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The global financial crisis has reignited interest in counter-cyclical fiscal policy as a critical instrument to provide immediate economic stimulus. But policy makers are also increasingly interested in how fiscal policy will impact growth and poverty over a longer run horizon, knowing that any quick responses to exogenous shocks also affect income generation and distribution. Those effects are less well known, however, and their dynamics still represent a challenge for many countries. In this book the authors explore methodological advances and new practices for fiscal policy implementation with a particular focus on developing countries. They also attempt to draw preliminary lessons from the global crisis and the still persisting uncertainty about future growth prospects. The crisis has brought into question many economic concepts, policies, and implementation practices that economists supported in previous decades. Counter-cyclical fiscal policy has suddenly returned to prominence worldwide either in conjunction with or in lieu of monetary policy and exchange rate adjustments, as a possible alternative in response to the unexpected and acute shocks that the crisis has brought about. These experiences are providing valuable lessons about the design and effectiveness of fiscal policy measures in developing countries, which is the focus of this volume. Since focusing entirely on the temporary effects of the crisis would mask the bigger challenges underlying the conduct of fiscal policy, particularly in countries where longer term growth patterns remain sluggish or volatile, and poverty and inequality still persist, the authors adopt a broader perspective trying to better understand the dynamics of longer term effects. The purpose of this book is precisely to improve our understanding of the challenges and possible innovative solutions in

Current studies suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening existing social inequalities in the field of education worldwide. In this paper, we argue that the pandemic is especially challenging for students from socially disadvantaged and educationally deprived homes, as parental engagement and resources are very important in terms of guiding and supporting students' learning processes during this school closure period. To examine how well parents were able to help their children with schoolwork during the homeschooling period in Germany, we used data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS, n = 3,714) collected during the first such period in May/June 2020 when students were in Grade 7. Taking known mechanisms of inequality of educational opportunity into account, we explored the effects of parents' aspirations and cultural, social, and economic capital on their ability to help their children. Our results showed that although the majority of the examined parents were able to provide good schoolwork support, as expected, we found inequalities related to social background. Parents with low education were twice as likely as highly educated parents to be unable to provide sufficient support. In our multivariate analyses, family resources had a significant positive effect on the likelihood of a parent being able to help. Moreover, regardless of the social or cultural capital endowment of the parents, good household technical equipment was associated with a higher probability of support. Thus, ensuring that students have access to technical home equipment could be a way to promote an educationally supportive learning environment across all social groups.

Georgia is geographically located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Its overall development strategy—Freedom, Rapid Development, Prosperity: Government Platform 2016–20201 (hereafter, "Government Program 2016–2020")—recognizes this unique spatial advantage and calls for the country's closer market integration with the rest of the world, including the European Union (EU). However, Georgia has not yet fully tapped this geographical advantage for international economic integration. It needs to raise its productivity, including through further exposure to international economic integration and by relieving supply-side constraints such as its infrastructure and skills deficits. The country continues to have a sizable population below the poverty line and a high unemployment rate of 12.7%. The ultimate goal of the proposed country partnership strategy (CPS) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for 2019–2023 is to expand trade, create more jobs, and combat poverty through development of economic corridors in Georgia. Among the operational priorities under ADB's Strategy 2030,2 the CPS adopts regional cooperation and integration (RCI)—along with balanced economic development, making urban areas more livable, reducing poverty and inequality, and strengthening governance and institutional capacity—as its primary strategic objective to help Georgia make the most of its value propositions, including geographic location and free trade agreements (FTAs) with 32 of its trading partners. ADB operations under CPS 2019–2023 will be fully aligned with Strategy 2030 priorities. All other operational priorities of Strategy 2030 will be addressed as crosscutting themes. Another prominent feature of the Government Program 2016–2020 is its emphasis on market-driven growth. Taking advantage of this enabling business environment, private sector operations are incorporated in the country strategy under the One ADB approach, which leverages all competencies of ADB to meet Georgia's evolving development needs.

