In the long aftermath of the acute global financial crisis of 2008/09, “rebalancing” the economy with new sources of growth and productivity remains a persistent necessity. This book addresses the resulting trade-offs and challenges. These needs, and the corresponding policy challenges, are especially prevalent in Europe, in particular Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. On this issue, this book contributes lessons learned from earlier balance sheet recessions. It also addresses the often overlooked link between macroeconomic imbalances and economic inequality. Further contributions focus on the interaction between monetary policy and financial stability, adding a regional perspective to these important issues.

How trade imbalances spurred on the global financial crisis and why we aren't out of trouble yet China's economic growth is sputtering, the Euro is under threat, and the United States is combating serious trade disadvantages. Another Great Depression? Not quite. Noted economist and China expert Michael Pettis argues instead that we are undergoing a critical rebalancing of the world economies. Debunking popular misconceptions, Pettis shows that severe trade imbalances spurred on the recent financial crisis and were the result of unfortunate policies that distorted the savings and consumption patterns of certain nations. Pettis examines the reasons behind these destabilizing policies, and he predicts severe economic dislocations that will have long-lasting effects. Demonstrating how economic policies can carry negative repercussions the world over, The Great Rebalancing sheds urgent light on our globally linked economic future.

This volume adds to the existing literature on the Great Recession and the variety of current troubles in the European Union by providing the views of someone who has been in the trenches at national and international levels and who has extensive policy and academic experience. Furthermore, it deals, inter alia, with issues of huge importance such as “North-South” and “East-West” cleavages in the EU, problems in the Eurozone, the diminishing resilience of systems, and the rise of a “New Protectionism”. The book voices concerns and dilemmas from the perspective of new EU Member States in a period of “radical uncertainty” and painful policy trade-offs. Its underlying paradigm is that markets are essential for entrepreneurship and economic dynamism, but that market failures and global finance can cause a lot of misery in society unless they are reined in. This volume will be of interest to all those looking for insights into the challenges that the EU, the Eurozone, and emerging European economies have faced during the past decade and on what may lie ahead. Its target audience is policy-making and business circles, academia, research outfits, and NGOs.

ÔThe emergence of the BRICs and of China in particular has played an important if underappreciated role to the competitive difficulties of Greece, Portugal and other Southern European countries. The contributors to this volume warn that similar challenges now confront the economies of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, many of which compete head to head with China in international markets. More reassuringly, the authors also specify an agenda for structural adjustment, product upgrading and deeper integration with Western Europe that offers hope for meeting the China challenge.Õ Ð Barry Eichengreen, University of California, Berkeley, US This important book discusses European integration in a global economic setting, investigating the impact of China and Russia as emerging global players in the catching-up process in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The expert contributors focus on global imbalances and accompanying policy challenges, competitiveness and trade, the sustainability of current growth strategies, and banking and financial stability in the light of the global economic and financial crisis. They provide a multi-disciplinary assessment, combining the views of high-ranking central bankers, policymakers, commercial bankers and academics, and demonstrate that a broad view of European economic integration is crucial given that spillovers and contagion were major issues of the recent economic crisis. This book will prove an illuminating read for academics, researchers, students and policymakers with an interest in international economics, money, finance and banking and European studies.

Over the past 25 years, Jürgen Habermas has presented whatis arguably the most coherent and wide-ranging defence of theproject of European unification and of parallel developmentstowards a politically integrated world society. In developing hiskey concepts of the transnationalisation of democracy and theconstitutionalisation of international law, Habermas offers themain players in the struggles over the fate of the European Union(the politicians, the political parties and the publics of themember states) a way out of the current economic and politicalcrisis, should they choose to follow it. In the title essay Habermas addresses the challenges and threatsposed by the current banking and public debt crisis in the Eurozonefor European unification. He is harshly critical of theincrementalist, technocratic policies advocated by the Germangovernment in particular, which are being imposed at the expense ofthe populations of the economically weaker, crisis-strickencountries and are undermining solidarity between the member states.He argues that only if the technocratic approach is replaced by adeeper democratization of the European institutions can theEuropean Union fulfil its promise as a model for how rampant marketcapitalism can once again be brought under political control at thesupranational level. This volume reflects the impressive scope of Habermas?s recentwritings on European themes, including theoretical treatments ofthe complex legal and political issues at stake, interventions oncurrent affairs, and reflections on the lives and works of majorEuropean philosophers and intellectuals. Together the essaysprovide eloquent testimony to the enduring relevance of the work ofone of the most influential and far-sighted public intellectuals inthe world today, and are essential reading for all philosophers,legal scholars and social scientists interested in European andglobal issues.

This interdisciplinary book examines Brexit from a political economy perspective, enriched by insights from scholars of political science, history and law. Shedding light on the key motivations for Brexit, this incisive book seeks to better understand what shapes the UK’s political and economic preferences and the fundamental causes and issues that have moulded its stance on the EU.

This book builds an essential bridge between climate change and social policy. Combining ethics and human need theory with political economy and climate science, it offers a long-term, interdisciplinary analysis of the prospects for sustainable development and social justice. Beyond ‘green growth’ (which assumes an unprecedented rise in the emissions efficiency of production) it envisages two further policy stages vital for rich countries: a progressive ‘recomposition’ of consumption, and a post-growth ceiling on demand. An essential resource for scholars and policymakers.

The economies of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are facing complex challenges. In the eastern part of the region the task of governments is to orchestrate a coordinated crisis response. The collapse of oil revenues and the associated decline in remittances triggered a chain reaction of shocks. Adjustment to these shocks requires a new monetary policy regime, resolution of serious fragilities in banking sectors, fiscal reforms that put government finances on a sustainable path, while guaranteeing fair burden sharing, and facilitation of job creation in sectors that compete internationally. In the western part of the region policy coordination within the European Union is being tested by the refugee crisis and a possible Brexit. Meanwhile the Chinese economy has slowed down and is in the process of fundamental transformation. Also these developments have major impacts on the ECA region. The report analyses all these challenges and points at the opportunities to become more competitive in global markets.

This collaborative volume​ discusses the One Belt One Road, or the New Silk Road, initiative of Chinese President Xi Jinping from the perspectives of the Belt and Road countries. This initiative has been viewed as a re-globalization drive by China in the backdrop of financial crisis of the West and the latter’s increasingly protectionist tendencies of late. Rather than ‘rebalancing’ towards a certain region, this is supposed to be China’s ‘global rebalancing’ aimed at inclusiveness and a win-win partnership. The initiative has raised hopes as well as suspicions about China's goals and intentions; that is, whether this is in sync with China’s foreign policy goals, such as multipolarity, no hegemonic aspirations, and common security, or if this is an antidote to the U.S. foreign policy goals in the region, and China’s ambition to realizing its long-term vision for Asian regional and global order. In this volume, a galaxy of eminent academics from India, China, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Germany and Southeast Asia have critically analysed every aspect of this mammoth project, including the six major economic corridors identified by China for policy coordination, infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, monetary circulation, and people to people exchanges. The authors have interpreted China’s peripheral, regional as well as global diplomacy both over land and sea. This topical volume is of interest to scholars and students of Asian studies, China studies, Asian history, development studies, international relations and international trade.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an economically diverse region. Despite undertaking economic reforms in many countries, and having considerable success in avoiding crises and achieving macroeconomic stability, the region’s economic performance in the past 30 years has been below potential. This paper takes stock of the region’s relatively weak performance, explores the reasons for this out come, and proposes an agenda for urgent reforms.