Faced with changing economic circumstances and a reorientation of trade toward Europe and Asia, will Eurasia’s cities be able to adjust? Will some cities be granted the flexible regulations and supportive policies necessary for growth? And will some others be allowed to dwindle with policies put in place to assist their people in finding prosperity elsewhere in the region? Eurasian Cities: New Realities along the Silk Road responds to pressing questions for policy makers in Eurasian cities an...

Pollution from fossil fuels and degraded natural lands are raising the earth’s temperature. The evidence of the causes of global warming is clear, as are its consequences. The economic impacts of climate change are already apparent and they threaten development gains. Extreme weather events have brought severe droughts to Central Asia, heat waves and forest fires to Russia, and floods to Southeastern Europe. Unchecked emissions will come at rising economic cost and increasing risk to ind...

China Versus the West is an innovative book.The author, a leading specialist on the international and Asian economy and business, presents the most comprehensive picture of the changing power balance between the emerging superpower China and the "old" developed economies of the West: mainly the US, Europe and Japan. The reader can clearly see in what areas and to what extent China has become the world leader, in what areas it is catching up and in what are...

Since its reform and opening up, China has experienced unprecedented social and economic development. It is important to understand the biggest and fastest growing economy's policy and strategy. As a key director in Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the author proposes a development path and reform strategies for China in the next three decades.This book suggests reform strategies not only for the economic structure but also for the political system in ...

A Harvard-trained economist's startling predictions reveal critical challenges in the decades ahead, helping individuals, businesses, and governments to make smarter decisionsAs individuals, companies, and countries struggle to recover from the economic crisis, many are narrowly focused on forecasts for the next week, month, or quarter. Yet they should be asking what the global economy will look like in the years to come—where will the long-term risks and opportunit...

Commodities permeate virtually every aspect of modern daily living, but for all their importance -- their breadth, their depth, their intricacies, and their central role in daily life -- few people who are not economists or traders know how commodity markets work. Almost every day, newspaper headlines and media commentators scream warnings of impending doom -- shortages of arable land, clashes over water, and political conflict as global demand for fossil fuels outstrips supply. The pictur...

Is China a rogue donor, as some media pundits suggest? Or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty, as the Chinese claim? In the last few years, China's aid program has leapt out of the shadows. Media reports about huge aid packages, support for pariah regimes, regiments of Chinese labor, and the ruthless exploitation of workers and natural resources in some of the poorest countries in the world sparked fierce debates. These debates, however, took placewith very ...

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to drop, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable, natural limits. Richard Heinberg's latest landmark work goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how ...

Soaring income inequality and unemployment, expanding populations of the displaced and imprisoned, accelerating destruction of land and water bodies: today’s socioeconomic and environmental dislocations cannot be fully understood in the usual terms of poverty and injustice, according to Saskia Sassen. They are more accurately understood as a type of expulsion—from professional livelihood, from living space, even from the very biosphere that makes life possible.This hard-headed crit...

Today, nations increasingly carry out geopolitical combat through economic means. Policies governing everything from trade and investment to energy and exchange rates are wielded as tools to win diplomatic allies, punish adversaries, and coerce those in between. Not so in the United States, however. America still too often reaches for the gun over the purse to advance its interests abroad. The result is a playing field sharply tilting against the United States.In a cogent analysis ...

"I would caution readers to dismiss Stephen Leeb's warnings only at their peril." -- Thomas Kaplan, chairman, Tigris Financial GroupThe American Dream is close to being replaced by a living nightmare:Key commodities that are essential to our daily lives and that are widely believed to be abundant are running critically short. Even worse, the Chinese are doing what they can to monopolize the world's dwindling resources.The U.S. is now largely dep...

The United States is in the throes of two unfolding energy revolutions, and partisans--convinced that only their side holds the key to American prosperity, security, and safety--are battling over which one should prevail. In The Power Surge, Michael Levi takes readers inside these revolutions. He shows how oil and gas production, after decades in decline, are being propelled upward by new technologies and high prices, prompting enthusiasts to predict an economic renaissance and im...