This book contains 21 papers focusing on a wide range of issues concerning financial sector transition in the countries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA). It places the transition economies in the context of recent and prospective developments in global financial markets. This book also evaluates the experience of the last 10 years and reviews the progress from a command financial system to a market-based one, identifying some of the key characteristics of the financial transition.

This Climate Finance toolkit was prepared by the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, jointly with the United Nations Environment Programme Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, as part of the efforts both organizations systematically conduct to support countries to access scaled-up sources of climate finance. This document aims at compiling relevant and up to date information on different sources of climate finance, through which countries in Europe and Central Asia could identify opportunities to finance their objectives and goals defined in the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In this sense, it includes information on the overarching architecture for climate financing at global level and the key conceptual framework related to climate finance and provides detailed briefs for the most relevant sources of finance with operations in this region.

The countries of Central Asia are increasingly the focus of intense international attention due to their geopolitical and economic importance as well as their unsettled transition processes. The region faced enormous challenges when the Soviet Union disintegrated, and this book focuses on the reforms of the institutional environment that have been largely neglected. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the book explores key aspects of institution building as well as economic and political governance in Central Asia. Contributors from a variety of disciplines, such as economics, political economy, political science, sociology, law, and ethnology, investigate the challenges of institutional transition in a non-democratic region. The book discusses how the lack of effective institution building as well as rule enforcement in the economic and political realms represents one of the key weaknesses and drawbacks of transition, and goes on to look at how crafting market institutions will be of utmost importance in the years ahead. Making an important contribution to understanding of political-economic developments in Central Asia, this book is of interest to students and scholars of political economy, comparative economics, development studies and Central Asian studies.

This book explores the links between European integration and globalisation, and examines the potential for social transformation in the context of the global economic crisis and the resulting EU reforms. Divided into three parts, this book offers both empirical and theoretical analyses of social integration, supranationality and global competition. Drawing on Critical Political Economy research, Neo-Gramscian, Open Marxist, Regulationist and Post-structuralist scholars subject a wide range of European flagship policies in matters of competition, trade and security to critical scrutiny and relate them to global political economy dynamics. Contributors examine the ways in which current global economic turbulence has affected the European Union, its membership and its adjacent areas, and determine the potential for economic and political transformation in light of the global economic crisis and Europe’s 2020 Strategy. In the emerging multi-polar world, in which the EU and the US are expected to share global policymaking with new powers, this book argues for a revised conceptualisation of European integration and its relationship with globalisation. Globalisation and European Integration will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers of globalisation, political economy, international relations, and European Union politics.

The report uses the results of the most recent Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) to examine key drivers of firm performance: access to finance, infrastructure and labor in 29 Eastern European and Central Asian countries.

Environmentally Sustainable Development Proceedings Series No. 10.Presents the proceedings of the World Bank's Third Annual Conference on Environmentally Sustainable Development, held in October 1995. The conference included roundtable discussions, a variety of speakers, and associated conferences and events co-sponsored by nongovernmental organizations and other institutions.

This issue discusses economic developments in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP), which continue to reflect the diversity of conditions prevailing across the region. Most high-income oil exporters, primarily in the GCC, continue to record steady growth and solid economic and financial fundamentals, albeit with medium-term challenges that need to be addressed. In contrast, other countries—Iraq, Libya, and Syria—are mired in conflicts with not only humanitarian but also economic consequences. And yet other countries, mostly oil importers, are making continued but uneven progress in advancing their economic agendas, often in tandem with political transitions and amidst difficult social conditions. In most of these countries, without extensive economic and structural reforms, economic prospects for the medium term remain insufficient to reduce high unemployment and improve living standards.

Technological developments in electronic finance have changed the nature and delivery of financial services in recent years, especially through the use of online banking, online trading and brokerage services. This report reviews the developments in e-finance and analyses the implications for consumers, financial service providers and governments. Issues discussed include: the impact on competition within the financial services industry; how financial sector policies in emerging markets are affected; public policy and regulatory requirements.

Since 2008, the financial sector has been the subject of extensive criticism. Much of this criticism has focused on the morality of the actors involved in the crisis and its extended aftermath. This book analyses the key moral and political philosophical issues of the crisis and relates them to the political economy of finance. It also examines to what extent the financial sector can or should be reformed. This book is unified by the view that the financial sector had been a self-serving and self-regulating elite consumed by greed, speculation and even lawlessness, with little sense of responsibility to the wider society or common good. In light of critical analysis by authors from a variety of backgrounds and persuasions, suggestions for reform and improvement are proposed, in some cases radical reform. By placing the world of finance under a microscope, this book analyses the assumptions that have led from hubris to disgrace as it provides suggestions for an improved society. Rooted in philosophical reflection, this book invites a critical reassessment of finance and its societal role in the 21st century. This book will be of interest to academics, politicians, central bankers and financial regulators who wish to improve the morality of finance.

The introduction of the euro in 1999 cast a new focus on the financial markets of constituent euro-zone countries, which have subsequently emerged with the second largest bond market in the world. This new book offers in depth insights and advice for any practitioner in the European fixed-income and ancillary derivative markets, and includes in-depth analysis of euro and non-euro markets as well as emerging countries.