chapters reflect this diversity, ranging from the micro- to the macro-level, from aetiology to intervention. Topics covered include: the over-arching concepts linking economic and social forces and health status the extent to which ethical concerns lie at the heart of the issue of inequalities in health and attempts to ameliorate them; macro-level features of inequalities in health within and between countries; an overview of the main body of work on inequalities in health in developed countries and those in transition within Europe; specific pathways and mechanisms at the individual level that link poverty and inequality to health status; the interaction of social and biological influences on health status throughout life; specific disease-specific links; and issues of policy and interventions aimed at reducing inequalities in health. The book brings together people from very varied disciplines to discuss an area of clear international interest and global importance. As such it will be of value to the broad public health audience as well as research epidemiologists, international policy analysts and policy makers and those concerned with economic development and health. Available in OSO: http://www.oxschol.com/oso/public/content/publichealthepidemiology/9780192631961/toc.html
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