Critical Perspectives on the World Economy – serie

This title is the first in the Critical Perspectives on the World Economy series. With a new introduction by the editors it brings together the most significant contributions on privatization including material on the philosophical and historical context.Specific subjects covered include:* regulation and competition policy* different forms and techniques of privatization* the impact of privatization.Drawing on an enormous range of sources, the collection includes material by Hayek, Harold Demsetz, Douglass North, Janos Kornai, Jean Tirole and Jeffrey Sachs. It is an indispensible reference for policy makers, as well as academics concerned with economic policy and public economics.

With ever increasing levels of international trade, many countries are now completely dependent on cross border trade. However, the suspicion that individual countries are not playing by the rules is leading to 'trade friction', and the real possibility of costly trade wars.The World Trading System includes material on:* the origin and development of the world trade system since Bretton Woods* dispute settlement in the world trading system* administered protection and non-tariff barriers* the Uruguay Round and beyondWhilst the focus of the collection is economic, it also explores the perspectives of international political economy, international business and law.

This collection draws together the most significant writings on the economics of transition. Although there are a wide range of examples from different countries and industries, the focus is on analysis of the key issues. These include:* macroeconomics and stabilization* liberalization and the establishment of markets* property rights and the legal framework* reform of banking and finance, agriculture, and the trading system* the functioning of labour marketsThis collection draws on material from an enormous range of sources. It includes articles by Barry Eichengreen, Oliver Blanchard, Stanley Fischer and Janos Kornai.

Taxation, of one sort or another, can be traced back to the beginnings of civilization, indeed, it might be argued that taxes are the price of civilization. This set reprints classic articles on taxation such as Adam Smith's Canons of Taxation, alongside more contemporary articles on modern developments. Taking into account the strong revisionist trend emergent in the study of economic issues, a new introduction by the editor puts the collected articles into context.

The Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum was established as a regional grouping in 1989 to deal with the issues arising from growing regional interdependence. Its stated aim is to build ‘a prosperous Asia-Pacific through free and open trade and investment’ and it now has twenty-one member economies, including China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Canada, the USA, Mexico, Peru and Chile. The APEC Summit of Leaders and Ministers from around the region is the major dialogue on economic and political affairs across the Pacific each year. But APEC continues to evolve in a bid to keep pace with the rise of East Asian economic and political power, first around the emergence of Japan as a great industrial nation, later with the rise of the other East Asian economies, the remarkable growth of China and, more recently, the emergence of India.This new Major Work from Routledge is a five-volume collection which covers in depth the origins and history of APEC, its achievements and the impact it has had—and continues to have—on international relations and economic cooperation in general. It provides the information, analysis and interpretation that are essential to thinking about the economic and political framework within which these unprecedented changes in the structure of the world economy might be managed more or less successfully.

Health economics is one of the fastest growing sub-disciplines of economics and is probably the one that has most engaged with neighbouring disciplines, such as epidemiology and bio-statistics, to solve some of the more intractable problems confronting healthcare systems around the world. The impact of health economics outside the economics profession has been immense, and it has introduced the common currency of economists (opportunity cost, elasticity, the margin, production functions) into medical parlance. However, the very size of the literature spawned by health economists poses a challenge to both students and to those seeking to know more about what economists have had to say on key issues. These volumes are designed to help readers to overcome these difficulties. Presenting a comprehensive ‘library’ of the most important contributions made by health economists, each of the four volumes covers two significant areas of health economics, with each of these eight areas then including an introduction and an article-by-article commentary by the editor. There is also a general introduction, which outlines the scope and content of health economics, to help orientate the reader.The selection of articles made by Culyer has been based on a survey of the principal teachers of health economics in universities in North America, Europe and elsewhere. Each chosen item is of current relevance and collectively the articles provide a comprehensive review of the most important contributions made by health economists over the past thirty years or so.

With a membership of 160 countries, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the international organization with responsibility for the global rules of trade between nations. Its stated principal function is to ensure that trade flows as smoothly, predictably, and freely as possible. Established almost twenty years ago, the agreements negotiated under its auspices and, indeed, its very existence have been the source of tremendous controversy and debate.Edited by a leading scholar in the field, and former Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat of the WTO, this new Routledge collection brings together in five volumes the very best scholarship on the WTO from economists, academics, lawyers, and other thinkers to examine its history (including its origins in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). The set also makes available cutting-edge research about the fundamental principles on which the organization is based and explores the implications of the WTO’s policy and practice for domestic regulation and the sovereignty of individual states. The final two volumes examine the role of the WTO in dispute settlement and discuss the challenges for the future, including relating to the role of developing countries, preferential trade agreements as well as the legitimacy and governance of the organization.With an introduction, newly written by the editor, providing her own unique perspective, World Trade Organization is an essential collection destined to be valued by scholars, students, government officials, and practitioners as a vital research resource.

For more than fifty years, pensions have been the subject of academic enquiry and controversy. Debates have raged over, amongst other things, the need for pensions, the means by which they might be delivered, their implications for the public finances, their impact on an individual’s employment motivations and their significance for national and global capital markets. These debates, and others, have spawned a vast and disparate literature.Currently, the issue that most often exercises the minds of academics and policy makers is that of pension reform. It is widely recognized that decades of social and economic change have rendered obsolete the pension arrangements in many developed and developing countries. The question of what now constitutes an appropriate set of pension arrangements is, however, far from settled. Opinions are divided over whether existing national pension systems can be modified to make them fit contemporary needs and circumstances, or whether they should be jettisoned in favour of something entirely different.Central to the analysis of many issues in pension provision is the universal phenomenon of population ageing. Around the world, falling birth rates and rising life expectancy are raising the ratio of elderly to working-age people. For several decades the literature on pensions and population ageing has been extremely negative. Recently, though, a series of books and papers have appeared which argue for a more benign, less pessimistic, interpretation of population ageing.The papers and articles included in each volume of this new Routledge Major Work have been selected so as to reflect the multi-dimensional nature of the subject and the interest it has aroused internationally. With a full index and an introduction newly written by the editor, this four-volume collection is a unique and valuable research resource for both student and scholar alike.

This collection, edited by two of the world's leading experts on Asian economies, provides an invaluable reference resource by collecting together the major articles and essays on the region. It combines articles on China, ASEAN economies and the four NICs (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong) with material dealing with key issues for the region as a whole.It is now widely accepted that the Asian Pacific Rim is by far the world's most dynamic economic growth region and is set to lead the world in economic growth in the new century. However, the causes and consequences of this growth are much less widely understood. This set will be indispensable for anyone who needs to understand one of the major forces which is reshaping the global economy.