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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

At the beginning of the 1990's unemployment grew in all industrialized countries: the essays in this collection focus on the causes and cures of this worrying phenomenon. The volume starts by analysing the disparities in the different national experiences and then focusing on European unemployment. The volume ends with policy recommendations.

The single market has been operating in Europe since 1 January 1993 but the twelve national fiscal systems remain independent. How will this be resolved? Harmonization and coordination or fiscal competition with distortions in the allocation of resources, in factor use, in localization of activities?

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.

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 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.

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.

Since the early 1970s the Italian economy has been moving towards an irreversible real and financial crisis. Paradoxically, the conditions engendered by the currency crisis and recession may also provide the basis for a new economic policy strategy, which could lead to built a mere 'economic miracle!'

The book has three main objectives. Firstly, to provide an up-dated analysis of the most important theoretical developments, secondly, to present significant empirical verifications and thirdly, to assess the micro-macro debate and the relations which link the market structure to the function of the economic system.

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.

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.

In the last twenty years, Italy has undergone significant changes in the functioning of the labour market and industrial relations.

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.

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 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 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.

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.