Economic Systems & Structures books

Asset price bubbles have been and continue to be an area of major public policy concern in many countries. But while we know that the bursting of such bubbles is exceedingly painful and destructive to the economy, little is known of their causes. Indeed, there is little agreement even on the definition of a bubble and whether, whatever it is, is economically rational or irrational and reflect temporary excessive exuberance. Can bubbles be identified ex-ante before they burst? Often, one person's perceived bubble is another's perceived equilibrium price path. How and when is a bubble recognized? Should asset prices be a concern for monetary or fiscal policy makers and, if so how and when should policy-makers act? Should monetary policy attempt to target and stabilize asset prices the same as product prices? Should monetary policy act quickly at the beginning of the bubble or wait until the perceived bubble has been underway for some time? For how long? Will bubble restraining policies burst a bubble? Would it have burst on it's own? How can the damage done after bubbles be minimized? Does the experience of the U.S. in the 1920s and of Japan in the 1990s provide any lessons and guidelines for these and other countries in the 2000s? The papers in this volume examine these and other aspects of asset price bubbles from the perspective of different times and different countries. The authors are experts who represent different countries, different economic philosophies, and different backgrounds - academic, government, bank regulatory agency and private. As a result, the papers add greatly to our storehouse of knowledge about asset price bubbles and hopefully will continue to more successful public and private policies for restraining both the bubbles and their consequences and improving economic welfare.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world financial markets, and institutions have new features, and are working in different environments and conditions. These are increasing the role of the financial sector in the world economy, integration of the financial markets and institutions, liberalization of related laws and regulations, increasing linkages between sub-segments of financial markets, computerizing of financial markets and institutions, and introducing new instruments and innovative derivatives. The majority of the above changes are considered positive developments in the world economy. However, some of the negative aspects are associated along with the above new conditions. One of the most critical changes is the increased linkage, which may lead to the transmission of high price volatility of stocks, currencies, and inflation, from one economy to another, and in turn may lead to financial crises at certain events and conditions similar to those which occurred in 1987, 1989 and 1997. The financial crises are not confined to a financial market or a financial institution, or a country or a region. There are at present, no generally accepted arguments or explanations for the financial crises that occurred in the last century. The financial crises moved from one market to another, across geographical locations, as well as across segments of financial systems, including both developed and emerging markets. The above features and conditions are creating new challenges; there is an urgent need, therefore, to examine various aspects of financial markets related to stability, risk, and activity, in order to find the most relevant environment and market mechanism that may meet the conditions of stability, liquidity, and efficiency. This volume is devoted to exploring various aspects of this issue.

The ever-changing nature of the business world and government policies makes continuing research on the capital markets model vital to our complete and current understanding of how corporate governance affects business and economies throughout the world. There is an abundance of empirical and theoretical research on the topics of corporate control and governance, however, most research in this area has been concentrated in countries where the capital markets are the main source of corporate financing - the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This volume, organized into four components, is designed to analyze the issues affecting corporate control and governance from a global perspective. The first three sections - North America; Europe and Australia; and Emerging Markets - offer theoretical and empirical studies from these respective regions of the world. The countries/regions studied in these sections include the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Continental Europe, Germany, France, Holland, Russia, Chile, South Korea, and Sri Lanka. The fourth section, Clinical Studies, provides case studies that analyze individual events and may also be used for classroom instruction.

Japan has always been an "odd man out" from the standpoint of Western norm or Western finance. It is a country that is as developed as any in the West. However, it is also a country that possesses the significant institutional and cultural traits that separate it from the West. An important question in finance is to what extent the basic models of finance, developed with the Western "perfect market" view in mind, can be applied to Japan; or conversely, what critical adjustments must be made to make models amendable to the reality of Japanese finance. This book contains 21 substantive papers that address various aspects of Japanese finance. This is an attempt to bring them together under the same cover so that the commonality and peculiarity of Japanese finance can be more easily discerned across different applications as well as compared across countries. Hence, despite apparent differences in topics, the theme is international and comparative in nature throughout.