The 1990s witnessed several acute currency crises among developing nations that invariably spread to other nearby at-risk countries. These episodes—in Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, Russia, and Brazil—were all exacerbated by speculative foreign investments and high-volume movements of capital in and out of those countries. Insufficient domestic controls and a sluggish international response further undermined these economies, as well as the credibility of external oversight agencies like the International Monetary Fund. This timely volume examines the correlation between volatile capital mobility, currency instability, and the threat of regional contagion, focusing particular attention on the emergent economies of Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.
Together these studies offer a new understanding of the empirical relationship between capital flows, international trade, and economic performance, and also afford key insights into realms of major policy concern.

In order for foreign direct investment to have deep and lasting positive effects on host countries, it is essential that multinational corporations have close direct and indirect interaction with local firms. A valuable addition to the emerging literature on multinational-local firm interfaces, this book provides a number of case studies from emerging economies that examine such mutually beneficial business relationships and the policy measures necessary to support them.

How have emerging economies, such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and South Korea (or “BRICS+”), affected the international power balance? And to what extent are these countries cooperating strategically on economic, diplomatic, and security matters? The contributors to New Player, New Game? consider the potential for the BRICS+ to fuel the emergence of a bipolar world of ‘the West against the Rest,' thus potentially leading to an increased cost of doing business, reduced chances of promoting human rights, increased diplomatic and military tensions, and a decrease in economic globalization.