Gérard Roland - Böcker

The privatization of large state-owned enterprises is one of the most radical policy developments of the last quarter century. Right-wing governments have privatized in an effort to decrease the size of government, while left-wing governments have privatized either to compensate for the failures of state-owned firms or to generate revenues. In this way, privatization has spread from Europe to Latin America, from Asia to Africa, reaching its zenith with Central and Eastern Europe's transition from socialism to capitalism. In many countries state ownership has been an important tool in bringing cheap water, energy, and transport to poorer segments of the population. In other instances, it has sponsored aggressive cutbacks, corruption, and cronyism. Privatization: Successes and Failures evaluates the practices and results of privatization in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Featuring the world's leading economists and experts on privatization, this volume offers a broad and balanced analysis of specific privatization projects and uncovers some surprising trends.Partial privatization, for example, tends to be more widespread than one might think, and the effects of privatization on efficiency are generally mixed but rarely negative. Also, while privatization appears uncontroversial in competitive sectors, it becomes increasingly complex in more monopolistic sectors where good regulation is crucial. Privatization concludes with alternative frameworks for countries in Africa and other regions that seek to develop privatization policy and programs.

Gerard Roland's new text, Development Economics, is the first undergraduate text to recognize the role of institutions in understanding development and growth. Through a series of chapters devoted to specific sets of institutions, Roland examines the effects of institutions on growth, property rights, market development, and the delivery of public goods and services and focuses. With the most comprehensive and up to date treatment of institutions on development, Roland explores the important questions of why some countries develop faster than others and why some fail while others are successful.

How the geopolitical behavior of states is closely related to the nature of their political systemsToday’s world is characterized by an unstable coexistence of empires, nation-states, and democracies. In this book, Gerard Roland examines these three fundamentally different institutional systems and considers whether the international behavior of nations is influenced by the nature of their political regimes. He explains that until the nineteenth century, international relations were driven by rivalries among competing empires; as empires started to disintegrate, they were replaced by nation-states, some of which became democracies. The nation-state project supported by today’s extreme right promotes ethnic homogeneity within a country’s borders, while democracies are based on universal values of citizenship. Interactions between countries with such essentially different political systems, Roland shows, are seldom harmonious and likely to evolve into cultural clashes and military conflict.Drawing on his expertise in political and comparative economics, Roland analyzes why and how countries’ geopolitical behavior—their actions and attitudes regarding war, peace, expansionism, and trade—is closely linked to their political systems. In the long run, he argues, the ethnically homogenous nation-state is doomed because of the strong economic inefficiencies entailed by economic nationalism and the lack of openness to immigration, trade, and foreign direct investment. A better path for the future of the international order, Roland suggests, would be a world of small democracies building supranational institutions on the basis of commonly accepted rules.

How the geopolitical behavior of states is closely related to the nature of their political systemsToday’s world is characterized by an unstable coexistence of empires, nation-states, and democracies. In this book, Gerard Roland examines these three fundamentally different institutional systems and considers whether the international behavior of nations is influenced by the nature of their political regimes. He explains that until the nineteenth century, international relations were driven by rivalries among competing empires; as empires started to disintegrate, they were replaced by nation-states, some of which became democracies. The nation-state project supported by today’s extreme right promotes ethnic homogeneity within a country’s borders, while democracies are based on universal values of citizenship. Interactions between countries with such essentially different political systems, Roland shows, are seldom harmonious and likely to evolve into cultural clashes and military conflict.Drawing on his expertise in political and comparative economics, Roland analyzes why and how countries’ geopolitical behavior—their actions and attitudes regarding war, peace, expansionism, and trade—is closely linked to their political systems. In the long run, he argues, the ethnically homogenous nation-state is doomed because of the strong economic inefficiencies entailed by economic nationalism and the lack of openness to immigration, trade, and foreign direct investment. A better path for the future of the international order, Roland suggests, would be a world of small democracies building supranational institutions on the basis of commonly accepted rules.