Results by title

366 books match the query 'International' and 30 start with c

cover of Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies: Policies, Practices, and Consequences

Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies

Policies, Practices, and Consequences

Edited by Sebastian Edwards

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Some scholars argue that the free movement of capital across borders enhances welfare; others claim it represents a clear peril, especially for emerging nations. In Capital Controls and Capital Flows in Emerging Economies, an esteemed group of contributors examines both the advantages and the pitfalls of restricting capital mobility in these emerging nations.

In the aftermath of the East Asian currency crises of 1997, the authors consider mechanisms that eight countries have used to control capital inflows and evaluate their effectiveness in altering the maturity of the resulting external debt and reducing macroeconomic vulnerability. This volume is essential reading for all those interested in emerging nations and the costs and benefits of restricting international capital flows.

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cover of Capitalizing China

Capitalizing China

Edited by Joseph P. H. Fan and Randall Morck

University of Chicago Press, 2012

China’s economic boom over the last two decades has taken many analysts by surprise, given the ongoing role of central government planning. Its current growth trajectory suggests that the size of its economy could soon surpass that of the United States. Some argue that continued growth and the expanding middle class will ultimately exert pressure on the government to bring about greater openness of the financial market.
 
To better understand China’s recent economic performance, this volume examines the distinctive system it has developed: “market socialism with Chinese characteristics.” While its formal institutional makeup resembles that of a free-market economy, many of its practices remain socialist, including strategically placed state-owned enterprises that wield influence both directly and through controlled business groups, and Communist Party cells whose purpose is to maintain control of many segments of the economy. China’s economic system, the contributors find, also retains many historical characteristics that play a central role in managing the economy. These and other issues are examined in chapters on China’s financial regulations, corporate governance codes, bankruptcy laws, taxation, and disclosure rules.
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cover of Carrots, Sticks, and Ethnic Conflict: Rethinking Development Assistance

Carrots, Sticks, and Ethnic Conflict

Rethinking Development Assistance

Milton J. Esman and Ronald J. Herring, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2003

Development assistance employs carrots and sticks to influence regimes and obtain particular outcomes: altered economic policies, democratization, relief of suffering from catastrophes. Wealthy nations and international agencies such as the World Bank justify development assistance on grounds of improving the global human condition. Over the last forty years, however, ethnic conflict has increased dramatically. Where does ethnic conflict fit within this set of objectives? How do the resources, policy advice, and conditions attached to aid affect ethnic conflict in countries in which donors intervene? How can assistance be deployed in ways that might moderate rather than aggravate ethnic tensions?
These issues are addressed comparatively by area specialists and participant-observers from development assistance organizations. This book is the first systematic effort to evaluate this dimension of international affairs--and to propose remedies. Case studies include Russia, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, and Kenya, with references to many other national experiences.
Cross-cutting chapters consider evolution of USAID and the World Bank's policies on displacement of people by development projects, as well as how carrots and sticks may affect ethnic dynamics, but through different mechanisms and to varying degrees depending on political dynamics and regime behaviors. They show that projects may also exacerbate ethnic conflict by reinforcing territoriality and exposing seemingly unfair allocative principles that exclude or harm some while benefiting others.
For students of international political economy, development studies, comparative politics, and ethnic conflict, this book illuminates a problem area that has long been overlooked in international affairs literature. It is essential reading for staff members and policymakers in development assistance agencies and international financial institutions.
Milton J. Esman is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, Emeritus, and Professor of Government, Emeritus, at Cornell University.
Ronald J. Herring is Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell, the John S. Knight Professor of International Relations, and Professor of Government at Cornell University.
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cover of Cash, Clothes, and Construction: Rethinking Value in Bolivia's Pluri-economy

Cash, Clothes, and Construction

Rethinking Value in Bolivia's Pluri-economy

Kate Maclean

University of Minnesota Press, 2023

A groundbreaking feminist perspective on Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) rule in Bolivia and the country’s radical transformation under Evo Morales
 

The presidency of Evo Morales in Bolivia (2006–2019) has produced considerable academic scholarship, much of it focused on indigenous social movements or extractivism, and often triumphalist about the successes of Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS). Turning a new lens on the movement, Cash, Clothes, and Construction presents the first gender-based analysis of “pluri-economy,” a central pillar of Bolivia’s program under Morales, evaluating the potential of this vision of “an economy where all economies fit” to embrace feminist critiques of capitalism and economic diversity. 

