Книги

The methodology used for Economic Valuation of the Externalities generated by the Watershead Restoration and Erosion Control Projects in the Hydrographic Basins of the Mediterranean Slope, is based on the Replacement Cost Method. Environmental Economics, however, today offer us other methodological possibilities, whose application to the valuation of this type of project may prove to be of interest. It is the case of the Contingent Valuation Method used for the evaluation of the effects of the Watershead Restoration and Erosion Control Projects of the Aljibe Basin (Almería) Spain, presented here. The results obtained show that, in this case study, application of Contingent Valuation ascribes greater social profitability of the project, with 5.23 % of IRR (Internal Rate of Return), compared to the value obtained using classic methodology of 2.25%, thus enabling us to draw closer to the true socio-environmental value of this type of project. In any case, both possibilities rather than alternatives can be considered as complementary, by focusing on the valuation from different perspectives.

Europeanization has often been conceived as a top-down process, necessitating implementation and adjustment at the national level. However, Europeanization can also be conditioned by bottom-up national initiatives. While recent endeavors in comparative political economy have emphasized the resilience of coordinated market economies, few detailed empirical studies have examined to date exactly how different European systems of political-economic governance cope with and respond to an European impetus for liberalization. This original study of the impact of the EU-induced liberalization of service provision on member states argues that innovative national re-regulatory strategies may be implemented in response to Europeanization. In permitting any company registered in an EU member state to provide services throughout Europe, new possibilities were created for the transnational posting of workers from low-wage to high-wage countries. However, high-wage countries could re-regulate the wage levels applicable to such employees. The exact nature of such response strategy is coloured by the respective institutional power that labour market interest associations like trade unions and employer associations command. Therefore, different institutionalised varieties of capitalism generate distinct re-regulations of the Single European Market.
Drawing on detailed case studies of ten European countries, this volume bridges the gap between the rapidly unfolding scholarly debate on Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. It argues that both strongly neocorporatist systems of political-economic governance and statist systems are capable of creating swift, comprehensive and thorough national re-regulations. This applies to Austria and France, but also Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. By contrast, countries with less strongly embedded neocorporatist structures, in which due to organizational deficiencies trade unions face difficulties blocking employer demands, create liberal response strategies, permitting a stratification of wage levels. Hence, both Germany and the Netherlands implemented liberal business-friendly re-regulations.
The volume makes the case for important amendments to existing accounts of Europeanization and varieties of capitalism. Scholars of Europeanization need to incorporate bottom-up re-regulation into their conceptual framework, particularly in response to 'negative integration'. Recent strides in comparative political economy have placed great emphasis on continued divergence, yet this study suggests that even within the presumably unified group of 'non-liberal' coordinated market economies important institutional differences produce very distinct responses in the face of European liberalization.

Former communist countries in East-Central Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States and Asia have been heading towards capitalism. This book sets their experience against the 'varieties of capitalism' paradigm, which sets out differences between mature market economies. It thereby provides a useful and novel framework for comparing transformation processes and demonstrates how the rather different heritages of the communist and even pre-communist pasts are leading to different kinds of capitalist economies. The book focuses on the former European communist societies but also has chapters on Kazakhstan and China.

How do the environments, in which businesses operate, condition their success or failure? Such questions have long been of interest in the fields of business, economics and politics. They have gained in importance as a result of heightened competitive pressures associated with 'globalization'. Whilst some see certain institutions as burdens, others see them as a blessing. This book thoroughly examines the main claims of the most important contribution - the Varieties of Capitalism paradigm - to this debate in recent years.

What are the most important differences among national economies? Is globalization forcing nations to converge on an Anglo-American model? What explains national differences in social and economic policy? This pathbreaking work outlines a new approach to these questions. It highlights the role of business in national economies and shows that there is more than one path to economic success.

