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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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).

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.