 

Based on more than twelve years of empirical research exploring the remarkable transformations in Bolivia since 2006, this book focuses on three sectors—finance, clothing, and construction—in which indigenous women have defied gendered expectations. Kate Maclean presents detailed case studies of women selling secondhand high street clothes from the United States in the vast, peri-urban markets of Bolivian cities; Aymaran designers of new pollera (traditional Andean dress) fashions, one of whom exhibited her collection in New York City; and the powerful and rich chola paceña, whose real estate investments have transformed the cultural maps of La Paz and El Alto. 

 

Cash, Clothes, and Construction offers a gendered analysis of the mission of MAS to dismantle neoliberalism and decolonize politics and economy from the perspective of the Indigenous women who have radically transformed Bolivia’s economy from the ground up.

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cover of Catching Up with the Competition: Trade Opportunities and Challenges for Arab Countries

Catching Up with the Competition

Trade Opportunities and Challenges for Arab Countries

Bernard Hoekman and Jamel Zarrouk, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2000

At a time when countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are joining the World Trade Organization, the lack of an economically sound analysis of trade policies in the region is especially notable. This volume remedies the situation by bringing together a distinguished group of applied trade economists to provide a broad view of the state of trade in and among the region's nations. The contributors provide original empirical analyses on key reform issues, and their work reflects deep knowledge of government concerns and policies.
Part 1 sets the scene by comparing the performance of the MENA region with the rest of the world on a large number variables and indicators. Part 2 contains a number of CGE model-based analyses of trade policy reform options. Part 3 focuses on specific policy areas: standards as nontariff barriers and red tape, trade facilitation, an assessment of the impact of protecting intellectual property using partial equilibrium techniques, and a review of the existing Euro-Med agreements. Part 4 discusses how the region could benefit from WTO membership and from changing the existing regional integration schemes into arrangements that help promote a growth enhancing reform agenda.
The volume will be essential reading for economists and policymakers working in and with the MENA nations, as well as officials at the multilateral and regional institutions.
Contributors are A. Halis Akder, Benita Cox, Dean De Rosa, Hana'a Kheir El Din, Sherine El Ghoneim, Oleh Havrylyshyn, Bernard Hoekman, Denise Konan, Peter Kunzel, Will Martin, Keith Maskus, Mustapha Nabli, Thomas Rutherford, Elisabet Rutstrom, David Tarr, Subidey Togan, L. Alan Winters, Alexander Yeats, and Jamel Zarrouk.
Bernard Hoekman is an Economist with the Development Research Group's Trade team of the World Bank. Jamel Zarrouk is an Economist with the Arab Monetary Fund.
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cover of Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts

Challenges of Globalization in the Measurement of National Accounts

Edited by Nadim Ahmad, Brent R. Moulton, J. David Richardson, and Peter van de Ven

University of Chicago Press, 2023

An essential collection at the intersection of globalization, production supply chains, corporate finance regulation, and economic measurement.

The substantial increase in the complexity of global supply chains and other production arrangements over the past three decades has challenged some traditional measures of national income account aggregates and raised the potential for distortions in conventional calculations of GDP and productivity. This volume examines a variety of multinational business activities and assesses their impact on economic measurement. Several chapters consider how global supply chains complicate the interpretation of traditional trade statistics and how new measurement techniques can provide information about global production arrangements. Other chapters examine the role of intangible capital in global production, including the output of factoryless goods producers and the problems of measuring R&D in a globalized world. The studies in this volume also explore potential ways to enhance the quality of the national accounts by improving data collection and analysis and by updating the standards for measurement.

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cover of Challenges to Globalization: Analyzing the Economics

Challenges to Globalization

Analyzing the Economics

Edited by Robert E. Baldwin and L. Alan Winters

University of Chicago Press, 2004

People passionately disagree about the nature of the globalization process. The failure of both the 1999 and 2003 World Trade Organization's (WTO) ministerial conferences in Seattle and Cancun, respectively, have highlighted the tensions among official, international organizations like the WTO, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, nongovernmental and private sector organizations, and some developing country governments. These tensions are commonly attributed to longstanding disagreements over such issues as labor rights, environmental standards, and tariff-cutting rules. In addition, developing countries are increasingly resentful of the burdens of adjustment placed on them that they argue are not matched by commensurate commitments from developed countries.