Though the emerging sub-discipline of comparative political economy is now rich in studies of different advanced capitalisms, it still lacks a systematic consideration of the organizing frameworks and methodologies underpinning those studies. This definitive volume outlines the two great debates currently shaping the analysis of advanced capitalism. It makes the case for a greater awareness of underlying theoretical issues in the design of empirical research, and demonstrates the value of exploring the interconnections between competing intellectual approaches.

As unions face an ongoing crisis all over the industrialized world, they have often been portrayed as outmoded remnants of an old economic structure. This book argues that despite structural shifts in the economy and in politics, unions retain important functions for capitalist economies as well as for political democracy. Union revitalization in the face of their current difficulties is therefore of fundamental importance. The book charts the strategies unions are using to respond to global union decline and to revive their fortunes in five countries - US, UK, Germany, Italy and Spain - providing a wide range of institutional settings, union structures, identities and union responses. It provides a rich source of documentation about union activity, but more importantly it goes beyond description to address two of the big questions in comparative research: How can we explain cross-country differences of union responses to global decline? And how effective are these actions in helping to revitalize the labour movements? Union strategies and union revitalization outcomes varied strongly across countries and were shaped by national industrial relations institutions, as well as by the interactions between union, employer and state strategies. These findings support the argument for national divergence of the varieties of capitalism literature and challenge the globalization thesis which predicts a degree of convergence in the fate of union movements across the advanced capitalist world. There is no single revitalization strategy that works well for all union movements; the same strategy is likely to produce different results in different countries. Moreover, evidence for variation in revitalization outcomes emerges most clearly when we adopt a multi-dimensional conceptualization of revitalization, moving beyond union membership and density to embrace economic and political power as well as the institutional dimension of union reform. Despite serious revitalization attempts in all countries the scale of revitalization is extremely modest when compared to the great upsurges of unionism in history. Varieties of Unionism presents important research and analysis of union strategy for academics and graduate students of Industrial Relations, Management, Politics, Political Economy, and Sociology.

By means of the transaction cost theory, the study identifies the motives for vertical integration or coordination in the Russian agro-food sector and assesses the forms of vertical integration developed so far. One can distinguish between state-initiated integration forms and such initiated by the economic agents themselves. Whereas the aim of the former is to dilute assumed market power of the food industry, uncertainty about market partners regarding reliable supply and marketing conditions and especially the fulfillment of payment obligation is the main motive for the latter. Often the chosen forms of vertical integration or cooperation not only comprise enterprises of the whole marketing chain, but also of a whole region. This could create problems with regard to competition, since barriers to entry could be raised substantially and collusion among economic agents facilitated.

This paper considers vertical price relationships between wholesalers and retailers on five local maize markets in Benin. We show that if the common factor and the long-run disequilibrium error are not explicitly taken into account in testing the channel model, one can easily be wrong about how restrictions on the error-correction structure must be interpreted in terms of economic power in the channel. The empirical results show interesting differences between markets and reveal that retailers play a more prominent role in the price formation process than generally assumed in the literature. Retailers in the two major towns do not allow wholesalers to behave as vertical price leaders, but in the two larger rural centers, wholesalers involved in arbitrage among urban markets are able to influence price formation.

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Voluntary environmental agreements have been popular with government agencies in several countries. However, many questions remain about their efficiency as a regulatory tool. Recent analyses suggest that they are more effective than conventional regulatory or economic approaches when dealing with diffuse pollution and when innovation processes at the source are necessary to define effective regulation. This paper applies an activity-based framework to assess the contribution of such a voluntary agreement to the environmental performance of farms participating in a whole farm plan in the Southern part of Belgium. Using a cross-section of 52 farms, our results show that farms entering into environmental agreements are environmentally more efficient than non-participating farms in terms of the preservation and provision of landscape features. However, their environmental efficiency with regard to the reduction of non-desirable outputs, such as organic nitrogen, is mostly determined by technical efficiency and not by participation in the whole farm plan.