As the importance of the Pacific Rim as a global centre of large-scale investment, development, and trade continues to increase, so do the potential benefits that Canada and other countries could reap as a result of an increased presence in this diverse region. This book, a revised, and to a large extent new, version of The Pacific Rim: Investment, Development, and Trade (1987), integrates a broad range of current economic data concerning the Pacific Rim with some of the more important theoretical issues in the area of economic development and trade. It demonstrates the paradoxical combination of strength and fragility that characterizes the emerging integrated Pacific Rim economy and attempts to clarify the nature of the framework and constraints that face foreign investors and trading partners.

Despite the negative press Asian economies have received in connection with the recent financial crisis, their record of spectacular growth over the past few decades remains irrefutable. In an effort to provide a rich, textured analysis of these economies, editor W. Mark Fruin presents a collection of essays that explores the wide range of network organizations that have been established in the Pacific Rim. Conventional studies of economic organization have tended to center on markets and hierarchies, the two forms of organization most common in the West. But today the world moves too quickly and too unpredictably for the idealized organizations of microeconomic theory to keep up. It is no accident that the region that has generated the world's most explosive economic growth is also the region where network organizations--sets of independent actors who cooperate frequently for mutual advantage--are most pervasive. Rapid economic, social, and technical changes favor the formation of network organizations, and vice versa. The contributors to this volume identify and elucidate four basic types of networks: naturally occurring networks, market replacing networks, hierarchy replacing networks, and market enhancing networks. They show how all of these have been shaped by the history, government, legal system, and culture of each country under consideration. These network organizations allow the authors to compare and contrast network forms in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States according to features such as degrees of formalization, rule definition, and market conformance. The works collected here make an important contribution to a networks-markets- hierarchies framework that recognizes and emphasizes the diversity of organizational forms and behaviors. A unique resource for scholars and professionals in the fields of management and economics, this book enables a complex analysis of one of the world's fastest growing and most theoretically challenging regions.

Analyzing the long-term, historical development of the major economies around the Pacific Rim in language aimed at the general reader, Coming Full Circle throws light on the most important relationships in the region today as well as on the prospects for future economic development and political cooperation. The authors begin with a critique of the popular notion of an integrated "Pacific region," paying particular attention to the influence of geography and environment on population distribution and patterns of regional economic activity. Their study covers the diverse indigenous development of pre-European times, later periods of direct European influence, and the evolution of modern-day urban societies in the region. Finally, they track the rise of the United States and Japan as the dominant regional economic powers and forecast changes we can expect to see in the years ahead, noting in particular the increasing importance of China.

"A survey of the economy of the Pacific Rim region"--

In this fascinating and exciting overview, Donald B. Freeman explores the role of the Pacific Ocean in human history. Covering over one third of the globe, the Pacific Ocean plays a vital role in the lives and fortunes of more than two billion people who live on its rim-lands and islands. It has played a crucial part in shaping the histories of the different Pacific cultures, towards which it has appeared in a variety of different guises. Exploring the ocean’s place in human history, this wide ranging book draws together the long and varied physical, economic, cultural and political history of the Pacific, from Prehistory through to the present day. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to show the changing viewpoints of those who explored, exploited and settled the Pacific, including the inhabitants of its Asian and American rim-lands. The book draws on new research in a variety of areas, such as early Pacific migrations, impacts of European colonization, the effects of climate change, and current economic and political developments. It provides a uniquely broad overview that will be of vital interest to students and to all those with an interest in World History.

Trade across the Pacific will be one of the dominant forces in the economy of the next century. This collection reflects the birth of Pacific Rim history, until recently largely neglected. It addresses the development of the Pacific Rim over four centuries, combining broad historical syntheses with a range of essays on specific topics, from trade with Hong Kong to British overseas banking. It will form a major contribution to this rapidly expanding new field.

US aid interventions have greatly advantaged some countries in their quest for development, but not others. The extensive development assistance, technology transfers and market access that the United States government granted Taiwan and South Korea in their development and the aid recently given Costa Rica were important factors in their development successes. On the other hand, the inappropriate policies of the US in Vietnam in the fifties, El Salvador in the eighties and Nicaragua in the nineties, programmed these interventions to economic as well as political failure.