"A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face"--Provided by publisher.
" ... I have also tried to highlight the constructive roles played by Russia during and after the Second World War in East Europe. In the socialist block of countries there were efforts to address the peoples' basic needs like food, shelter, education and health. But they seriously lagged in catering to other consumer goods and luxury items for which the people had great craving. The closed door functioning of the communist parties in East Europe as per the dictates of Soviet Russia had alienated the parties from the people. During spring and summer I travelled to the extreme Western Europe (London and Paris) and the central/east Europe comprising Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Hungary. I had rich experience of travelling by train, car as well as by hitchhiking. During my entire stay, I met many colourful, jovial and compassionate personalities in different fields and had entered into very lively discussions about man-woman relationships including love, sex, marriage and divorce, women's position in the east and west, definition of character and virtuousness, religion and other socio-political developments. The cultural and social differences between Europe and India also featured. An attempt has also been made to look into the causes of the recent disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early nineties of the last century."--
Following the restructuring process which swept away the traditional manufacturing economy of the inner city 25 years ago, new industries are transforming these former post-industrial landscapes. These creative, technology-intensive industries include Internet services, computer graphics and imaging, and video game production. The development dynamics of these new sectors are volatile in comparison with those of the classic ‘Industrial City’. But these new industries highlight the unique role of the inner city in facilitating creative processes, innovation and social change. Further, they reflect the intensity of interaction between the ‘global’ and the ‘local’ in the metropolis, and represent key agencies of urban place-making and re-imaging. This book addresses the critical intersections between process and place which underpin the formation of creative enterprises in the emergent industrial districts of the ‘new inner city’. It contains intensive case studies of industrial restructuring within exemplary sites in prominent world cities such as London, Singapore, San Francisco and Vancouver. The studies demonstrate the global reach of development and innovation across these cities and sites, marked by clustering, rapid firm turnover, and interdependency between production and consumption activity. The evocative case studies, brought to life by interviews, sequential mapping exercises, media narratives, and photography, also disclose the importance of local factors (including urban scale, built form, property markets and policy) which shape both the specific industrial structures and socio-economic impacts. The New Economy of the Inner City places inner city new industry formation within the development history of the city, and underscores its role in larger processes of urban transformation. The findings inform a critique and synthesis of urban theory which frame the evolving conditions of the 21st century metropolis. This book would be useful to researchers and students of Geography, Urban Studies, Economics and Planning.
This paper studies the effect of sovereign debt restructurings with external private creditors on growth during the period 1970-2010. We find that there are bad and good (or not so bad) debt restructurings for growth. While growth generally declines in the aftermath of a sovereign debt restructuring, agreements that allow countries to exit a default spell (final restructurings) are associated with improving growth. The impact can be significant. In general, three years after restructuring, growth is about 5 percent lower compared to countries that did not face restructuring over the same period. The exception is for final restructurings, which result in positive growth in the years immediately after the restructuring. Final restructurings tend to be better for growth because they reduce countries’ debt, with the strongest effect for countries that exit restructurings with relatively low debt levels.
With the need for sustainability, a focus on developing an economic system that aims at minimizing waste, commonly referred to as the circular economy, is emerging. Circular economy and studies related to it have gained worldwide attention, as it seems to be an effective alternative economic system. Naturally, the circular economy will impact enterprises and will shift how entrepreneurship development and entrepreneurial opportunities are perceived, developed, and resourced. The Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Development and Opportunities in Circular Economy is a collection of pioneering research that advances the understanding of entrepreneurship development, identifies the opportunities, and manages the entrepreneurship development, policies, and programs in order to further a circular economy. In addition to entrepreneurship development and entrepreneurial opportunities, the book will cover and discuss a number of other factors necessary for a successful transformation, such as entrepreneurship and innovation, entrepreneurship and change, and entrepreneurship education. While highlighting topics including consumer consumption, knowledge management, and linear economics, this book is ideally designed for entrepreneurs, small business owners, managers, consultants, organization development specialists, policymakers, researchers, industry experts, academicians, and students.
Restructuring the Soviet Economy examines the Soviet leadership's most urgent question - how to revitalize the soviet economy. David Dyker argues that the current impasse can can only be understood in the context of the failure of 60 years of central planning. He analyses both the problems besetting the centrally planned system and those that have paralysed perestroika and assesses whether the most ambitious attempt ever to reform the Soviet economy will succeed.
The writing of this book was largely motivated by the ongoing unprecedented world-wide restructuring of the power industry. This move away from the traditional monopolies and toward greater competition, in the form of increased numbers of independent power producers and an unbundling of the main services that were until now provided by the utilities, has been building up for over a decade. This change was driven by the large disparities in electricity tariffs across regions, by technological developments that make it possible for small producers to compete with large ones, and by a widely held belief that competition will be beneficial in a broad sense. All of this together with the political will to push through the necessary legislative reforms has created a climate conducive to restructuring in the electric power industry. Consequently, since the beginning of this decade dramatic changes have taken place in an ever-increasing list of nations, from the pioneering moves in the United Kingdom, Chile and Scandinavia, to today's highly fluid power industry throughout North and South America, as well as in the European Community. The drive to restructure and take advantage of the potential economic benefits has, in our view, forced the industry to take actions and make choices at a hurried pace, without the usual deliberation and thorough analysis of possible implications. We must admit that to speak of "the industry" at this juncture is perhaps disingenuous, even misleading.
The East and Southeast Asia region constitutes the world’s most compelling theatre of accelerated globalization and industrial restructuring. Following a spectacular realization of the ‘industrialization paradigm’ and a period of services-led growth, the early twenty-first century economic landscape among leading Asian states now comprises a burgeoning ‘New Economy’ spectrum of the most advanced industrial trajectories, including finance, the knowledge economy and the ‘new cultural economy’. In an agenda-setting volume, New Economic Spaces in Asian Cities draws on stimulating research conducted by a new generation of urban scholars to generate critical analysis and theoretical insights on the New Economy phenomenon within Asia. New industry formation and the transformation of older economic practices constitute instruments of development, as well as signifiers of larger processes of change, expressed in the reproduction of space in the city. Asia’s major cities become the key staging areas for the New Economy, driven by the growing wealth of an urban middle and professional class, higher education institutions, city-based inter-regional movements and urban mega-projects. New Economic Spaces in Asian Cites animates this New Economy discourse by means of vibrant storylines of instructive cities and sites, including cases studies situated in cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Singapore. Theoretical and normative issues associated with the emergence of the new cultural economy are the subject of the book’s context-setting chapters, and each case study presents an evocative narrative of development interdependencies and exemplary outcomes on the ground. New Economic Spaces in Asian Cities offers a vivid contribution to our understanding of the ongoing transformation of Asia’s urban system, including the critical intersections of global and local-regional dynamics in processes of new industry formation and the relayering of space in the Asian metropolis. The synthesis of empirical profiles, normative insights, and theoretical reference points enhances the book’s interest for scholars and students in fields of Asian studies, urban and cultural studies, and urban and economic geography, as well as for policy specialists and urban/community planners.
An IMF paper reviewing the policy responses of Indonesia, Korea and Thailand to the 1997 Asian crisis, comparing the actions of these three countries with those of Malaysia and the Philippines. Although all judgements are still tentative, important lessons can be learned from the experiences of the last two years.