An illuminating and intelligible introduction to central banks, the immensely influential institutions that constitute virtually a fourth branch of government in most industrial democracies. These banks' low-profile operations affect a wealth of workaday affairs, including how much home buyers pay for mortgages and what business travelers or tourists get for their money in foreign ports of call. In tracing how they evolved, Deane and Pringle (journalists turned consultants) offer a comprehensive if episodic guide to central banking from its origins in 17th-century Europe through the turbulent present, when the deregulated, high- tech international marketplace is at constant risk from, among other things, sporty new financial instruments like the hedging/trading vehicles known as derivatives. In the process of outlining the clubby vocation's past, present, and future, the authors address three salient issues. To begin with, they probe just why over the past couple of decades America's Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, Germany's Bundesbank, and their lesser-light counterparts have focused on containing inflation rather than fostering economic growth that could curb domestic unemployment. They also examine the increasingly independent, albeit not quite autonomous, role played by central bankers in the brave new post-Soviet world order. Last but not least, the authors evaluate the extent to which monetary authorities (so called because they control the supplies of money in their own countries) have assumed supervisory responsibility for transnational capital markets. Along their anecdotal way, the authors are at pains to explain the complex means by which central bankers achieve their many-splintered ends in the face of frequent pressures from host-country politicians. Despite the authors' occasionally irritating penchant for chatty reportage underscoring their status as privileged observers with access to top-drawer insiders, a first-rate primer on central banking and why the lay public should care about it.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-670-84823-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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