The Evolving Role of Law in Russia’s Transition to Capitalism

By Ioannis Glinavos

This work examines ideas about the role of law and legal reform in the creation of market economies, focusing on the process of post communist transition in Russia. Processes of transition in Russia were guided by a set of very specific neoliberal ideas about the nature of markets and capitalism, about the role of law and the primacy of the economic over the legal and political. These ideas however have come under fire as a result of the Russian experience of transition and the serious problems encountered by reforms. This led to a revision of the original neoliberal ideas, not least concerning the role of law and its relationship to the economic and the political. The result has been the emergence of a much more complex body of ideas about the role law plays in economic transformation.

This book aims to close a gap in the literature on post communist transition by offering a theoretical interpretation of Russia’s experience which makes transition reform models comparable to development reform models. Focusing on the role of law and the relationship of economic priorities to law reform, this work offers a critical evaluation of currently dominant theories of economic and legal reform put to use in varied transition and development scenarios. In looking at the ideas which directed and animated reform in Russia, an enquiry is thus made into the wider relationship between democracy, regulation and the market in contemporary capitalism.

Neoliberalism and the Law in Post Communist Transition will equip scholars and students of development studies, law, political economy and international economics with a critical guide to transition focused on the often neglected legal aspect of the reforms.

ISBN: 9780415486545

Published March 10 2010 by Routledge.

By David Anderson

The tools of environmental economics guide policymakers as they weigh development against nature, present against future, and certain benefits against uncertain consequences. From reluctant-but-necessary calculations of the value of life, to moral quandaries over profits at the environment’s expense, the models and findings explained in this textbook are relevant to today’s more pressing dilemmas.

The third edition of Environmental Economics and Natural Resource Management retains the application-based narratives and visual emphasis of the second edition, while covering the latest policy initiatives, following recent trends, and becoming even more user friendly. An expanded array of color photographs, diagrams, and other visual aids provide new perspectives on global environmental and resource issues.

The book covers topics including:

• Efficiency and Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Natural Resource Management
• Globalization
• Environmental Ethics
• Population Growth and Poverty

This fascinating textbook will be invaluable to students undertaking courses in environmental economics, ecological economics, and environmental and resource economics. The book includes an online Instructor’s Guide with answers to all the practice problems as well as downloadable slides of figures and tables from the book.

ISBN: 9780415779043

Published March 10 2010 by Routledge.

By John Hillman

For most of the twentieth century, tin was the site of new forms of international regulation which became a model for other commodities. The onset of the depression of the 1930s saw a collapse in commodity prices, and governments of tin producing countries decided to form a cartel to return the industry to comparative prosperity. This is a detailed study of how the tin industry found itself in difficulty and how the cartel developed its policies of control over production and stocks, together with its enduring legacy after World War II.

This study of a cartel brings together two levels of analysis that are normally kept separate; international cooperation, and national organization, and demonstrates how each affected the other. It is based on a comprehensive review of a wide range of archival sources which are sufficiently rich and frank that they provide an insider’s sense of how a cartel actually worked.

ISBN: 9780415554121

Published March 10 2010 by Routledge.

By Toichiro Asada, Carl Chiarella, Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke

This book investigates the interaction of effective goods demand with the wage-price spiral, and the impact of monetary policy on financial and the real markets from a Keynesian perspective. Endogenous business fluctuations are studied in the context of long-run distributive cycles in an advanced, rigorously formulated and quantitative setup. The material is developed by way of self-contained chapters on three levels of generality, an advanced textbook level, a research-oriented applied level and on a third level that shows how the interaction of real with financial markets has to be modelled from a truly integrative Keynesian perspective.

Monetary Macrodynamics shows that the balanced growth path of a capitalist economy is unlikely to be attracting and that the cumulative forces that surround it are controlled in the large by changes in the behavioural factors that drive the wage-price spiral and the financial markets. Such behavioural changes can in fact be observed in actual economies in the interaction of demand-driven business fluctuations with supply-driven wage and price dynamics as they originate from the conflict over income distribution between capital and labour.

The book is a detailed critique of US mainstream macroeconomics and uses rigorous dynamic macro-models of a descriptive and applicable nature. It will be of particular relevance to postgraduate students and researchers interested in disequilibrium processes, real wage feedback channels, financial markets and portfolio choice, financial accelerator mechanisms and monetary policy.

ISBN: 9780415548373

Published March 05 2010 by Routledge.

Evidence from Europe

Edited by Franco Malerba

This book examines entrepreneurship from three interrelated perspectives. Firstly, it links entrepreneurship to innovation and to the generation, transformation and use of knowledge. Secondly, it inserts entrepreneurship in innovation systems of various types- national, sectoral and local. Thirdly, it views entrepreneurship not as a single event but as a process that evolves in time, from the pre-entry experience, to the entrepreneurial act, to the evolution of the entrepreneur and the new company.

With chapters from a range of international contributors, the book answers questions such as; what are the main dimensions of knowledge intensive entrepreneurship? What are the factors affecting its emergence, evolution and performance? How important is knowledge intensive entrepreneurship for European growth and competitiveness? Is the situation of Central and Eastern Europe, engaged in a process of major economic and institutional transformation, similar or different from the one of Western Europe?

ISBN: 9780415557917

Published March 05 2010 by Routledge.