Challenges to Globalization evaluates the arguments of pro-globalists and anti-globalists regarding issues such as globalization's relationship to democracy, its impact on the environment and on labor markets including the brain drain, sweat shop labor, wage levels, and changes in production processes, and the associated expansion of trade and its effects on prices. Baldwin, Winters, and the contributors to this volume look at multinational firms, foreign investment, and mergers and acquisitions and present surprising findings that often run counter to the claim that multinational firms primarily seek countries with low wage labor. The book closes with papers on financial opening and on the relationship between international economic policies and national economic growth rates.
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cover of Chilean New Song: The Political Power of Music, 1960s - 1973

Chilean New Song

The Political Power of Music, 1960s - 1973

J Patrice McSherry

Temple University Press, 2015

Chilean New Song (la Nueva Canción chilena) entranced and uplifted a country that struggled for social change during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s, until the 1973 coup that overthrew democratic socialist president Salvador Allende. This powerful musical style—with its poetic lyrics and haunting blend of traditional indigenous wind and stringed instruments—was born of and expressed the aspirations of rising classes. It promised a socially just future as it forged social bonding.  
 
In Chilean New Song, J. Patrice McSherry deftly combines a political-historical view of Chile with a narrative of its cultural development. She examines the democratizing power of this music and, through interviews with key protagonists, the social roles of politically committed artists who participated in a movement for change. McSherry explores the impact of Chilean New Song and the way this artistic/cultural phenomenon related to contemporary politics to capture the passion, pain, and hope of millions of Chileans. 
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cover of China's Economic Development: The Interplay of Scarcity and Ideology

China's Economic Development

The Interplay of Scarcity and Ideology

Alexander Eckstein

University of Michigan Press, 1975

China's Economic Development: The Interplay of Scarcity and Ideology by Alexander Eckstein provides a comprehensive analysis of China's economic growth and transformation from a socialist economy. Eckstein examines the unique challenges China faced in addressing its economic backwardness, such as scarcity of resources and ideological constraints, and compares its industrialization to other countries. The book explores how Maoist ideology and policy initiatives impacted the country's economic strategies, leading to a fluctuating development pattern characterized by rapid expansion in the 1950s and stagnation in the 1960s. Key themes include the dichotomy between scarcity and ideology, the influence of historical factors on economic structures, and the adaptation to Soviet models. Eckstein sheds light on how China navigated its unique size, population pressures, and low per capita income, arguing that understanding these dynamics is crucial for both development theory and policy design. This volume, part of the Michigan Studies on China series, compiles essays and research that contribute to a nuanced understanding of China's economic systems, with particular focus on the tensions between ideological aspirations and economic realities.
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cover of China's Growing Role in World Trade

China's Growing Role in World Trade

Edited by Robert C. Feenstra and Shang-Jin Wei

University of Chicago Press, 2010

In less than three decades, China has grown from playing a negligible role in international trade to being one of the world's largest exporters, a substantial importer of raw materials, intermediate outputs, and other goods, and both a recipient and source of foreign investment. Not surprisingly, China's economic dynamism has generated considerable attention and concern in the United States and beyond. While some analysts have warned of the potential pitfalls of China's rise—the loss of jobs, for example—others have highlighted the benefits of new market and investment opportunities for US firms.

Bringing together an expert group of contributors, China's Growing Role in World Trade undertakes an empirical investigation of the effects of China's new status. The essays collected here provide detailed analyses of the microstructure of trade, the macroeconomic implications, sector-level issues, and foreign direct investment. This volume's careful examination of micro data in light of established economic theories clarifies a number of misconceptions, disproves some conventional wisdom, and documents data patterns that enhance our understanding of China's trade and what it may mean to the rest of the world.
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cover of China’s Allocation of Fixed Capital Investment, 1952–1957

China’s Allocation of Fixed Capital Investment, 1952–1957

Cheng Chu-yuan

University of Michigan Press, 1974

China’s efforts to stimulate industrial development and economic growth through the allocation of investments are analyzed. Cheng concludes with an overall assessment of the distinctive features of the allocation pattern. Includes 41 statistical tables.
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cover of Cigarettes, Inc.: An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism

Cigarettes, Inc.

