Book
Актуальные проблемы мировой экономики ХХI века
Freshwater challenge has become an integral part of international political agenda since the last decade of the XX century. Huge amount of people who suffer from different types of water stress (over 1,1 bln.) brought global community to include Improved access to water and sanitation as one of 4 major components of Sustainable environment Millennium Development Goal (MDGs) of United Nations. On July 28, 2010, UN General Assembly added a right for water in the list of basic human rights. Evolution of life standards in developed countries, rising concerns of poverty and inequality lead to rethinking of a wide range of global challenges, which were mostly ignored by world community before. Aggravation of water access problem, regional contradictions over water allocation and rising demand for higher life standards reflect both continuous escalation of water stress and higher ethics of global civil society towards lifestyle and inequality problems.
Before early 2000s, economic experts did not pay enough attention to water issues besides national water facilities, irrigation, hydro energy and urbanization problems. Beyond national frontiers water discourse resolved to draughts and deserts monitoring. All attention was concentrated on local measures aimed to prevent floods and droughts or manage sophisticated problems of allocation of scarce water resource in transboundary basins. As it seems today, water deficit has become a structural factor influencing world economic development. Access to clean water is in the focus of Sustainable development policy, water deficit becomes a constraint for economic growth in both developed and developing countries. At the same time world expenses for R&D in water management, investments in droughts and flood security are steadily growing. Energy efficiency in cities and especially megacities arises more heavily, state programs on modernization of irrigation systems multiply each year and arid regions in Asia, Europe and North America invest more and more in new desalination plants.
Migration is a powerful driver and important consequence of economic, political and social change. Because of its great impact on societies, migration needs to be adequately measured and understood. Reliable statistical data is the key to the basic understanding of this important phenomenon. Yet, in many countries, even the most general statistics on migration are incomplete, out-of-date or do not exist. Improvement in this area requires knowledge of the principles of collecting, compiling and analyzing migration statistics. Likewise, policymakers and other users need to be aware of the definitions and measurement issues related to the data to be able to interpret them. The present guide was prepared under the responsibility of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in the framework of the project “Strengthening national capacities to deal with international migration: maximizing development benefits and minimizing negative impacts”. The project involved all five regional commissions of the United Nations and was financed from the United Nations Development Account. The guide is intended for practitioners and professionals whose work is related to migration and migration statistics. It focuses on the specific context of migration processes in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We expect that the practical examples and international recommendations presented herein stimulate interest and improve understanding and facilitate production, dissemination and use of statistics on international migration.
The report provides a review of sources and quality of statistics on international migration in selected countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS): Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan. The report was prepared under the responsibility of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in the framework the project “Strengthening national capacities to deal with international migration: maximizing development benefits and minimizing negative impacts”.
Development of standards of international controllability is reviewed in the article. Institutional approach is applied to development of international legal regime of Energy Charter. Definition of controllability is connected to development of international standards of dispute settlement, which are described in the article in detail. In connection with controllability, Russian interest, defense of investment in European Union and ecological investment encouragement, is reviewed in the article.
мировое управление и управляемость, Мировая экономика, международное экономическое право, энергетическая хартия, International control and controllability, International economics, international economic law, Energy Charter
This book directly confronts uncomfortable questions that many prefer to brush aside: if economists and other scholars, politicians, and business professionals understand the causes of economic crises, as they claim, then why do such damaging crises continue to occur? Can we trust business and intellectual elites who advocate the principles of Realpolitik and claim the "public good" as their priority, yet consistently favor maximization of profit over ethical issues?
Former deputy prime minister of Russia Grigory Yavlinsky, an internationally respected free-market economist, makes a powerful case that the often-cited causes of global economic instability—institutional failings, wrong decisions by regulators, insufficient or incorrect information, and the like—are only secondary to a far more significant underlying cause: the failure to understand that universal social norms are essential to thriving businesses and social and economic progress. Yavlinsky explores the widespread disregard for moral values in business decisions and calls for restoration of principled behavior in politics and economic practices. The unwelcome alternative, he warns, will be a twenty-first-century global economy in the grip of unending crises.
Grigory Yavlinsky is a Russian economist and founder and member of the Russian United Democratic Party (YABLOKO). As deputy prime minister of Russia in 1990, he wrote the first Russian economic program for transition to a free-market economy, 500 Days. He lives in Moscow.
Reviews
“Grigory Yavlinsky’s book is an important contribution to understanding the interplay between social norms and modern economy. The current global crisis makes his analysis especially relevant.”—George Soros
“Reading Grigory Yavlinsky's remarkable book, I was reminded of Adam Smith, also a moral philosopher concerned with the correlation between individual aspirations and the enlightened evolution of society. It is invaluable to have the perspective of an intellectual such as Yavlinsky writing in the shadow of swiftly moving events on the global stage. He explains how market mechanisms influence international developments ranging from instability in European markets to the recent ‘Great Recession’ in the United States.”—Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York
“Yavlinsky provides a new and in-depth interpretation of the events leading to the current recession and broader interpretations of how to avoid future ones. Realeconomik has my enthusiastic endorsement.”—Michael D. Intriligator, University of California, Los Angeles
“With clarity and eloquence, Yavlinsky argues that the deepest cause of the global recession was the erosion of the world economy’s moral dimensions. As a professional economist who has long been a leader of the Russian opposition, he knows how to splice politics and economics. As a politician who has repeatedly declined high office on grounds of principle, he lends the book additional authority. Realeconomik is a work that will, I believe, help to spark a public debate on issues of profound importance for humankind.”—Peter Reddaway, George Washington University