In this timely volume emanating from the National Bureau of Economic Research's program in international economics, leading economists address recent developments in three important areas. The first section of the book focuses on international comparisons of output and prices, and includes papers that present new measures of product market integration, new methodology to infer relative factor price changes from quantitative data, and an ongoing capital stock measurement project. The next section features articles on international trade, including such significant issues as deterring child labor exploitation in developing countries, exchange rate regimes, and mapping U. S. comparative advantage across various factors. The book concludes with research on multinational corporations and includes a discussion of the long-debated issue of whether growth of production abroad substitutes for or is complementary to production growth at home. The papers in the volume are dedicated to Robert E. Lipsey, who for more than a half century at the NBER, contributed significantly to the broad field of empirical international economics.

In the present text the author deals with both conventional and new approaches to trade theory and policy, treating all important research topics in international economics and clarifying their mathematical intricacies. The textbook is intended for undergraduates, graduates and researchers alike. It addresses undergraduate students with extremely clear language and illustrations, making even the most complex trade models accessible. In the appendices, graduate students and researchers will find self-contained treatments in mathematical terms. The new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the latest research on international trade.

The authors show how a common approach that emphasizes the three-way interaction among increasing returns, transportation costs, and the movement of productive factors can be applied to a wide range of issues in urban, regional, and international economics. Since 1990 there has been a renaissance of theoretical and empirical work on the spatial aspects of the economy—that is, where economic activity occurs and why. Using new tools—in particular, modeling techniques developed to analyze industrial organization, international trade, and economic growth—this "new economic geography" has emerged as one of the most exciting areas of contemporary economics. The authors show how seemingly disparate models reflect a few basic themes, and in so doing they develop a common "grammar" for discussing a variety of issues. They show how a common approach that emphasizes the three-way interaction among increasing returns, transportation costs, and the movement of productive factors can be applied to a wide range of issues in urban, regional, and international economics. This book is the first to provide a sound and unified explanation of the existence of large economic agglomerations at various spatial scales.

Presented in this book is a comprehensive empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. banking industry. The purpose of the study is to examine the merger phenomenon in the banking industry by answering the following questions: - What are the incentives for banks to merge? - Has the prohibition of interstate banking prevented banks from diversifying and has it increased the rate of bank failures by restricting (geographical) diversification opportunities? - Are bank mergers wealth-creating activities and how are the gains/losses from a merger distributed between the acquiring and acquired bank shareholders? - How can the changes in shareholder wealth resulting from bank mergers be explained and are there differences between interstate and intrastate mergers? - What are the implications of the study's findings for regulatory policy? Theory and practical implications are blended in this book which should appeal to both academics and practitioners in the field

We take for granted today that the assessments, measurements, and forecasts of economists are crucial to the decision-making of governments and businesses alike. But less than a century ago that wasn’t the case—economists simply didn’t have the necessary information or statistical tools to understand the ever more complicated modern economy. With Political Arithmetic, Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Fogel and his collaborators tell the story of economist Simon Kuznets, the founding of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the creation of the concept of GNP, which for the first time enabled us to measure the performance of entire economies. The book weaves together the many strands of political and economic thought and historical pressures that together created the demand for more detailed economic thinking—Progressive-era hopes for activist government, the production demands of World War I, Herbert Hoover’s interest in business cycles as President Harding’s commerce secretary, and the catastrophic economic failures of the Great Depression—and shows how, through trial and error, measurement and analysis, economists such as Kuznets rose to the occasion and in the process built a discipline whose knowledge could be put to practical use in everyday decision-making. The product of a lifetime of studying the workings of economies and skillfully employing the tools of economics, Political Arithmetic is simultaneously a history of a key period of economic thought and a testament to the power of applied ideas.

Written by experts in their respective areas, this book is an excellent review of theories, policies and empirical evidences on important topics in global economic development. The book is both a superb teaching tool and a valuable handbook in development economics. The volume compiled 13 articles on contemporary issues influencing the world development. The book covers issues ranging from global financial crisis, the rise of China and the world economic order, multinational corporations, sweat factories and social responsibilities to Japan's nuclear meltdown and sustainable development. The book highlights the impacts of globalization on human well-being and examines the relationship between developed and developing economies in the global perspective. With cases and box illustration, this book is an essential reader for undergraduate students in economic development, international development and development economics. It is also a great reference for more advanced students, as well as a very useful guide to policymakers and practitioners interested in recent advances in global development.

An essential introduction to one of the most timely and important subjects in economics International Macroeconomics presents a rigorous and theoretically elegant treatment of real-world international macroeconomic problems, incorporating the latest economic research while maintaining a microfounded, optimizing, and dynamic general equilibrium approach. This one-of-a-kind textbook introduces a basic model and applies it to fundamental questions in international economics, including the determinants of the current account in small and large economies, processes of adjustment to shocks, the determinants of the real exchange rate, the role of fixed and flexible exchange rates in models with nominal rigidities, and interactions between monetary and fiscal policy. The book confronts theoretical predictions using actual data, highlighting both the power and limits of given theories and encouraging critical thinking. Provides a rigorous and elegant treatment of fundamental questions in international macroeconomicsBrings undergraduate and master’s instruction in line with modern economic researchFollows a microfounded, optimizing, and dynamic general equilibrium approachAddresses fundamental questions in international economics, such as the role of capital controls in the presence of financial frictions and balance-of-payments crisesUses real-world data to test the predictions of theoretical modelsFeatures a wealth of exercises at the end of each chapter that challenge students to hone their theoretical skills and scrutinize the empirical relevance of modelsAccompanied by a website with lecture slides for every chapter

Issues related to environmental protection and trade liberalization have moved to the forefront of international policy agendas. The Economics of International Trade and the Environment explores - from an economic standpoint - many of the questions that are germane in increasing our knowledge of environmental policy in the presence of international

Since the 1990s, several emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) have, to varying degrees, embraced the process of financial globalisation, broadly defined as a set of policies that involve allowing for greater openness to cross-border capital flows as well as greater market access to foreign financial institutions. This book provides a systematic empirical analysis on the complex interactions between financial sector development, macroeconomic and financial stability in EMDEs in general and those in the Asian region in particular. The book consists of three sections pertaining to monetary and exchange rate policies under financial globalisation; financial inclusion and macroeconomic policies in the context of financial liberalisation; and finally, the dynamics of foreign direct investment flows and their real impacts in EMDEs. Each of the chapters analyse important economic policy issues of contemporary relevance and is informed by data and rigorous empirical analysis. The book will be appealing to anyone interested in exploring the implications of a key set of issues emanating from financial globalisation on EMDEs in a rigorous but readable manner.