This book provides a comprehensive appraisal of social security in Japan, where traditionally the burden of welfare provision has been the main responsibility of the family and employers, rather than the state. However, an ageing population, changes in family structure and continued recession...

This book focuses on arrangements for redistributing consumption opportunities over the life cycle and for providing compensation for income losses or large expenditures due to reasons such as illness and unemployment. After extensive coverage of the nature of inequalities in income and wealth...

"After more than four decades of real income stagnation, ever-increasing inequality and household financial distress, this book explores how the very fabric of our society is under threat. It argues that although capitalism is imperfect, it can be improved, and harnessing its forces of...

On the premise that pension provision in Europe will dramatically change over the next few decades, this book concentrates on the funded component of pension wealth, and specifically on annuities - financial products that, on the basis of actuarial equivalence, allow the conversion of wealth...

Preface and acknowledgements -- 1. Introduction: innovation beyond national systems fragility: institutional bricolage for SMEs growth / D. Lauto G. Pittino and F. Visintin -- Part I the context -- 2. Entrepreneurship and technological clusters. the influence of contextual factors on the birth...

Contents: 1. Contributions on entrepreneurial behaviour research / Susana C. Santos, Craig Mitchell, Hans Landström, Alain Fayolle and António Caetano -- Part I: The entrepreneur as an individual and the theory of planned behaviour -- 2. Connecting the literature dots: a literature review on...

The aim of this book is to present a much-needed conceptualization of 'the learning region'. The editors scrutinize key concepts and issues surrounding this phenomenon, which are then discussed in the context of recent literature. This unique conceptualization of the learning region presents a...

Agglomeration in Asia -- The relationship between Toyota and its parts suppliers in the age of information and globalization : concentration vs. dispersion / Masatsugu Tsuji -- Iron town cluster : Yawata, its glory, decline and rebirth / Mitsuhiro Kagami -- Information technology and economic...

1. Financial reform in Australia -- 2. Price stabilization, the banking crisis and financial reform in Brazil -- 3. Financial reform in Canada : past, present and future -- 4. Financial system reform in China -- 5. Financial reform in Germany -- 6. Financial reform in Hong Kong -- 7. Financial...

This book elaborates a new dependent and localized growth theory based upon knowledge externalities by making two important contributions. Firstly, it elaborates the hypothesis that total factor productivity growth stems from pecuniary knowledge externalities that consist in the access to...