Critical Reflections on Discourse and Dominance

By Gerlinde Mautner

Language plays a central role in creating and sustaining the market society—a society, that is, in which market exchange is no longer simply a process, but an all-encompassing social principle. The social domains affected include education, politics and religion. Around the world, government departments have re-defined themselves as service providers; universities produce graduates; job seekers are asked to package themselves more effectively, and there are consultants specializing in church marketing. And as individuals, too, we are supposed to brand ourselves, sell ourselves and strategically manage our personal relationships. Through an intricate dialectic, such patterns of linguistic choices reinforce the social structures that shape them, further consolidating the marketization process. Marketization thus emerges as a globally unfolding process in which language holds a key position as both cause and effect, and as both subject and object. The book examines these phenomena from a linguistic and critical perspective, drawing on critical discourse analysis, sociological treatises of market society, and critical management studies.

ISBN: 9780415998147

Published March 03 2010 by Routledge.

By K. Vela Velupillai

Computable Foundations for Economics is a unified collection of essays, some of which are published here for the first time and all of which have been updated for this book, on an approach to economic theory from the point of view of algorithmic mathematics. By algorithmic mathematics the author means computability theory and constructive mathematics. This is in contrast to orthodox mathematical economics and game theory, which are formalised with the mathematics of real analysis, underpinned by what is called the ZFC formalism, i.e., set theory with the axiom of choice. This reliance on ordinary real analysis and the ZFC system makes economic theory in its current mathematical mode completely non-algorithmic, which means it is numerically meaningless.

The book provides a systematic attempt to dissect and expose the non-algorithmic content of orthodox mathematical economics and game theory and suggests a reformalization on the basis of a strictly rigorous algorithmic mathematics. This removes the current schizophrenia in mathematical economics and game theory, where theory is entirely divorced from algorithmic applicability – for experimental and computational exercises.

The chapters demonstrate the uncomputability and non-constructivity of core areas of general equilibrium theory, game theory and recursive macroeconomics. The book also provides a fresh look at the kind of behavioural economics that lies behind Herbert Simon’s work, and resurrects a role for the noble classical traditions of induction and verification, viewed and formalised, now, algorithmically. It will therefore be of particular interest to postgraduate students and researchers in algorithmic economics, game theory and classical behavioural economics.

ISBN: 9780415355674

Published March 01 2010 by Routledge.

A Practical Guide

By Christopher B. Barrett, Jeffrey Cason

Researchers in developing countries often find that the particular country in which they work presents a range of unforeseen challenges. Indeed, their ability to carry out effective scholarship is often highly dependent on these factors. The great differences between working in countries as varied as India, China, Bolivia and Kenya can often come as a shock to the system. An ability to negotiate a bewildering array of cultural and logistical obstacles is therefore essential.

Overseas Research: A Practical Guide distils essential lessons learned by scores of students and scholars who have collected data and done fieldwork abroad. The authors fill the reader in on the many crucial pieces of advice: how to prepare for the field, how and where to find funding for one’s fieldwork, issues of personal safety and security, and myriad logistical and relational issues that often define one’s research experience abroad. As Barrett and Cason suggest, "Fieldwork is a sequence of decisions, some about the conduct of research, some about the conduct of life." The book focuses new field researchers’ attention on that productive intersection, and includes many real-life accounts from experienced professionals whose own work abroad can inform those facing the field for the first time.

ISBN: 9780415778336

Published March 01 2010 by Routledge.

The Case of EU Cohesion Policy and of US Federal Investment Policies

By Alessandro Ferrara

This book provides an original theoretical framework for assessing public investment policies co-financed by Union (Federal) governments. This framework is applied to two important case studies: the EU Cohesion Policy and the US Federal Investment Policies.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Multi-Level Government sheds light on a number of outstanding issues of economic theory by extending the theory of shadow prices, and provides guidance to real-world decision makers. In particular, the following questions are addressed:

• In which circumstances is intervention by higher level government in Member States through investment policies justified?

• Is there a welfare economics rationale to underpin interregional equity? What is the relationship between interregional and interpersonal income distribution? How can social exclusion be included in cost-benefit tests?

• How can a higher level of government allocate financial resources to investment policies before it bargains over the related programming documents with lower levels of government?

• In these circumstances, how can optimal matching rates be derived under binding or non binding budgetary constraints?

• How can such an analytical framework provide guidance for real-world decision makers?

Guidelines such as the Impact Assessment Guidelines (European Commission), the Green Book (British Treasury), and Guidelines and Discount Rates for Benefit-Cost Analysis of Federal Programs (Executive Office of the US President) are also analyzed.

The book will be of interest to policy makers, postgraduate students and researchers in cost-benefit analysis, welfare economics, public choice, public finance, multi-level government economics, and income distribution issues.

ISBN: 9780415568210

Published March 01 2010 by Routledge.

What Have We Learned?

Edited by Henrik Enderlein, Amy Verdun

Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2009. Before its birth many observers were concerned about its viability. This volume examines a number of noteworthy concerns that were heard a decade ago and it assesses what has become of them. The contributors to this volume examine various topics. Has EMU been a failure or success? Does EMU require more political integration? What type of deeper integration in the financial market has occurred because of EMU? Does the public like EMU? Does EMU cause a decline of the welfare state, reduce the role of labour unions and are adjustments now made mainly through the labour market? Do countries in EMU become more similar over time? Is EMU sustainable in the long-run? Will EMU survive the global financial crisis? The contributors to this book are leading Political Scientists in the field, and draw on a wealth of research and experience.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

ISBN: 9780415574822

Published February 26 2010 by Routledge.