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The roots of Japan's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy have often been traced to its concern over acute economic vulnerability. Historian Michael Barnhart tests this assumption by examining the events leading up to World War II in the context of Japan's quest for economic security. Drawing on a wide array of Japanese and American sources, this is the first English-language book on the war's origins to be based on research in archives on both sides of the Pacific. Barnhart focuses on the critical years from 1938 to 1941 as he investigates the development of Japan's drive for national economic self-sufficiency and independence and the way in which this drive shaped its internal and external policies. He also explores American economic pressure on Tokyo and assesses its impact on Japan's foreign policy and domestic economy. He concludes that Japan's internal political dynamics, especially the bitter rivalry between its army and navy, played a far greater role in propelling the nation into war with the United States than did its economic condition or even pressure from Washington. Japan Prepares for Total War sheds new light on prewar Japan and confirms the opinions of those in Washington who advocated economic pressure against Japan. At a time of growing interest in U.S.-Japanese economic relations, this book will be stimulating and provocative reading for scholars and students of international relations and American and Asian history. The roots of Japan's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy have often been traced to its concern over acute economic vulnerability. Michael A. Barnhart tests this assumption by examining the events leading up to World War II in the context of Japan's quest for economic security, drawing on a wide array of Japanese and American sources.Barnhart focuses on the critical years from 1938 to 1941 as he investigates the development of Japan's drive for national economic self-sufficiency and independence and the way in which this drive shaped its internal and external policies. He also explores American economic pressure on Tokyo and assesses its impact on Japan's foreign policy and domestic economy. He concludes that Japan's internal political dynamics, especially the bitter rivalry between its army and navy, played a far greater role in propelling the nation into war with the United States than did its economic condition or even pressure from Washington. Japan Prepares for Total War sheds new light on prewar Japan and confirms the opinions of those in Washington who advocated economic pressure against Japan.

Local economic development is becoming an increasingly important activity as it addresses the economic and employment challenges faced by all developing countries. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the entrepreneurial skills of university students for the promotion of local economic development. A quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional, and interpretative causal approach was adopted for the research. The sample consisted of 240 students chosen through non-probabilistic convenience sampling. Questionnaires were used as a tool for data collection, validated by expert judgment in the field, with a reliability of 98.2% determined by the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, and the survey was employed as a technique. Inference results provided by ordinal logistic regression, using the model goodness-of-fit test, χ 2  = 203.902, allowed demonstrating the explanatory variable. The goodness of fit for deviation was p  = 0.099, determining the presence of an effect corresponding to the Nagelkerke predictor = 64.4% of the explained variability in the dependent variable. It was concluded that improving the entrepreneurial skills of university students has a significant positive effect on enhancing local economic development. Therefore, harnessing the entrepreneurial skills of university students requires a combination of educational approaches, financial support, networks, and specific policies. Collaboration among different stakeholders, including government, the private sector, and academic institutions, is essential to achieve a significant impact on local economic development.

This book seeks to understand how firms in southern Africa absorb technology and how policy makers can hurry the process along. It identifies channels of technology transfer and absorption through trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and constraints to greater technology absorption, and it discusses policy options open to the government and the private sector in light of relevant international experience. The book is based on case studies of sectors and enterprises selected in four countries: Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, and South Africa. The relationship between technology absorption and catch-up growth is particularly relevant to southern Africa because those countries are facing tremendous competitiveness challenges and must rely on greater technology absorption to raise productivity and strengthen competitiveness to gain ground in the global market. An increased market share can then generate faster growth and create more jobs. Therefore, catch-up growth sustained by technological progress and productivity growth is the fundamental solution to unemployment and poverty alleviation. Southern African firms use multiple channels for technology absorption. For example, South African auto component firms entered technology agreements with global players to meet the demanding product standards required for export. Even after the global crisis in 2009, those who licensed technologies still spent 2.23 percent of their sales revenue on royalties. In Namibia, the meat-processing industry has made continuous efforts to upgrade technology, including the recent investment in radio frequency identification technology to trace cattle. In fish processing, companies use state-of-the-art production technologies, including electronic software to record and monitor production processes, intelligent portioning equipment, and sophisticated freezer systems. In the breweries sector, state-of-the-art technology is used at every stage of production and in the marketing and distribution processes.

