This volume addresses one of the most topical and controversial issues in banking and financial policy. It explains why governments have felt the need to liberalize banking and finance, for example, by privatizing banks and allowing interest rates to be set by the market. It describes how the consequences have not always been smooth, and considers how financial liberalizations could be approached better in the future. In addition to a clear and concise presentation of current theories and global experience, there are six carefully chosen country case studies.

Education plays a central role in modern labor markets. Hundreds of studies in many different countries and time periods have confirmed that better-educated individuals earn higher wages, experience less unemployment, and work in more prestigious occupations than their less-educated counterparts.1 Despite the overwhelming evidence of a positive correlation between education and labor market status, social scientists have been cautious to draw strong inferences about the causal effect of schooling. In the absence of experimental evidence, it is very difficult to know whether the higher earnings observed for better-educated workers are caused by their higher education, or whether individuals with greater earning capacity have chosen to acquire more schooling.

Economists' interest in this issue was stimulated in the late 1950s by growth accounting exercises which found that rising education levels could explain much of post-war US productivity growth, leaving little room for technological change (see, e.g., Becker, 1964; Griliches, 1970). Skeptics noted that this conclusion was only valid if the observed cross-sectional earnings differences between education groups reflected true productivity differentials, rather than inherent ability differences that happened to be correlated with education (e.g., Denison, 1964). The emergence of large-scale microeconomic datasets in the 1960s led to an outpouring of research on education and earnings, much of it focussed on the issue of "ability bias" in the earnings differentials between more- and less-educated workers. In his landmark survey of the 1960s and 1970s literature, Griliches (1977) concluded that such biases were small - potentially even smaller than other biases that lead measured earnings differences to understate the causal effect of education. In his earlier review of the evidence, Becker (1964) had similarly concluded that ability biases were overstated by critics of the human capital paradigm.2 Despite the careful reasoning of these earlier surveys, however, many analysts continue to believe that the measured partial correlation between schooling and earnings significantly overstates the true causal effect of education, and that findings to the contrary are counter-intuitive.

The United States is the leading country in the application of biotechnology to agricultural methods. One of the principal reasons for this is the flexibility of its legislation on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO). A significant part of its production of soya or corn is already genetically modified, so that its companies need to avoid technical barriers to their exports in the world markets?. In the EU, negative public opinion has contributed to the adoption by the authorities of exigent legislation in order to avoid the possible risks to human health and the environment posed by GMO. The EU’s authorisation procedure for these organisms is long and meticulous.

Furthermore, a compulsory labelling system has been adopted for products, which contain GMO or genetically modified materials (GM materials). In 1998, American interests started to be adversely affected by European legislation. The USA Administration threatened to sue the EU before the World Trade Organisation (WTO). These threats have yet to be followed up with any action. The rules of international trade are regulated by agreements signed up to by the members of the WTO. The EU can argue that its authorisation procedure is designed to reduce the risks to health and the environment. This line of argument is compatible with the Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). The compulsory labelling system is also compatible with the Agreement on TBT if the WTO accepts that a product in which GM material is detected is not similar to a conventional one. The Protocol of Biosafety further supports the EU position since it advocates a cautious approach exemplified by the fact that the Protocol permits consideration of non-scientific risks during risk assessment. However, the Protocol is not yet in force, it is pending ratification by at least 50 countries and, now more than ever, it is uncertain whether the United States will be willing to ratify the Protocol. However, we cannot be sure that there will be future commercial controversy, which will show the contradictions between the commercial agreement and the environmental one.

This book examines transaction cost economics, the influential theoretical perspective on organizations and industry that was the subject of Oliver Williamson's seminal book,Markets and Hierarchies (1975). Written by leading economists, sociologists, and political scientists, the essays collected here reflect the fruitful intellectual exchange that is occurring across the major social science disciplines. They examine transaction cost economics' general conceptual orientation, its specific theoretical propositions, its applications to policy, and its use in systematic empirical research. The chapters include classic texts, broad review essays, reflective commentaries, and several new contributions to a wide range of topics, including organizations, regulations and law, institutions, strategic management, game theory, entrepreneurship, innovation, finance, and technical information.

Этот отчёт основан на телефоннои исследовании 809 академиков Великобритании, проведённом в 96 - 97 гг. Опрос касался следующих тем: студенты и их обучение, научные исследования и научное руководство, распределение времени и управление, условия найма на работу.

Mark Casson, a respected economist, sets out in a rigorous but accessible way, the theory that the culture in which a firm operates has a profound effect on its productivity. One of the topics covered by this book - the role of leadership and manipulation of performance in business culture - is very important and has been largely neglected until now.

