Over the last twenty-five years, there has been an acceleration in the move from government regulation towards privatization. Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region is the first thoroughgoing account of the relative success of the different approaches to privatization as undertaken in Korea, China, Australia, and Japan. In most contexts, privatization is expected to yield greater efficiency and cost effectiveness while avoiding the corruption and bloated budgets of government regulation or monopoly control. But broad-scale privatization, if ill designed, has also yielded its share of difficulties in East Asia. Privatization sometimes has created a vacuum in corporate governance for some of the region's most important industries and in some cases merely reinstated the monopoly-like configurations. The papers presented in this book discuss the experiences of privatization in several industries, including railroad and telecom, corporate governance problems, accounting issues, and challenges for the future in East Asian countries. The first section is theoretical in nature and proposes boundaries among government protection, market freedom, and shareholder expectations. The second part is constituted by country case studies, beginning with an analysis of both the Korean financial crisis that followed its 1997 law to privatize large, public sector corporations and the new ways Korean corporations finance themselves. Following is an evaluation of China's approach to privatization, with an in-depth look at the financial transitions of companies slated for initial public offering. Providing provocative examples of the methods of privatization in the Asia-Pacific region specifically, these papers will be of huge import to any economist or policymaker interested in transposing those successes for their own region.

This book discusses policy instruments for sustainable infrastructure developments. Railways are one of the most important developmental instruments of a region, province, or country. They play a crucial role in economic development, urban growth, urban mobility, regional susceptibility, market integration, and world trade. Railways are an integral part of regional and urban development, both in terms of freight and passenger transport. By offering case studies from various regions and cities in South Asia, this book examines the evolution of railway transportation and the impact of these infrastructure projects on regional and urban development. It examines the interactions between evolving infrastructures and competing demands and considers the negative and positive externalities of railway transportation for people, places, and locations. The contributions analyze issues such as network infrastructure planning and technological development, passenger mobility and satisfaction, vulnerability to environmental impacts, and cross-border trade.

Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.

In the past, undersupply of public infrastructure was blamed for low productivity growth in the United States in the 1970s, while greater private sector participation was emphasized for infrastructure development in the Asia-Pacific region before the Asian Economic Crisis in the 1990s. This revealing book looks at the current economic situation and the state of infrastructure on both sides of the Pacific. Including contributions from leading authorities such as Satya Paul, Jim Storey, Tony Makin and Naoyuki Yoshino, this book closely investigates the experiences of Japan, Canada, the US, China, Korea and Australia.

'This book offers a fascinating exploration of the contradictions of East Asian economic integration: a topic of enormous contemporary significance to observers of world political and economic affairs. The collection provides an unusually rigorous and systematic treatment of this important topic, drawing on contributions from an impressive array of experts. It will provide a valuable resource for students, scholars and other observers seeking deeper understanding of the contemporary dynamics and challenges of East Asian integration.' - Kate MacDonald, University of Melbourne, Australia 'East Asia is a crucial part of the global economy. This book analyses three key elements of East Asian economic integration: trade, investment and international finance. The authors are leading experts in their fields. Their book represents an important addition to the literature on a subject of fundamental importance both regionally and globally.' - Bradly J. Condon, ITAM, Mexico City This book analyses recent developments and likely future paths for trade and financial integration in East Asia. It suggests a more coherent, balanced way forward for regional economic integration and analyses implications for institution building in East Asia. East Asia has achieved a high degree of intra-regional trade, investment and GDP correlation, through an expanding web of free trade agreements and production networks. However, financially, most regional economies are linked more closely to North America and Europe than to each other. As trade integration has accelerated, financial and monetary integration has not kept pace. East Asian Economic Integration analyses potential reasons and remedies for this phenomenon through a multidisciplinary framework of law, politics and economics. This comprehensive book will appeal to researchers and students in political science, international relations, trade law, international finance law, and regional studies generally. It will also be of great interest to regional

Thomas Clarke's International Corporate Governance offers a comprehensive guide to corporate governance forms and institutions and examines the recurring crises in corporate governance and the resulting corporate governance reform around the world. While the popular structure of the original text has been retained, significant changes have been made to take account of the global financial crisis, ever-changing regulations and worldwide governance developments. Key topics include: The governance failures of international corporations such as Enron and Lehman Brothers Diversity in corporate and institutional forms across the world The role of international corporate governance standards Digital disruption in capital markets and proposals for rebuilding commitment to long-term investing The impact of financialization and corporate governance practices on increasing inequality The links between corporate governance, corporate social responsibility and sustainability This textbook contains a wealth of pedagogical material to guide the reader through this complex subject, including student questions to help with assessments, and a new companion website. There are also thirteen forensic case studies which scrutinize the governance failures seen at RBS, UBS, BP, Volkswagen and many other international corporations. International Corporate Governance will be an essential text for anybody studying corporate governance at the advanced undergraduate, master's or executive level.

A significant proportion of serious crime is economically motivated. Almost all financial crimes will be either motivated by greed, or the desire to cover up misconduct. This Handbook addresses financial crimes such as fraud, corruption and money laundering, and highlights both the risks presented by these crimes, as well as their impact on the economy. The contributors cover the practical issues on the topic on a transnational level, both in terms of the crimes and the steps taken to control them. They place an emphasis on the prevention, disruption and control of financial crime. They discuss, in eight parts, the nature and characteristics of economic and financial crime, The enterprise of crime, business crime, the financial sector at risk, fraud, corruption, The proceeds of financial and economic crime, and enforcement and control. Academics interested in criminology, law, as well as business and legal studies students will find this book to be an invaluable resource. Practitioners, including lawyers, compliance and risk managements, law enforcement officers, and policy makers will also find the points raised to be of use.

This book focuses on issues related to entrepreneurship and SME management on the African continent by providing insights from different conceptual, empirical and case studies. In doing so, it focuses on context-specific challenges for conducting entrepreneurial activities or business endeavors in smaller firms in the African continent. The book responds to calls for more research about African businesses given the acknowledgement of scholars, students and policy makers around the world who realize the increasing and growing economic importance of the African continent. In addition to serving as a source book for more in-depth studies by assisting the reader in gaining increased understanding of the topics covered, complementing the different parts with reviews, the book also elaborates on issues such political unrest, corruption, untrained personnel and environmental concerns. Entrepreneurship and SME Management Across Africa: Context, Challenges, Cases will be useful to academics with an interest in different entrepreneurial contexts in general, and Africa in particular, and for students interested in regional business practices, as well as for practitioners and policy makers.

OECD's first Economic Survey of China documents the encouraging extent to which structural reforms in China have triggered a durable process of economic development, and points out where additional reform is needed.

This book analyzes state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which are still significant players in many Asian economies. They provide essential public services, build and operate key infrastructure, and are often reservoirs of public employment. Their characteristics and inherent competitive advantages as publicly owned enterprises allow them to play these critical roles. Their weaknesses in governance and inefficiencies in incentive structures, however, also often lead to poor performance. SOEs must be efficient, transparent, and accountable to level the playing field for private companies, secure the growth of a vibrant private sector, and achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth. This book analyzes the reform of SOEs in Asia, the results of which are mixed. The volume concludes that some key conditions generally need to be met for SOE reforms to be successful: national bureaucracies must have the capacity to implement the reforms, and adverse impacts on international trade and investment must be avoided.