An Intimate History of Corporate Imperialism

Nan Enstad

University of Chicago Press, 2018

Traditional narratives of capitalist change often rely on the myth of the willful entrepreneur from the global North who transforms the economy and delivers modernity—for good or ill—to the rest of the world. With Cigarettes, Inc., Nan Enstad upends this story, revealing the myriad cross-cultural encounters that produced corporate life before World War II.

In this startling account of innovation and expansion, Enstad uncovers a corporate network rooted in Jim Crow segregation that stretched between the United States and China and beyond. Cigarettes, Inc. teems with a global cast—from Egyptian, American, and Chinese entrepreneurs to a multiracial set of farmers, merchants, factory workers, marketers, and even baseball players, jazz musicians, and sex workers. Through their stories, Cigarettes, Inc. accounts for the cigarette’s spectacular rise in popularity and in the process offers nothing less than a sweeping reinterpretation of corporate power itself.
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cover of Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy

Clashing over Commerce

A History of US Trade Policy

Douglas A. Irwin

University of Chicago Press, 2017

Should the United States be open to commerce with other countries, or should it protect domestic industries from foreign competition? This question has been the source of bitter political conflict throughout American history. Such conflict was inevitable, James Madison argued in The Federalist Papers, because trade policy involves clashing economic interests. The struggle between the winners and losers from trade has always been fierce because dollars and jobs are at stake: depending on what policy is chosen, some industries, farmers, and workers will prosper, while others will suffer.
           
Douglas A. Irwin’s Clashing over Commerce is the most authoritative and comprehensive history of US trade policy to date, offering a clear picture of the various economic and political forces that have shaped it. From the start, trade policy divided the nation—first when Thomas Jefferson declared an embargo on all foreign trade and then when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over excessive taxes on imports. The Civil War saw a shift toward protectionism, which then came under constant political attack. Then, controversy over the Smoot-Hawley tariff during the Great Depression led to a policy shift toward freer trade, involving trade agreements that eventually produced the World Trade Organization. Irwin makes sense of this turbulent history by showing how different economic interests tend to be grouped geographically, meaning that every proposed policy change found ready champions and opponents in Congress.

As the Trump administration considers making major changes to US trade policy, Irwin’s sweeping historical perspective helps illuminate the current debate. Deeply researched and rich with insight and detail, Clashing over Commerce provides valuable and enduring insights into US trade policy past and present.
 
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cover of Cold War Ruins: Transpacific Critique of American Justice and Japanese War Crimes

Cold War Ruins

Transpacific Critique of American Justice and Japanese War Crimes

Lisa Yoneyama

Duke University Press, 2016

In Cold War Ruins Lisa Yoneyama argues that the efforts intensifying since the 1990s to bring justice to the victims of Japanese military and colonial violence have generated what she calls a "transborder redress culture." A product of failed post-World War II transitional justice that left many colonial legacies intact, this culture both contests and reiterates the complex transwar and transpacific entanglements that have sustained the Cold War unredressability and illegibility of certain violences. By linking justice to the effects of American geopolitical hegemony, and by deploying a conjunctive cultural critique—of "comfort women" redress efforts, state-sponsored apologies and amnesties, Asian American involvement in redress cases, the ongoing effects of the U.S. occupation of Japan and Okinawa, Japanese atrocities in China, and battles over WWII memories—Yoneyama helps illuminate how redress culture across Asia and the Pacific has the potential to bring powerful new and challenging perspectives on American exceptionalism, militarized security, justice, sovereignty, forgiveness, and decolonization.
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cover of Collateral Knowledge: Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets

Collateral Knowledge

Legal Reasoning in the Global Financial Markets

Annelise Riles

University of Chicago Press, 2011

Who are the agents of financial regulation? Is good (or bad) financial governance merely the work of legislators and regulators? Here Annelise Riles argues that financial governance is made not just through top-down laws and policies but also through the daily use of mundane legal techniques such as collateral by a variety of secondary agents, from legal technicians and retail investors to financiers and academics and even computerized trading programs.    

