Economic and Financial Globalization: What the Numbers Say?, Professor Paul H. Dembinski (ed.), 160 pages, 2003
A reference book that puts statistical data in their proper perspective, provides a clear overall view and places the issues of globalization in their full historical context. The purpose of Economic and Financial Globalization is to help readers develop a well-founded, independent view of the global economy and global finance. It is not a synthesis or a set of ready-made answers, nor is it simply one more noisy opinion which, while laying claim to scientific objectivity, is in fact voiced in defence of some political ideology. The book is intended to help readers weigh up, in the light of the available statistics, the many conflicting arguments in what is now a worldwide debate on globalization.
The frame of reference proposed in this book is based on 25 key concepts which are each approached from two angles, one conceptual, the other statistical. This is because there is a considerable difference between a concept based on a corpus of theory and a statistical series that bears the same name. Each of the 25 concepts adopted has been subjected to the same three-stage process of analysis:
- Economic definition of the concept
- Problems of measurement, methods used and details of the main producers of primary information
- Recent trends (shown in charts and graphs)
Table of contents
1.0 The context of the global economy
1.1 Population
1.2 Telecommunications
1.3 Transport flows
1.4 Mail traffic
2.0 Main players
2.1 The economically active population
2.2 Very large businesses
2.3 Small and medium-sized enterprises
2.4 Public budgets and deficits
2.5 The International Monetary Fund : reserves and interventions
3.0 The economy and trade
3.1 National product and value added
3.2 Inflation
3.3 Development indicators
3.4 International trade
3.5 Foreign direct investment
4.0 Money and finance
4.1 International debt
4.2 Foreign exchange regimes and exchanges rates
4.3 Interest rates
4.4 Money and monetary aggregates
4.5 Central banks and their international reserves
5.0 Capital markets
5.1 Stock market capitalization
5.2 Stock market prices and indexes
5.3 Capital raised on stock markets
5.4 The bond and loan market
5.5 Derivatives
5.6 Foreign exchange transactions