Chapter 1: The role of the Belt and Road Initiative in China's international relations Introduction: the complex and multifaceted rise of China The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): China's 'new silk roads' Reactions to the BRI as frames of interpretation Developing a theoretical-methodological approach for the Belt and Road Organisation and contribution of the book References Chapter 2: Theorising the Belt and Road Initiative 2.1 Introduction: how to theorise the BRI's complexity? 2.2 China's flexible, syncretic approach to policy-making in a complex world: implications for the BRI 2.3 Theory 1: Tang Shiping's social evolution paradigm (SEP) 2.4 Theory 2: Neo-Gramscian hegemony 2.5 Theory 3: Offensive mercantilism 2.6 Complex eclecticism: a theoretical-methodological framework for analysing the BRI below the macro-level Conclusion References Chapter 3: Complex eclecticism 3.1 Introduction: why complex eclecticism? 3.2 Sil and Katzenstein's analytic eclecticism: strengths and weaknesses 3.3 International relations (IR) theoretical schools: mainstream, non-mainstream and non-Western 3.4 Moving from inter-paradigm debates to conceptual toolkits 3.5 Complexity theory / complexity thinking (CT) 3.6 Incompleteness and difficulty: an impasse or a way forward for IR theory? 3.7 The problem of complex systems in IR 3.8 An outline of CT's conceptual toolkit 3.8.1 Nonlinearity / sensitivity to initial parameters 3.8.2 Feedback loops 3.8.3 Emergence / self-organisation 3.8.4 Tipping points / edge of chaos 3.8.5 Black swans 3.8.6 Path dependence 3.9 Conclusion: combining complexity and eclecticism to analyse the BRI References Chapter 4: Applying complex eclecticism to the Belt and Road Initiative 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Interdependence, institutions and non-state actors 4.3 Power, states and anarchy 4.4 Norms, ideas and intersubjectivity 4.5 Non-mainstream concepts: harmony of interests / world society / relationalism / patriarchal authoritarianism / economic inequality / natural environment 4.6 Complexity theory / complexity thinking (CT) 4.7 Conclusion References Chapter 5: The characteristics of the Belt and Road Initiative 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The emerging characteristics of the Belt and Road Initiative 5.2.1 The Belt and Road is supposed to encompass over 60 countries in Asia and Europe 5.2.2 The Belt and Road is intended to improve connectivity across Eurasia, primarily by focusing on improving transport and energy infrastructure, with the other stated goals probably being subsidiary 5.2.3 The Belt and Road contains two main routes, the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the Maritime Silk Road (MSR) 5.2.4 The Belt and Road contains sub-projects 5.2.5 The Belt and Road is a continuation of previous official Chinese government policies 5.2.6 The BRI is Xi Jinping's flagship foreign policy initiative, and thus closely associated with his leadership 5.2.7 The BRI involves the use of institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Fund, and regional forums 5.2.8 The Belt and Road is intended to have appeal for foreign audiences as well as the domestic Chinese one, thus boosting China's soft power abroad and legitimacy at home 5.2.9 The Belt and Road is ambitious, large-scale, loose, and vague 5.2.10 The BRI is intended to achieve win-win cooperation among participating nations 5.3 Conclusion: unpacking the implications References Chapter 6: The Belt and Road Initiative's regional impacts 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Central Asia 6.2.1 Applying the complex eclecticism toolkit to Central Asia 6.3 Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) 6.3.1 Applying the complex eclecticism toolkit to CEE 6.4 Southeast Asia 6.4.1 Applying the complex eclecticism toolkit to Southeast Asia 6.5 South Asia 6.5.1 Applying the complex eclecticism toolkit to South Asia 6.6 The Middle East 6.6.1 Applying the complex eclecticism toolkit to the Middle East 6.7 Conclusions References Chapter 7: Assessing the impacts of China's Belt and Road Initiative 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Summary of the findings in Chapters 4-6 7.3 Assessing complex eclecticism 7.4 Assessing the macro-level theories 7.5 The Belt and Road's global implications 7.6 Conclusion: the Belt and Road Initiative into the future References

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed. Rajan shows how the individual choices that collectively brought about the economic meltdown--made by bankers, government officials, and ordinary homeowners--were rational responses to a flawed global financial order in which the incentives to take on risk are incredibly out of step with the dangers those risks pose. He traces the deepening fault lines in a world overly dependent on the indebted American consumer to power global economic growth and stave off global downturns. He exposes a system where America's growing inequality and thin social safety net create tremendous political pressure to encourage easy credit and keep job creation robust, no matter what the consequences to the economy's long-term health; and where the U.S. financial sector, with its skewed incentives, is the critical but unstable link between an overstimulated America and an underconsuming world. In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. He outlines the hard choices we need to make to ensure a more stable world economy and restore lasting prosperity.

Rwanda is widely celebrated for the remarkable social, political, and economic renaissance it has experienced in the years following the genocide against the Tutsi of 1994. However, Rwanda appears to have relatively higher poverty rates than African peers with similar income per capita, and its elasticity of poverty reduction to growth is low compared to high‐growing SSA peers. Poverty is concentrated in rural areas and among households with many children. Rwanda now faces challenges in fully translating its very strong growth into commensurate gains in poverty reduction and shared prosperity. This Country Partnership Framework (CPF) sets out the World Bank Group's (WBG) plans for addressing the country's development priorities as identified in the 2019 Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) and Rwanda's National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) well as supporting Rwanda's response to the Coronavirus (COVID‐19) pandemic to recover from the negative public health and socio‐economic impacts of the pandemic. The CPF takes into account Rwanda's anti‐crisis response program as of mid‐May 2020, including the government's emergency Economic Recovery Plan, although it will likely continue to evolve in coming months. It was agreed with the authorities that should the situation warrant considerable changes to the government's strategy and its program with the WBG, the Performance and Learning Review (PLR) will be brought forward to accommodate such changes. The CPF spans two IDA cycles, IDA19 (July 2020 to June 2023) and IDA 20 (July 2023 to June 2026). Given the country's preference for frontloading its IDA commitment, and a track record of making good use of additional IDA resources available, Rwanda will explore the use of additional resources from IDA windows.