            
Drawing upon her ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Japanese derivatives market, Riles explores the uses of collateral in the financial markets as a regulatory device for stabilizing market transactions. How collateral operates, Riles suggests, is paradigmatic of a class of low-profile, mundane, but indispensable activities and practices that are all too often ignored as we think about how markets should work and be governed.  Riles seeks to democratize our understanding of legal techniques, and demonstrate how these day-to-day private actions can be reformed to produce more effective forms of market regulation.

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cover of Colonialism Is Crime

Colonialism Is Crime

Marianne Nielsen

Rutgers University Press, 2019

There is powerful evidence that the colonization of Indigenous people was and is a crime, and that that crime is on-going. Achieving historical colonial goals often meant committing acts that were criminal even at the time. The consequences of this oppression and criminal victimization is perhaps the critical factor explaining why Indigenous people today are overrepresented as victims and offenders in the settler colonist criminal justice systems. This book presents an analysis of the relationship between these colonial crimes and their continuing criminal and social consequences that exist today. The authors focus primarily on countries colonized by Britain, especially the United States. Social harm theory, human rights covenants, and law are used to explain the criminal aspects of the historical laws and their continued effects. The final chapter looks at the responsibilities of settler-colonists in ameliorating these harms and the actions currently being taken by Indigenous people themselves.
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cover of Commodity Prices and Markets

Commodity Prices and Markets

Edited by Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose

University of Chicago Press, 2011

Fluctuations of commodity prices, most notably of oil, capture considerable attention and have been tied to important economic effects, such as inflation and low rates of economic growth. Commodity Prices and Markets advances our understanding of the consequences of these fluctuations, providing both general analysis and a particular focus on the countries of the Pacific Rim. The volume addresses three distinct subjects: the difficulties in forecasting commodity prices, the effects of exogenous commodity price shocks on the domestic economy, and the relationship between price shocks and monetary policy. The ability to forecast commodity prices is difficult but of great importance to businesses and governments, and this volume will be invaluable to professionals and policy makers interested in the field.

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cover of Computational Analysis of Global Trading Arrangements

Computational Analysis of Global Trading Arrangements

Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern

University of Michigan Press, 1990

The Michigan Model of World Production and Trade, developed in the 1970s by Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern, has become a valuable tool widely used in research on the economic effects of national and multilateral trade policies. Computational Analysis of Global Trading Arrangements presents the recent developments and enhancements of the Michigan Model together with the major results that it has provided in the last seven years. The book provides a detailed exposition of the model, and chapters describe its applications to a variety of important issues of trade policy in the United States, Japan, and other major industrialized and developing countries. It includes an analysis of negotiating options in the GATT (Uruguay) Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations. The Michigan Model discussed here provides an empirical framework within which to analyze the twenty-nine producing sectors that make up each of the world's major industrialized and developing countries. Hence, it allows the authors to demonstrate the impact upon a given country—on top of the effects of its own trade policies—of the tariffs and nontariff barriers of foreign countries. The authors of Computational Analysis of Global Trading Arrangements have compiled a volume that underscores the importance of economic interdependence in the global trading system.
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cover of Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age

A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644–1840

Helen Dunstan

University of Michigan Press, 1996

Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age translates and analyzes thirty-eight memorials to the throne and other Qing documents dealing with important issues of Chinese political economy, providing thoughtful and provocative commentary. Subjects covered by the texts include water control, mining, grain trade, pawnshops, brewing, and commercial shipping. The documents also contain detailed discussions of how the state should control wealth, self-interest, profit, hoarding, and the market.
In translating these primary sources, Helen Dunstan invites fellow specialists in Chinese studies, including Qing historians, to watch Qing officials and others thinking through problems of political economy and developing arguments to persuade colleagues or superiors. By emphasizing their rhetorical nature and genre conventions, Dunstan offers a reminder that it is improper to use the “information” in such texts without attention to the author’s purpose, and without grasping the rhetorical structure of the text as a whole. As a model for close reading, Conflicting Counsels aims to induce greater sensitivity to the nature of Qing records.
The second purpose of Conflicting Counsels is to help dispel the notion that economic liberalism is necessarily a Western, “modern” phenomenon. Many of the texts translated record areas of tension and controversy in eighteenth-century approaches to a central project of Confucian paternalist administration, “nourishing the people” (yangmin). Although Dunstan attempts to present both sides fairly, some materials included present the opinion that, in certain vital matters, it was better for the state to stand aside, and leave society’s own economic institutions, trade in particular, to handle things. While not a majority, the texts that build some kind of market mechanism argument should be of greatest interest to Qing historians.
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cover of Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies

