Explains how serious the federal fiscal situation is, how the crisis happened, what will happen in the near future, and what can be done about it.

This is the first systematic source which tries to explain how and why the 233-year old and the World's oldest merchant bank went into bankruptcy in a few days. It includes three parts with 10 chapters. Part I first describes what happened, then traces back the birth and historical glory of the Barings bank and family, and finally describes how it was sold to the Internationale Nederlanden Groep (ING). As many terms of financial derivatives are used in the first part, we try to provide an easy and systematic way to clarify the related financial derivatives products in Part II. This part first gives a general discussion of financial derivatives and a brief review of the historical development, growth, and magnitude of the financial derivatives markets. It then concentrates on futures and options in two chapters. Finally, we explain the hedging and speculating functions of financial derivatives and how they can be used in combination to achieve particular objectives. Part III provides necessary information on the Japanese financial markets and then analyzes how a single trader could have so much power as to bring about Barings fall. Finally, we try to provide the lessons from this event.

"Explores the phenomenon of party system collapse through a detailed examination of Venezuela's traumatic party system decay, as well as a comparative analysis of collapse in Bolivia, Colombia, and Argentina and survival in Argentina, India, Uruguay, and Belgium"--Provided by publisher.

This book provides a framework for thinking about economic instiutions such as firms. The basic idea is that institutions arise in situations where people write incomplete contracts and where the allocation of power or control is therefore important. Power and control are not standard concepts in economic theory. The book begins by pointing out that traditional approaches cannot explain on the one hand why all transactions do not take place in one huge firm and on the other hand why firms matter at all. An incomplete contracting or property rights approach is then developed. It is argued that this approach can throw light on the boundaries of firms and on the meaning of asset ownership. In the remainder of the book, incomplete contacting ideas are applied to understand firms' financial decisions, in particular, the nature of debt and equity (why equity has votes and creditors have foreclosure rights); the capital structure decisions of public companies; optimal bankruptcy procedure; and the allocation of voting rights across a company's shares. The book is written in a fairly non-technical style and includes many examples. It is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students, academic and business economists, and lawyers as well as those with an interest in corporate finance, privatization and regulation, and transitional issues in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and China. Little background knowledge is required, since the concepts are developed as the book progresses and the existing literature is fully reviewed.