Brazil and the Transnational Human Rights Movement, 1964-1985 explores how solidarity for Brazil contributed to the global human rights movement of the 1970s. Through protests, petitions, posters, and numerous other cultural, artistic, and media-based campaigns, solidarity for Brazil popularised the language of human rights and prompted the international community to join the fight against the country's military regime. But solidarity for Brazil also reframed the debate on human rights itself, stretching the concept beyond mainstream interpretations that emphasised the violation of 'basic' individual rights, such as the use of torture and political imprisonment, to also incorporate social and economic rights, inequality, indigenous minorities, and the human rights responsibilities of multinational companies and development projects. Crucial to this process were multiple networks of exiles, catholic activists, journalists, and academics between Brazil and Western Europe, who drew from the Latin American experience to challenge mainstream narratives of human rights from below.

"This book examines how different levels and forms of human collectivity have interacted, voluntarily or coercively, and how these transformed societies and polities. Every size and type of human collective involves co-operation among members and competition with other groups. The two most recent trends in human relations - individualism and economic globalisation - have contributed to authoritarianism in politics and inequality among citizens. This book analyses how collective action might offset the most destructive consequences for well-being of these two tendencies. It explores these manifestations of collective action and their impact on social relations and social policies in the developed world. Further, the volume sets out a programme for more progressive and egalitarian future for global populations. Engaging, accessible and transdisciplinary, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and public policy, sociology, social psychology, social policy, and social work, as well as political philosophy, political economy, and migration studies"--

"This book examines how different levels and forms of human collectivity have interacted, voluntarily or coercively, and how these transformed societies and polities. Every size and type of human collective involves co-operation among members and competition with other groups. The two most recent trends in human relations - individualism and economic globalisation - have contributed to authoritarianism in politics and inequality among citizens. This book analyses how collective action might offset the most destructive consequences for well-being of these two tendencies. It explores these manifestations of collective action and their impact on social relations and social policies in the developed world. Further, the volume sets out a programme for more progressive and egalitarian future for global populations. Engaging, accessible and transdisciplinary, this book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of politics and public policy, sociology, social psychology, social policy, and social work, as well as political philosophy, political economy, and migration studies"--

"Are transnational corporations (TNCs) the solution to poverty in the Third World or are they part of the problem? They are portrayed as bringing rapid economic growth, jobs and development - yet inequality between North and South, and within countries, continues to grow apace. So what really is happening? In this highly readable book, John Madeley explores this little-investigated aspect of large corporations. He looks at the impact on the poor of TNC activities in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, oil extraction, manufacturing and tourism. He charts how natural resources are being ceded to TNCs at the expense of local communities. He reveals the weakness of the productive links between TNC activity and national economies, and how the power of governments to control these corporations is declining. Yet the news is not all bad. Producers, consumers, local communities, even shareholders are beginning to demand that large corporations take other obligations besides profit into account."--

Employment and job creation are key components in achieving economic growth and sustainable development, particularly in low-income countries. The growing size of the working-age population in many developing regions underscores the need to further strengthen labour market structures in the world's poorest countries. Despite the importance of studying emerging labour markets, and investigating which policies are more successful, the evidence is rather limited. Against this backdrop, the joint IZA/FCDO Growth and Labour Markets in Low Income Countries (GLM|LIC) programme was established and has taken important steps to close this gap. Covering topics such as poverty, informality and rural labour, skills training and behaviour, gender inequality, youth and child labour, and migration, this volume presents key takeaways from most recent research in the field. Which development policies will work, which strategies will fail? The authors provide an in-depth discussion of current development programmes, based on the results of new evaluation studies, and derive important policy lessons.

"Generation Priced Out is a call for action on one of the most talked about issues of our time: how skyrocketing rents and home values are pricing out the working and middle-class from urban America. Telling the stories of tenants, developers, politicians, homeowner groups, and housing activists from over a dozen cities impacted by the national housing crisis, Generation Priced Out criticizes cities for advancing policies that increase economic and racial inequality. Shaw also exposes how boomer homeowners restrict millennials' access to housing in big cities, a generational divide that increasingly dominates city politics. Defying conventional wisdom, Shaw demonstrates that rising urban unaffordability and neighborhood gentrification are not inevitable. He offers proven measures for cities to preserve and expand their working- and middle-class populations and achieve more equitable and inclusive outcomes. Generation Priced Out is a must-read for anyone concerned about the future of urban America"--Provided by publisher