Constituent Interests and U.S. Trade Policies

Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern

University of Michigan Press, 1998

The contributors to this volume, economists and political scientists from academic institutions, the private sector, and the Ways and Means Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, came together to discuss an important topic in the formation of U.S. international trade policy: the representation of constituent interests. In the resulting volume they address the objectives of groups who participate in the policy process and examine how each group's interests are identified and promoted. They look at what means are used for these purposes, and the extent to which the groups' objectives and behavior conform to how the political economy of trade policy is treated in the economic and political science literature. Further, they discuss how effective each group has been.
Each of the book's five parts offers a coherent view of important components of the topic. Part I provides an overview of the normative and political economy approaches to the modeling of trade policies. Part 2 discusses the context of U.S. trade policies. Part 3 deals with the role of sectoral producing interests, including the relationship of trade policy to auto, steel, textile, semiconductor, aircraft, and financial services. Part 4 examines other constituent interests, including the environment, human rights, and the media. Part 5 provides commentary on such issues as the challenges that trade policy poses for the new administration and the 105th Congress.
The volume ultimately offers important and more finely articulated questions on how trade policy is formed and implemented.
Contributors are Robert E. Baldwin, Jagdish Bhagwati, Douglas A. Brook, Richard O. Cunningham, Jay Culbert, Alan V. Deardorff, I. M. Destler, Daniel Esty, Geza Feketekuty, Harry Freeman, John D. Greenwald, Gene Grossman, Richard L. Hall, Jutta Hennig, John H. Jackson, James A. Levinsohn, Mustafa Mohatarem, Robert Pahre, Richard C. Porter, Gary R. Saxonhouse, Robert E. Scott, T. N. Srinivasan, Robert M. Stern, Joe Stroud, John Sweetland, Raymond Waldmann, Marina v.N. Whitman, and Bruce Wilson.
Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern are Professors of Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan.
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cover of Controlling East-West Trade and Technology Transfer: Power, Politics, and Policies

Controlling East-West Trade and Technology Transfer

Power, Politics, and Policies

Gary K. Bertsch, ed.

Duke University Press, 1988

Western efforts to control trade and technological relations with communist countries affect many interests and political groups in both Eastern and Western blocs. Although there is general agreement within the Western alliance that government-imposed controls are necessary to prevent material having military importance from falling in the hands of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies, there is considerable controversy over the specifics: the exact definition of "militarily significant" material, how the Western nations should administer controls, the implications of glasnost, and other matters.
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cover of Cores, Peripheries, and Globalization

Cores, Peripheries, and Globalization

Peter Hanns Reill

Central European University Press, 2011

Deals with the intersection of issues associated with globalization and the dynamics of core-periphery relations. It places these debates in a large and vital context asking what the relations between cores and peripheries have in forming our vision of what constitutes globalization and what were and are its possible effects. In this sense the debate on globalization is framed as part of a larger and more crucial discourse that tries to account for the essential dynamics—economic, social, political and cultural—between metropolitan areas and their peripheries.
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cover of Corporate Governance in Central Europe and Russia: Banks, Funds, and Foreign Investors

Corporate Governance in Central Europe and Russia

Banks, Funds, and Foreign Investors

Roman Frydman

Central European University Press, 1996

The studies in this two-volume work shed new light on the range and viability of the emerging corporate governance institutions in the transitional economies of Central Europe. Regional specialists and experts on corporate governance in advanced economies examine the emerging forms of ownership and complementary monitoring institutions in leading transition companies.
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cover of Corporate Governance in Central Europe and Russia: Insiders and the State

Corporate Governance in Central Europe and Russia

Insiders and the State

Andrzej Rapaczynski

Central European University Press, 1996

The studies in this two-volume work shed new light on the range and viability of the emerging corporate governance institutions in the transitional economies of Central Europe. Regional specialists and experts on corporate governance in advanced economies examine the emerging forms of ownership and complementary monitoring institutions in leading transition companies.
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cover of Court of Remorse: Inside the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Court of Remorse

Inside the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Thierry Cruvellier

