Padma Desai – författare

Much of the discussion of Russia''s recent post-Communist history has amounted, both in Russia and the West, to a series of monologues by strong-minded people with starkly divergent views. In contrast, Padma Desai''s conversations with influential, intelligent participants and observers provide the reader with a broad, nuanced view of what has and has not happened in the last fourteen years, and why. Conversations from Russia will thus serve as a much-needed reference volume, both for academics who study Russia and for laypeople who only have vague perceptions of what has occurred in Russia since the collapse of Communism. In conversations with important figures like Boris Yeltsin, George Soros, Anatoly Chubais, and Yegar Gaidar, Desai considers questions like why the Soviet Union fell apart under Gorbachev, what went wrong with economic reforms after Gorbachev, whether the privatization of Russian assets could have been managed differently, and what the prospects are for the Russian economy in the near future. Desai, a recognized expert in the field of Soviet studies, ties the interviews together with an introduction, ultimately reaching her own judgment on each issue considered in the conversations. This book will appeal to researchers and students in developmental economics, political economy, and Soviet studies, and educated laypeople interested in Russia.

Much of the discussion of Russia's recent post-Communist history has amounted, both in Russia and the West, to a series of monologues by strong-minded people with starkly divergent views. In contrast, Padma Desai's conversations with influential, intelligent participants and observers provide the reader with a broad, nuanced view of what has and has not happened in the last fourteen years, and why. Conversations from Russia will thus serve as a much-needed reference volume, both for academics who study Russia and for laypeople who only have vague perceptions of what has occurred in Russia since the collapse of Communism. In conversations with important figures like Boris Yeltsin, George Soros, Anatoly Chubais, and Yegar Gaidar, Desai considers questions like why the Soviet Union fell apart under Gorbachev, what went wrong with economic reforms after Gorbachev, whether the privatization of Russian assets could have been managed differently, and what the prospects are for the Russian economy in the near future. Desai, a recognized expert in the field of Soviet studies, ties the interviews together with an introduction, ultimately reaching her own judgment on each issue considered in the conversations. This book will appeal to researchers and students in developmental economics, political economy, and Soviet studies, and educated laypeople interested in Russia.

Much of the discussion of Russia''s recent post-Communist history has amounted, both in Russia and the West, to a series of monologues by strong-minded people with starkly divergent views. In contrast, Padma Desai''s conversations with influential, intelligent participants and observers provide the reader with a broad, nuanced view of what has and has not happened in the last fourteen years, and why. Conversations from Russia will thus serve as a much-needed reference volume, both for academics who study Russia and for laypeople who only have vague perceptions of what has occurred in Russia since the collapse of Communism. In conversations with important figures like Boris Yeltsin, George Soros, Anatoly Chubais, and Yegar Gaidar, Desai considers questions like why the Soviet Union fell apart under Gorbachev, what went wrong with economic reforms after Gorbachev, whether the privatization of Russian assets could have been managed differently, and what the prospects are for the Russian economy in the near future. Desai, a recognized expert in the field of Soviet studies, ties the interviews together with an introduction, ultimately reaching her own judgment on each issue considered in the conversations. This book will appeal to researchers and students in developmental economics, political economy, and Soviet studies, and educated laypeople interested in Russia.

In this book, Padma Desai makes the complexities of economic policy and financial reform accessible to a wide audience. Merging a compelling narrative with scholarly research, she begins with a systematic breakdown of the factors leading to America's recent recession, describing the monetary policy, tax practices, subprime mortgage scandals, and lax regulation that contributed to the crisis. She also discusses the Treasury-Fed rescue deals that saved several financial institutions and the involvement of Congress in passing restorative policies. Desai follows with an analysis of stress tests and other economic measures, and she frankly assesses whether the U.S. economy is truly on the mend. Expanding her view, she considers the prospects for recovery in North America as a whole, as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America, and the extent and value of U.S. and E.U. regulatory proposals. Refocusing on American financial practices, Desai evaluates hedge funds and derivatives, credit default swaps, and rating agencies, pondering whether the dollar can remain a reserve currency.She concludes with a historical comparison of the Great Depression and the Great Recession, weighing the effect of the economic collapse on the future of American capitalism.

