Books in the Central Issues in Contemporary Economic Theory and Policy series

This volume explores all aspects of contemporary public procurement theory, examining managing risk in procurement, collusion in procurement, efficiency in procurement, transparency in procurement, and auction design.

This book provides a critical reassessment of the role of the public sector during the Golden Age in both advanced and emerging economies. Contributions focus on a major player in the setting of mixed economies: the top managers of state-owned enterprises. Bringing together world-renowned scholars, this collection analyzes the actions of these managers and their contribution to the rise and fall of the mixed economy during the Golden Age, opening up a comparative perspective of the topic. The book forces readers to reconsider how crucial state-owned enterprises were for economic recovery and for the modernization of the production apparatus of many countries in Western Europe, India, Latin America and South Africa. Key chapters discuss state-owned enterprises in twentieth-century Europe, the managerial revolution in Italy, the role of the state in Argentine industrialization, and the organization of capital in the Indian economy. This insightful collection will appeal to scholars and students with an interest in economic history and the socio-economic impact of state-owned companies around the globe.

In the post-war period, spending on social security, health and education has grown continuously in the leading industrialized countries. The considerable size of this spending as a percentage of GDP together with the ageing population raise doubts on the sustainability of welfare spending. These doubts have been accompanied in recent years by an increasing awareness of the allocational inefficiencies and the distributive inequalities caused by the provision of some social services. The welfare state should therefore be reconstructed not only through readjustment of the social security system but also a change in unemployment benefits and the taxation of workers to avoid the perverse spiral that may be produced in the future by cuts in welfare benefits, growing unemployment and the need to further reduce the social security services.

We are now living in a period of disillusion in the ability of economic policy to stabilise the economy. This is proven by the onset of severe world recession in the early 1980s and the inability to invert the negative phase of the business cycle under way in the industrialized countries in the early 1990s.

This book provides a comprehensive analysis on the design of institutions for the new Europe. Addressing critical issues such as the appropriate distribution of political powers, the next step in the constitution process, allocation of taxing powers and distribution of policy-making responsibilities.

Privatising firms and liberalizing their market environment generates in Eastern Europe a variety of problems, many of which are not common to the analogous attempts in industries countries. In Section 2 theoretical foundations of privatization processes are proposed with respect to the financial market, industrial relations and foreign trade.

The book collects ten papers which give a broad overview of the most recent economic studies in the fields of lobbying and special interest groups.

Antitrust, Regulation and Competition brings together a group of well-known European and American academics to examine antitrust policies and competitive behaviour on a wide variety of topical cases and critical markets.

The privatization of public utilities raises several complex issues. The privatization decision involves not only the transfer of ownership from the public to the private sector, and thus the design of appropriate selling procedures (with regard to valuation of assets, flotation of shares, etc), but also, and most importantly, it appears to require the adjustment of significant features of the industrial organization and the regulatory framework. This volume focuses on the two related questions of why and how to proceed to privatization.

The US twin deficit, Western European economic integration, Eastern Europe's transition towards a market economy, the debt burden of the Less Developed Countries, the growing and deepening discrimination against the rest of the world by new homogeneous areas such as the North America free trade area, the new Europe, and Japan are the issues at the heart of global disequilibrium in the world economy. This book brings together leading economists to analyse these issues and further the debate on the need for sound economic policies to avoid a crash on a global scale.

This volume addresses different issues related to green innovation procurement as well as exploring the challenges involved in public procurement. It offers a broad array of perspectives, addressing both general, abstract problems of optimal public procurement and concrete cases of national or even local public procurement systems.

The book collects ten papers which give a broad overview of the most recent economic studies in the fields of lobbying and special interest groups.

Antitrust, Regulation and Competition brings together a group of well-known European and American academics to examine antitrust policies and competitive behaviour on a wide variety of topical cases and critical markets.

New Institutional Economics open a new methodological perspective in political economy by posing the question of why economic institutions are created. New developments in game theory are applied to many case topical studies including corruption, central bank independence, globalization and other issues in contemporary economic governance.

Single market and monetary integration of EEC countries, Germany's reunification and Central and East Europe's move towards the marketplace are redesigning the european political and economic spheres and creating great opportunities and challenges for Europe and the rest of the world.

The multiple features of intellectual property rights and industrial competition are explored through the analytically rigorous lens of the frontier of the economics literature. The book covers a broad range of issues ranging from industrial espionage to collective property rights in cultural districts.

This volume addresses different issues related to green innovation procurement as well as exploring the challenges involved in public procurement. It offers a broad array of perspectives, addressing both general, abstract problems of optimal public procurement and concrete cases of national or even local public procurement systems.

This volume studies the various aspects of the ICT revolution, with an analysis of firm-level determinants of productive efficiency and growth and the effects of internationalization and the completion of the European market.

We are now living in a period of disillusion in the ability of economic policy to stabilise the economy. This is proven by the onset of severe world recession in the early 1980s and the inability to invert the negative phase of the business cycle under way in the industrialized countries in the early 1990s.

The subject of this book is the kind of economic interaction and interdependence that has arisen among nations in the contemporary world economy, the nature and significance of the pattern of trade balances that have resulted from them, and the question of what, if anything, should be done by national governments about that pattern.

The interplay between firms' internal organization and market behaviour is a long standing issue in industrial economics. This book examines firms' objectives in the comparatively new perspective shaped by globalization. The positive and normative aspects of theoretical analysis are developed and richly complemented by empirical studies.

In this framework, we may regard financial and banking innovation as, on one hand, policy and individual agents' response to the problem of asymmetric information and risk management and, on the other, as a self-generated innovation process posing new challenges to policymakers in terms of information efficiency and risk control.

The world economy is at a cross road: it can either widen and deepen international integration, within and between different areas, or be tempted by neo-protectionism.

This collection of essays is concerned with three major and debated topics in international economics, namely interdependence between countries, real and financial integration, and the conflicting relations between industrialized (North) and developing countries (South).

Brings together leading economists to analyze present economic issues and further debate on the need for sound economic policies to avoid a crash on a global scale. Subjects covered include: the US twin deficit, Western European economic integration and Eastern Europe's economic transition.

The 2007-2009 financial crisis has had a worldwide impact on banks and financial systems. It has also brought about major changes in Europe's financial regulatory framework which could lead to financing problems for SMEs. The book explores the restructuring process of banking and financial systems to its impact on the financing of SMEs.

A detailed exploration of the influence and utility of Thomas Malthus' model of population growth and economic changes in Europe since the nineteenth century. This important contribution to current discussions on theories of economic growth includes discussion of issues ranging from mortality and fertility to natural resources and the poverty trap.

A review of the literature on environmental taxes, focusing on European experiences, and analysing how such taxes can contribute to green causes as well as reducing the tax burden from "ordinary" taxation. The authors examine the potential 'double dividend' from tax reform for helping the environment, reducing unemployment and encouraging growth.

The 2007-2009 financial crisis has had a worldwide impact on banks and financial systems. It has also brought about major changes in Europe's financial regulatory framework which could lead to financing problems for SMEs. The book explores the restructuring process of banking and financial systems to its impact on the financing of SMEs.

A review of the literature on environmental taxes, focusing on European experiences, and analysing how such taxes can contribute to green causes as well as reducing the tax burden from "ordinary" taxation. The authors examine the potential 'double dividend' from tax reform for helping the environment, reducing unemployment and encouraging growth.