Using a new theoretical framework combining insights from Europeanization, globalization, varieties of capitalism, and policy transfer literature, this book could not be more timely, in the lead up to the next wave of EU eastward enlargement. Containing rigorous quantitative analyses and detailed qualitative evidence, this book reconceptualizes the dynamics taking place during the EU enlargement process of Central and Eastern European countries and makes a major contribution to the understanding of the relationships between institutional transformation and economic performance.

We analyse the competition in quality and quantity between a foreign firm and a domestic firm. The domestic firm can belong to a certification of origin, whereas its rival uses a pure brand strategy. We will show how the certification can allow the domestic firm to position itself as a high quality producer and improve the average quality of the products offered on the market. If, however, the certified firm offers the low quality good, the certification can permit it to guarantee a higher profit than that of its competitor and to improve the consumers’ surplus by favoring product standardisation.

It has now been eleven years since the first edition of this book came out. Probably no area in finance has undergone as much change as that of derivatives and risk management. In fact, this book was once called An Introduction to Options and Futures. The previous edition was called An Introduction to Derivatives. Reflecting the continuing change in the industry, we are now calling it An Introduction to Derivatives and Risk Management. Who knows what the sixth edition will be called? (Any suggestions?) But looking on the bright side, a dynamic field makes for an exciting subject to study and one well worth exploring for its potential for career development. This book is all about the study of financial instruments called derivatives. The types of derivatives you will learn about are options, forwards, futures, swaps and a number of variations of these basic instruments. Derivatives are powerful and effective tools for altering the risk of an organization or portfolio of securities. In this book you will learn the characteristics of these instruments, how they are priced, how they are used in strategies, and how to manage the risk they create as well as how to use them to manage already-existing risk.

This book is a collection of 70 short, non-technical essays on a variety of topics in derivatives. If you have previously read some of my internet essays in my series called DRU, these are the published versions of them. In fact, DRU is no longer available. However, these essays have been polished and are in much better shape than what you previously saw.

Authors study financial fragility, exchange rate crises and monetary policy in an open economy model in which banks are maturity transformers as in Diamond-Dybvig. The banking system, the exchange rate regime, and central bank credit policy are seen as parts of a mechanism intended to maximize social welfare; if the mechanism fails, banking crises and speculative attacks become possible. Authors compare currency boards, fixed rate and flexible rates, with and without a lender of last resort. A currency board cannot implement a socially optimal allocation; in addition, under a currency board bank runs are possible. A fixed exchange rate system may implement the social optimum but is more prone to bank runs and exchange rate crises than a currency board. Larger capital inflows enhance welfare if the no-run equilibrium occurs, but may also render the economy more vulnerable to self-fulfilling runs. A flexible exchange rate system implements the social optimum and eliminates runs, provided the exchange rate and central bank lending policies of the central bank are appropriately designed.

Financial Time Series study enables the prediction of financial trends and futures. This book represents the outcome of a refined and concise set of lecture notes, which balance theory and applications in time series, along financial domains. It affords the reader the opportunity to acquire knowledge of knowing the underpinnings of time series modeling in order to get a better understanding of the ever-changing dynamics of the financial world.

Survey evidence from three Central European Countries (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) is analysed to identify the degree of non-agricultural farm diversification and the factors facilitating or impeding it in individual farms. The effect of diversification on rural job creation is investigated. The results indicate that the level of diversification is relatively small and enterprise diversification by farmers is unlikely to generate sufficient new jobs and solve the problem of high rural unemployment. The attempt to transpose the Western European model of agricultural diversification to the acceding countries via the SAPARD programme is questionable, as non-farm centric rural policies appear to be more appropriate.

Comparing boom-bust cycles, Chaudhry exposes the alternating social and organizational origins of institutions, arguing that both broad changes in the international economy and specific forms of international integration shape institutional outcomes. Labor and oil exporters thus experience identical economic cycles but generate radically different state, market, and financial institutions in response to different resource flows.

Theoretical and simulation results clarify the role of forward procurement contracting as a determinant of spot price levels and volatility. A stylized model determines market share across quality when procurers forward contract to manage quality risk. Actual supply is specified as price dependent and stochastic. Simulation examines sensitivity of spot price level and volatility to extent of forward contracting, risk aversion, and ability to adjust spot market demand (recontracting).

The results show that as forward contracting increases mean spot price decreases and variance increases. This effect increases as risk aversion decreases and as the extent of recontracting adjustment in spot demand decreases.