This book provides a sweeping, up-to-date, and boldly critical account of the financial crises that rocked East Asia and other parts of the world beginning with the collapse of the Thai baht in 1997. Retracing the story of Asia's "Crisis Five"--Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand--Padma Desai argues that the region's imprudently fast-paced opening to the free flow of capital was pushed by determined advocates, official and private, in the global economy's U.S.-led developed center. Turmoil ensued in these peripheral economies, the Russian ruble faltered, and Brazil was eventually hit. The inequitable center-periphery relationship also extended to the policy measures that the crisis-swept economies implemented under International Monetary Fund bailouts, which intensified the downturns induced by the panic-driven outflows of short-term capital. Financial Crisis, Contagion, and Containment examines crisis origin and resolution in a comparative perspective by combing empirical evidence from the most robust economies to the least. Why is the U.S. relatively successful at weathering economic ups and downs? Why is Japan stuck in policy paralysis?Why is the European Central Bank unable to achieve both inflation control and stable growth? How can emerging markets avoid turbulence amid free-flowing speculative capital from private lenders of the developed center? Engaging and nontechnical yet deeply insightful, this book appears at a time when the continuing turmoil in Argentina has revived policy debates for avoiding and addressing financial crises in emerging market economies.

This book provides a sweeping, up-to-date, and boldly critical account of the financial crises that rocked East Asia and other parts of the world beginning with the collapse of the Thai baht in 1997. Retracing the story of Asia's "Crisis Five"--Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand--Padma Desai argues that the region's imprudently fast-paced opening to the free flow of capital was pushed by determined advocates, official and private, in the global economy's U.S.-led developed center. Turmoil ensued in these peripheral economies, the Russian ruble faltered, and Brazil was eventually hit. The inequitable center-periphery relationship also extended to the policy measures that the crisis-swept economies implemented under International Monetary Fund bailouts, which intensified the downturns induced by the panic-driven outflows of short-term capital. Financial Crisis, Contagion, and Containment examines crisis origin and resolution in a comparative perspective by combing empirical evidence from the most robust economies to the least. Why is the U.S. relatively successful at weathering economic ups and downs? Why is Japan stuck in policy paralysis?Why is the European Central Bank unable to achieve both inflation control and stable growth? How can emerging markets avoid turbulence amid free-flowing speculative capital from private lenders of the developed center? Engaging and nontechnical yet deeply insightful, this book appears at a time when the continuing turmoil in Argentina has revived policy debates for avoiding and addressing financial crises in emerging market economies.

Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika is a historic effort at restructuring the troubled Soviet economy. Wide-ranging in scope, harnessed with cultural and political reforms, it raises intriguing and important questions: Are Gorbachev's ideas different from the Kosygin-Brezhnev reform of 1965 that came to naught? What kinds of problems do the Russians have in understanding the market system? Who opposes perestroika? Do Gorbachev's proposals threaten his own future as Soviet leader? How does perestroika relate to a more general environment of openness, of glasnost? What happened at the June 1988 Party Conference? And, above all, is the old order really giving way to a new one? Or does Gorbachev aim at "e;capitalist icing on a socialist cake"e;?.To answer these questions and others, Padma Desai, a distinguished pioneer in the modern econometric analysis of the Soviet economy, has distilled from Gorbachev's myriad decrees the outlines of his strategy for doing away with the Soviet Union's long-term economic malaise. Focusing on the key areas of industry, agriculture, services, and foreign trade, she discusses specific blueprints for change and evaluates the possibilities for their success. Skillfully combining charts, photographs, cartoons, and quotes, this book offers a unique and coherent view of the strategy underlying Gorbachev's reform efforts to date--and does so gracefully and with sparkle, in terms completely understandable to the layperson.Originally published in 1989.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.