Originally published in 1981, Trade Unions in the Developed Economies is a collection of studies on the growth, structure and policies of trade unions in 7 developed economies. The early growth of trade unions has been summarised so that a post-Second World War analysis could be undertaken. The section on growth contains an examination of the extent to which conflict between the parties has either increased or decreased. All developments are viewed against a backcloth of general e...

Germany is clearly the dominant economic force in Europe. It occupies the pivotal position of being at the centre of both the EC and of attempts to rebuild the economies of East Central Europe. The German Economy traces the various aspects of German policy and growth, concentrating in particular on the last two decades. These include:the German economy in perspectivethe regional dimensionfiscal policymonetary policysocial polic...

Selected as a Financial Times Best Book of 2013 Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of ...

An eminent economist warns that Western nations’ economic expectations for the future are way out of sync with the realities of economic stagnation and stringent steps will be required to avoid massive political and economic upheaval. “It is alarmingly difficult to disagree with Stephen King. All one can say, perhaps, is that one of the great errors of human nature—strongly displayed before the credit crunch—is the belief that a prevailing trend will continue indefinitely. Th...

The City, as London's financial centre is known, is the world's biggest international banking and foreign exchange market, shaping the development of global capital. It is also, as this groundbreaking book reveals, a crucial part of the mechanism of power in the world economy. Based on the author's twenty years' experience of City dealing rooms, The City is an in-depth look at world markets and revenues that exposes how this mechanism works. All big international companies-not jus...

The euro was originally seen as another stepping stone to a politically unified Europe. Yet with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the unification of Germany, the need for European political union as a means to ensure peace in Europe disappeared. Due to the fading will for full political union, the euro project lost the prospect of a stable platform in the foreseeable future. As a result, the euro crisis forces policymakers to develop a new architectur...

Europe’s financial crisis cannot be blamed on the Euro, Harold James contends in this probing exploration of the whys, whens, whos, and what-ifs of European monetary union. The current crisis goes deeper, to a series of problems that were debated but not resolved at the time of the Euro’s invention.Since the 1960s, Europeans had been looking for a way to address two conundrums simultaneously: the dollar’s privileged position in the international monetary system, and Germany’s persi...

Unlike most existing textbooks on the economic history of modern Europe, which offer a country-by-country approach, The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe rethinks Europe's economic history since 1700 as unified and pan-European, with the material organized by topic rather than by country. This second volume tracks Europe's economic history through three major phases since 1870. The first phase was an age of globalization and of European economic and political dominance that laste...

A new way to understand financial crises—and a blueprint for tomorrow's recoveryThe Leaderless Economy reveals why international financial cooperation is the only solution to today's global economic crisis. In this timely and important book, Peter Temin and David Vines argue that our current predicament is a catastrophe rivaled only by the Great Depression. Taking an in-depth look at the history of both, they explain what went wrong and why, and demonstrat...

The activities of central banks are relevant to everyone in society. This book starts by considering how and why in general central banks evolved and specifically the special aspects of the contribution of the Northern European Central Banking Tradition. With that foundation, the book will then turn to a series of contemporary themes. Firstly, this book looks at independence, how central banks can actually influence their respective economies, goals, responsibilities and governance.

Defense establishments and the armed forces they organize, train, equip, and deploy depend upon the security of capital and capital flows, mechanisms that have become increasingly globalized. Military capabilities are thus closely tied not only to the size of the economic base from which they are drawn, but also to the viability of global convertibility and exchange arrangements. Although the general public has a stake in these economic matters, the interests and interpretive understanding...

In Casino Capitalism Hans-Werner Sinn examines the causes of the banking crisis, points out the flaws in the economic rescue packages, and presents a master plan for the reform of financial markets. Sinn argues that the crisis came about because limited liability induced both Wall Street and Main Street to gamble with real estate properties. He meticulously describes the process of lending to American homeowners and criticizes both the process of securitizing and selling mortgage ...