Globalization is transforming the world at an accelerated pace. Integration of the world continues, widening and intensifying international linkages in economic, political and social relations. Liberalization of trade and fmance, lubricated by revolutionary changes in information technology, has resulted in significant economic growth at the global level. On the other hand, the process of globalization is changing the nature of production relations, threatening the traditional roles of the nation-state, and carrying with it far-reaching implications for sustainable growth, development and the...

Over the last twenty years, automation and robotics have played an increasingly important role in a variety of application domains including manufacturing, hazardous environments, defense, and service industries. Space is a unique environment where power, communications, atmospheric, gravitational, and sensing conditions impose harsh constraints on the ability of both man and machines to function productively.
In this environment, intelligent automation and robotics are essential complements to the capabilities of humans. In the development of the United States Space Program, robotic...

National income estimates date back to the late 17th century, but only in the half-century since the Second World War have economic accounts developed in their present form, becoming an indispensable tool for macroeconomic analysis, projections and policy formulation. Furthermore, it was in this period that the United Nations issued several versions of a system of national accounts (SNA) to make possible economic comparisons on a consistent basis. The latest version, SNA 1993, published in early 1994, occasioned this collection of essays and commentaries.
The three chief...

This book contains the papers that were presented in 1994 at the conference "Transaction Cost Economics and Beyond" organized by GRASP at the Tinbergen Institute in Rotterdam. It is generally recognized that transaction cost economics (TCE) is at the heart of the new theory of the firm. It is a well established research program with a well developed theoretical framework and good results in empirical testing. However, critics consider the approach too limited to understand the essential characteristics of such complex organizations like firms. Critics plea convincingly for the need to go...

This volume presents an alternative macroeconomic theory based on the contributions of Michal Kalecki. Kalecki's importance as a pioneer of post-Keynesian theory has long been recognized by such prominent economists as Joan Robinson and Lawrence Klein. While in the U.S. post-Keynesian economics has drawn more heavily on indigenous sources (i.e. Weintraub, Davidson and Minsky) and on Keynes himself, European, Indian and Australian post-Keynesians have always regarded Kalecki as their principal source and inspiration. The book covers topics on methodology, price theory, trade cycles and...

Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope offers a fresh look at the paradigmatic foundations and basic theoretical propositions of economics. Twelve authors - each of them with his own distinct contribution to economics - make a step forward by reinterpreting major areas of micro and macroeconomics in line with modern evolutionary thinking. This volume offers a unified approach to economics that allows recent developments in various strands of Evolutionary Economics to be integrated and major positions of Neoclassical Economics to be reconsidered.
The chapters on Evolutionary...

For much of the last three decades or more economic methodology has been dominated by the work of Karl Popper who advocated the position that science is what it is by virtue of its adherence to certain ideals. The methodology of science is therefore not empirical or descriptive, but rather a set of rules for producing rational' or objective' knowledge. This volume presents alternatives to an exclusively Popperian methodology: its purpose is not to reject Popper, but to show there are other ways of construing methodology.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I contains two critical...

Policy scientists have long been concerned with understanding the basic tools, or instruments, that governments can use to accomplish their goals. The initial interest in inductively developing comprehensive lists of generic instruments for policy analysis soon gave way to efforts to discover more parsimonious, but still useful, specifications of the elementary components out of which instruments can be assembled. Moving from a generic instrument to a fully specified policy alternative, however, requires the designer to go much beyond the elementary components. Rather than directly specifying...

Each chapter of Macroeconometrics is written by respected econometricians in order to provide useful information and perspectives for those who wish to apply econometrics in macroeconomics. The chapters are all written with clear methodological perspectives, making the virtues and limitations of particular econometric approaches accessible to a general readership familiar with applied macroeconomics. The real tensions in macroeconometrics are revealed by the critical comments from different econometricians, having an alternative perspective, which follow each chapter.

Industrial Policies after 2000 investigates industrial policy during a time of deregulation, privatization and a growing interest in small government. This book brings together scholarship from different countries, different institutional contexts, and different theoretical perspectives. That includes the neoclassical market' approach, game theoretical models, and institutional economics.