Although emerging economies as a group performed well during the global recession, weathering the recession better than advanced economies, there were sharp differences among them and across regions. The emerging economies of Asia had the most favorable outcomes, surviving the ravages of the global financial crisis with relatively modest declines in growth rates in most cases. China and India maintained strong growth during the crisis and played an important role in facilitating global economic recovery.

In this informative volume, the second in a series on emerging markets, editors Masahiro Kawai and Eswar Prasad and the contributors analyze the major domestic macroeconomic and financial policy issues that could limit the growth potential of Asian emerging markets, such as rising inflation and surging capital inflows, with the accompanying risks of asset and credit market bubbles and of rapid currency appreciation. The book examines strategies to promote financial stability, including reforms for financial market development and macroprudential supervision and regulation.

This report shares results of a regionwide survey undertaken in late 2007 among over 2,000 students from leading universities across ASEAN member countries. The survey addressed questions on whether youths today consider themselves to be citizens of ASEAN; whether the region's youth are enthusiastic or skeptical about ASEAN; how well the region's youth know ASEAN and its members; and their concerns for the Association and the region. Survey findings indicate a nascent sense of ownership and stake in ASEAN, despite some clear differences in knowledge and opinions on the grouping. It is interesting to note that the students agreed on the importance of economic cooperation and addressing poverty and development needs; and share a desire to know more about the region. Responses from the survey provide a useful source of information for ASEAN policy-makers on promoting awareness about ASEAN and the challenges and opportunities the region faces in pursuing regional integration.

Les nationalismes catalan, québécois et canadien - Le Québec, ses régions et la décentralisation - Le libre-échange - Le droit international à l'information face aux technologies de communication - Le marketing au Québec - Politique culturelle et gestion de la culture - Autonomie politique et conflit linguistique - Sentiment national et langue - Perspective culturelle.

En tenant compte des perspectives de géographes et de communicologues, tant Français que Québécois, les auteurs présentent la problématique des rapports entre territoires et techniques de communication. Ils analysent ensuite des cas spécifiques d'expérimentation des TIC en France et au Québec (Parthenay, Hiérapolis, UBI, etc.) observés, tour à tour de l'intérieur et de l'extérieur et, finalement, s'interrogent sur la position des villes et des régions dans le développement des autoroutes de l'information.

The ease with which we can choose a typeface today from a plethora of options to fit a particular need is something we may take for granted, but it is possible only because of the tremendous amount of labor and ingenuity that came before. The story of the lives and work of Linn Boyd Benton and Morris Fuller Benton is an important chapter in the history of type, recalling a time in American history when men quietly worked at developing and improving mechanical technologies that they thought would continue evolving incrementally into the future.

Geography has moulded Singapore’s self-definition, much as it has shaped the contours of the rest of Southeast Asia, a region that lies south of China and east of India. Placed within overlapping Sinic and Indic zones, Singapore's entrepôt role has served both. Today, as China and India emerge simultaneously as rising powers, a port city is going beyond its trading role to engage them in political and security terms. This book combines diplomatic history and international relations theory to show how Singapore is facilitating China's and India's engagement of Southeast Asia.

After broadband access, what next? What role do metrics play in understanding “information societies”? And, more importantly, in shaping their policies? Beyond counting people with broadband access, how can economic and social metrics inform broadband policies, help evaluate their outcomes, and create useful models for achieving national goals? Broadly described, this book addresses those questions. Information metrics are important, and often political. For example, what does it mean that one economy is ranked higher than another on a list of some e-measure? Any deeper understanding of a complex, multi-dimensional set of variables based on extensive data is lost in an international game of “we’re better than you are” or asking “how can we catch up?” While there is broad international consensus that policy decisions are improved if they are informed by empirical data, there is no accepted standard as to which data matters. Many possible information indicators have been measured. But standing alone, what do they tell us? Which ones are important? Does their selection predetermine certain outcomes? Can they be transformed into truly useful policy tools? How do we know which data to collect, unless there are identified goals? This book is divided into two parts – the first deals with theoretical aspects of measuring information and the issues that should be taken into consideration when designing broadband-focused information policy; while the second demonstrates how data has been both used and abused for argumentation purposes with regards to choices among different policy paths.

A classic problem of social order prompts the central questions of this book: Why are some groups better able to govern themselves than others? Why do state actors sometimes delegate governing power to other bodies? How do different organizations including the state, the business community, and protection rackets come to govern different markets? Scholars have used both sociological and economic approaches to study these questions; here Timothy Frye argues for a different approach. He seeks to extend the theoretical and empirical scope of theories of self-governance beyond groups that exist in isolation from the state and suggests that social order is primarily a political problem. Drawing on extensive interviews, surveys, and other sources, Frye addresses these question by studying five markets in contemporary Russia, including the currency futures, universal and specialized commodities, and equities markets. Using a model that depicts the effect of state policy on the prospects for self-governance, he tests theories of institutional performance and offers a political explanation for the creation of social capital, the formation of markets, and the source of legal institutions in the postcommunist world. In doing so, Frye makes a major contribution to the study of states and markets. The book will be important reading for academic political scientists, economists (especially those who study the New Institutional Economics), legal scholars, sociologists, business-people, journalists, and students interested in transitions. Timothy Frye is Assistant Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University.

Boundaries between business and government are increasingly fluid and often transcended. Yet it remains important to acknowledge and make appropriate use of the fundamental differences between these sectors. Five areas that offer the most critical challenges to business and government in Canada today are corporate governance, lobbying and influence, security and privacy, public-private partnerships, and geography and development. This book is an exploration of the systemic dynamics of the inter-sectoral governance that shape the collective performance of Canada's national jurisdiction. Three perspectives of the relational dynamics between business and government, drawn from leading Canadian scholars, are adopted in order to frame the examination of independence, influence, and interdependence. This book makes a case for the advancement of “virtuous hybrids,” while pointing out the challenges that remain in terms of the formation and successful performance of such hybrids in Canada, a challenge that calls for political leadership as well as social learning. An informed and engaged public, wearing multiple hats (i.e. as voter, shareholder, employee, activist etc.) would be the ultimate arbiter of sectoral and collective performance.