The diffusion of computer-based or flexible automation (FA) has been seen as a key to the future industrialization in developing countries. If, as was thought, the impact of FA on economics of scope and optimal scale were to reduce optimal scales and therefore firm sizes, industrial production would be ideally located in developing countries. However, the book reveals that the diffusion of FA may actually act as an obstacle to industrialization in these countries. Ludovico Alcorta examines the extent of, and motives for, the diffusion of FA at global level and then turns to the local and firm...

This text presents a study of the key phenomenon of global banking, carried out from special financial centres in underdeveloped countries, which contributed heavily to the contemporary debt crisis.