University of Wisconsin Press, 2010

When genocidal violence gripped Rwanda in 1994, the international community recoiled, hastily withdrawing its peacekeepers. Late that year, in an effort to redeem itself, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to seek accountability for some of the worst atrocities since World War II: the genocide suffered by the Tutsi and crimes against humanity suffered by the Hutu. But faced with competing claims, the prosecution focused exclusively on the crimes of Hutu extremists. No charges would be brought against the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ultimately won control of the country. The UN, as if racked by guilt for its past inaction, gave in to pressure by Rwanda’s new leadership. With the Hutu effectively silenced, and the RPF constantly reminding the international community of its failure to protect the Tutsi during the war, the Tribunal pursued an unusual form of one-sided justice, born out of contrition.  
    Fascinated by the Tribunal’s rich complexities, journalist Thierry Cruvellier came back day after day to watch the proceedings, spending more time there than any other outside observer. Gradually he gained the confidence of the victims, defendants, lawyers, and judges. Drawing on interviews with these protagonists and his close observations of their interactions, Cruvellier takes readers inside the courtroom to witness the motivations, mechanisms, and manipulations of justice as it unfolded on the stage of high-stakes, global politics. It is this ground-level view that makes his account so valuable—and so absorbing. A must-read for those who want to understand the dynamics of international criminal tribunals, Court of Remorse reveals both the possibilities and the challenges of prosecuting human rights violations.
 
 
A Choice Outstanding Academic Book

Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association for School Libraries and the Public Library Association

Best Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association for School Libraries
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cover of Cuban Music from A to Z

Cuban Music from A to Z

Helio Orovio

Duke University Press, 2004

Available in English for the first time, Cuban Music from A to Z is an encyclopedic guide to one of the world’s richest and most influential musical cultures. It is the most extensive compendium of information about the singers, composers, bands, instruments, and dances of Cuba ever assembled. With more than 1,300 entries and 150 illustrations, this volume is an essential reference guide to the music of the island that brought the world the danzón, the son, the mambo, the conga, and the cha-cha-chá.

The life’s work of Cuban historian and musician Helio Orovio, Cuban Music from A to Z presents the people, genres, and history of Cuban music. Arranged alphabetically and cross-referenced, the entries span from Abakuá music and dance to Eddy Zervigón, a Cuban bandleader based in New York City. They reveal an extraordinary fusion of musical elements, evident in the unique blend of African and Spanish traditions of the son musical genre and in the integration of jazz and rumba in the timba style developed by bands like Afrocuba, Chucho Valdés’s Irakeke, José Luis Cortés’s ng La Banda, and the Buena Vista Social Club. Folk and classical music, little-known composers and international superstars, drums and string instruments, symphonies and theaters—it’s all here.

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cover of Curating Community: Museums, Constitutionalism, and the Taming of the Political

Curating Community

Museums, Constitutionalism, and the Taming of the Political

Stacy Douglas

University of Michigan Press, 2017

In Curating Community: Museums, Constitutionalism, and the Taming of the Political, Stacy Douglas challenges the centrality of sovereignty in our political and juridical imaginations. Creatively bringing together constitutional, political, and aesthetic theory, Douglas argues that museums and constitutions invite visitors to identify with a prescribed set of political constituencies based on national, ethnic, or anthropocentric premises. In both cases, these stable categories gloss over the radical messiness of the world and ask us to conflate representation with democracy. Yet the museum, when paired with the constitution, can also serve as a resource in the production of alternative imaginations of community. Consequently, Douglas’s key contribution is the articulation of a theory of counter-monumental constitutionalism, using the museum, that seeks to move beyond individual and collective forms of sovereignty that have dominated postcolonial and postapartheid theories of law and commemoration. She insists on the need to reconsider deep questions about how we conceptualize the limits of ourselves, as well as our political communities, in order to attend to everyday questions of justice in the courtroom, the museum, and beyond.
Curating Community is a book for academics, artists, curators, and constitutional designers interested in legacies of violence, transitional justice, and democracy.

