The microfinance revolution, begun with independent initiatives in Latin America and South Asia starting in the 1970s, has so far allowed 65 million poor people around the world to receive small loans without collateral, build up assets, and buy insurance. This comprehensive survey of...

In Building Genetic Medicine, Shobita Parthasarathy shows how, even in an era of globalization, national context is playing an important role in the development and use of genetic technologies. Focusing on the development and deployment of genetic testing for breast and ovarian cancer (known as...

From the mid-1950s to the early 1990s, Japan grew faster than any other major industrial economy, displacing the United States in dominance of worldwide manufacturing markets. In the 1970s and 1980s, many books appeared linking the apparent decline of the United States in the world economy to...

Demographic realities will soon force developed countries to find ways to pay for longer retirements for more people. In Pension Strategies in Europe and the United States, leading economists analyze topical issues in pension policy, with a focus on raising the retirement age, increasing...

The American government has been both miracle worker and villain in the developing world. From the end of World War II until the 1980s poor countries, including many in Africa and the Middle East, enjoyed a modicum of economic growth. New industries mushroomed and skilled jobs multiplied, thanks...

Once stolid, strictly regulated organizations that epitomized lifetime employment, retail banks are now highly competitive enterprises with fragmented career structures and a new focus on sales and performance. Because banks are a major employer of labor, such changes have important implications...

Industrial Efficiency in Six Nations continues the pioneering research begun in Caves and Barton's Efficiency in U.S. Manufacturing Industries, extending it to the international sphere and laying the empirical groundwork for a deeper understanding of the sources of inefficiency and their cost in...

In recent decades, governments have built up substantial public debt, which is often accompanied by a growing public sector and fiscal policies that neglect long-term considerations. The contributors to this CESifo volume consider whether the development of public debt in the United States and...

This text provides a modern statement of the theory and practice of domestic and international banking and finance. Today, banks are no longer limited to retail deposit-taking and lending operations; they engage in wholesale banking activities, off-balance sheet business, and activities beyond...

The labor market consists of two tiers. Workers in the upper tier enjoy high wages, good benefits, and employment security, and they are often unionized. Workers in the lower tier experience low wages, high turnover, job insecurity, and little chance of promotion. Until now, dual labor market...