A social transformation of profound proportions has been unfolding over the second half of the twentieth century as women have turned from household work to wages as the key source of their livelihood. This timely study, a broad comparative analysis of African American women’s and white women’s changing relationships to home and work over the past forty years, at last provides a wide-ranging overview of how this shift is influencing the shape of families and the American economy. Susan Thistle brings together diverse issues and statistics—the plight of single mothers; the time crunch faced by many parents; the problem of housework; patterns of work, employment and marriage; and much more—in a rich and engaging analysis that draws from history, economics, political science, sociology, government documents, and census data to put gender at the center of the social and economic changes of the past decades. With its broad historical and theoretical sweep, clear charts and tables, and accessible writing, From Marriage to the Market will be an essential resource for understanding the tumultuous changes currently transforming American society.

Ask three people to describe a special economic zone (SEZ) and three very different images may emerge. The first person may describe a fenced-in industrial estate in a developing country, populated by footloose multinational corporations (MNCs) enjoying tax breaks, with laborers in garment factories working in substandard conditions. In contrast, the second person may recount the 'miracle of Shenzhen,' a fishing village transformed into a cosmopolitan city of 14 million, with per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growing 100-fold, in the 30 years since it was designated as an SEZ. A third person may think about places like Dubai or Singapore, whose ports serve as the basis for wide range of trade- and logistics-oriented activities. In this book, the author use SEZ as a generic expression to describe the broad range of modern economic zones discussed in this book. But we are most concerned with two specific forms of those zones: (1) the export processing zones (EPZs) or free zones, which focus on manufacturing for export; and (2) the large-scale SEZs, which usually combine residential and multiuse commercial and industrial activity. The former represents a traditional model used widely throughout the developing world for almost four decades. The latter represents a more recent form of economic zone, originating in the 1980s in China and gaining in popularity in recent years. Although these models need not be mutually exclusive (many SEZs include EPZ industrial parks within them), they are sufficiently different in their objectives, investment requirements, and approach to require a distinction in this book.

Recent literature on the role of alcohol in the ancient world has shown that the production and consumption of fermented beverages played a key role in the organization of many prehistoric political and household economies. The study of alcohol as a lubricant in social dynamics is especially salient in the Andes, where reciprocity is the primary form of traditional economic interaction. Despite the fact that scholars studying ancient Peru have long acknowledged the central role that the production and consumption of beer made from fermented grains or fruits (collectively referred to as chicha,) played in traditional Andean societies, few field projects have focused on how to recognize the loci of small-scale chicha production in the archaeological record. In this paper, which presents the results of ethnoarchaeological research in eastern Cuzco province, Peru—where this type of research has not previously been undertaken—we use both new data and existing studies to identify fifteen independent indices capable of aiding archaeologists in the recognition of domestic brewing in the archaeological record. To do so, this study focuses on the material correlates of small-scale household chicha production, with an explicit emphasis on quantitative, rather than qualitative, data, including ceramic morphology and use wear; the particularities of vessel assemblages; the preponderance of tools, refuse, and residues; and the characteristics of brewing facilities. Previous studies demonstrate that, in spite of both variation in technology and organization across the region and cultural differences through time, ethnoarchaeological observations of modern production and consumption of chicha in traditional settings can generate valuable information pertinent to the interpretation of the archaeological record. This paper builds on these studies by verifying as well as questioning previous findings and by proposing new analogs. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that ethnoarchaeological observations of the modern production of chicha can provide valuable interpretive information not just for Andeanists but for any archaeologists seeking to identify and interpret the archaeology of brewers and brewing.

South Asia's rebound since March 2009 has been strong and is comparable to that in East Asia. South Asia is poised to grow by about 7 percent in 2010 and nearly 8 percent in 2011, thanks to the strong recovery in India, good performances in Bangladesh, post-conflict bounce in Sri Lanka, recovery in Pakistan, and turnarounds in other countries, including Afghanistan, Maldives, and Nepal. The region's prospective growth is close to pre-crisis peak levels and faster than the high rates of the early part of the decade (6.5 percent annually from 2000 to 2007). The recovery is being led by rising domestic confidence and is balanced in terms of domestic versus external demand, consumption versus investment, and private demand versus reliance on stimulus. Government policy, external support, resumption of private spending, and global recovery are driving the rebound. Strong government fiscal and monetary stimulus packages and, in some cases, external assistance are helping stimulate recovery. Improved optimism is helping the recovery in private spending in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka. World trade and demand recovery are also supporting the rebound in exports and tourism, as are capital inflows. Not everyone is doing equally well, with slower recovery in countries with weaker fundamentals, those with unresolved conflict or post-conflict issues, and those that were heavily exposed to the global downturn (Maldives, Nepal, and Pakistan). Some significant risks are ahead in the global environment, slowing worker remittances and exports in a still hesitant and uncertain global recovery (which recent events in Europe have highlighted), volatile commodity prices, and continuing volatility in global capital flows.