 
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cover of Curbing Bailouts: Bank Crises and Democratic Accountability in Comparative Perspective

Curbing Bailouts

Bank Crises and Democratic Accountability in Comparative Perspective

Guillermo Rosas

University of Michigan Press, 2009

"Rosas's compelling theory and wide-ranging empirical evidence yield a persuasive but surprising conclusion in light of the financial meltdown of 2008–9. In the event of banking crises, not only do elected governments treat taxpayers better and force bankers and their creditors to pay more for their mistakes, but bankers in democracies are more prudent as a consequence . . . essential reading for all interested in the political economy of crisis and in the future of banking regulation."
---Philip Keefer, Lead Economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank

"Rosas convincingly demonstrates how democratic accountability affects the incidence and resolution of banking crises. Combining formal models, case studies, and cutting-edge quantitative methods, Rosas's book represents a model for political economy research."
---William Bernhard, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Illinois

"When the financial crises of the 1990s hit Asia, Russia, and Latin America, the U.S. scolded them about the moral hazard problems of bailing out the banks. Now, the shoe is on the other foot, with the U.S. struggling to manage an imploding financial sector. Rosas's study of bank bailouts could not be more timely, providing us with both a framework for thinking about the issue and some sobering history of how things go both right and badly wrong. Democratic accountability proves the crucial factor in making sure bailouts are fair, a point that is as relevant for U.S. policy as for an understanding of the emerging markets."
---Stephan Haggard, Krause Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego

Banking crises threaten the stability and growth of economies around the world. In response, politicians restore banks to solvency by redistributing losses from bank shareholders and depositors to taxpayers, and the burden the citizenry must bear varies from case to case. Whereas some governments stay close to the prescriptions espoused by Sir Walter Bagehot in the nineteenth century that limit the costs shouldered by taxpayers, others engage in generous bank bailouts at great cost to society. What factors determine a government's response?

In this comparative analysis of late-twentieth-century banking crises, Guillermo Rosas identifies political regime type as the determining factor. During a crisis, powerful financial players demand protection of their assets. Rosas maintains that in authoritarian regimes, government officials have little to shield them from such demands and little incentive for rebuffing them, while in democratic regimes, elected officials must weigh these demands against the interests of the voters---that is, the taxpayers. As a result, compared with authoritarian regimes, democratic regimes show a lower propensity toward dramatic, costly bailouts.

Guillermo Rosas is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Fellow at the Center in Political Economy at Washington University in St. Louis.

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cover of Currency Statecraft: Monetary Rivalry and Geopolitical Ambition

Currency Statecraft

Monetary Rivalry and Geopolitical Ambition

Benjamin J. Cohen

University of Chicago Press, 2018

At any given time, a limited number of national currencies are used as instruments of international commerce, to settle foreign trade transactions or store value for investors and central banks. How countries whose currencies gain international appeal choose to use this status forms their strategy of currency statecraft. In different circumstances, issuing governments may welcome and promote the internationalization of their currency, tolerate it, or actively oppose it. Benjamin J. Cohen offers a provocative explanation of the strategic policy choices at play.
           
In a comprehensive review that ranges from World War II to the present, Cohen convincingly argues that one goal stands out as the primary motivation for currency statecraft: the extent of a country’s geopolitical ambition, or how driven it is to build or sustain a prominent place in the international community. When a currency becomes internationalized, it generally increases the power of the nation that produces it. In the persistent contestation that characterizes global politics, that extra edge can matter greatly, making monetary rivalry an integral component of geopolitics. Today, the major example of monetary rivalry is the emerging confrontation between the US dollar and the Chinese renminbi. Cohen describes how China has vigorously promoted the international standing of its currency in recent years, even at the risk of exacerbating relations with the United States, and explains how the outcome could play a major role in shaping the broader geopolitical engagement between the two superpowers. 
 
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cover of Czech Law in Historical Contexts

Czech Law in Historical Contexts

Jan Kuklík

Karolinum Press, 2015

The legal system of the present-day Czech Republic cannot be understood without sufficient knowledge of its historical roots and evolution. Kuklík traces the development of Czech law from its origins as a form of Slavic law to its current position, reflecting the influence of both Roman law and the legal systems of neighboring countries. The twentieth century is of particular importance due to the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 and its split in 1993 into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. It was a century encompassing periods of democratic as well as totalitarian regimes, and major political, ideological, economic, and social changes, making Czech Law in Historical Context an ideal case study for researchers interested in the transition of democratic legal systems into totalitarian regimes, and vice versa.
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