The resilience of emerging markets to direct and indirect shocks from the current financial crisis in the US will play an important role in determining global growth and stability in the near future, since much of it has been due to expansion in these economies, notably in Asia. This paper explores the extent to which growth and stability in Asian emerging markets can be decoupled and this the paper argues crucially depends on prevailing domestic economic conditions as well as the policy response to possible shocks from the crisis.

This paper discusses the limitations of the theory of the consumer, and of demand, which lies at the heart of mainstream economics. This paper seeks to explain why consumer theory evolved like this and, despite its narrowness and deficiencies, has expanded its scope of application both within economics and across other social sciences. The paper finally offers a broad sketch of an alternative approach to consumer theory, one that draws upon political economy that is necessarily interdisciplinary. The final section discusses some of the wider implications of developments in and around consumer theory for the nature and prospects of economics as a discipline.

This paper examines the potential impact of oil revenues on the economy of Sudan and the challenges facing the Government in policy making; particularly trade policy, allocation of oil revenues for long-run development, and diversification of the production and export structure of the economy. Developing a conceptual framework of analysis, the author argues that while export of petroleum provides financial resources for the acceleration of investment and growth, prospects for sustained growth and diversification will be still limited by some physical and institutional bottlenecks, not easily overcome by just oil revenues. Export of oil may also have other negative effects on Sudan’s economy.

The sub prime crisis in the US has little to do with the mortgage market, or subprime mortgages per se, but rather with the basic structure of the financial system that produces overestimates of creditworthiness and underpricing of risk. The bottom line is that the system has been structured to make credit too cheap, leading to excessive risk in order to provide higher returns. The financial fragility that was identified in Minsky's work cannot be eliminated, only damped by systemic policies. However, it is possible to eliminate fragility that emerges from the structure and regulation of the financial system.

This paper examines the extent to which Keynesian thinking could help understand the causes and dynamics of crises in emerging markets and provide suitable policy prescriptions. It concludes that at the analytical level the endogenous unstable dynamics analyzed by post Keynesians, notably Hyman Minsky, goes a long way in providing a powerful framework for explaining the boom-bust cycles driven by international capital flows in emerging markets. The paper also points out  the need to develop new instruments for stabilization, placing greater emphasis on countercyclical financial regulations and control than has hitherto been the case.

This paper argues that liberating themselves from the dictates of the international financial institutions seems to be the optimal policy response for the Asian economies, because the ''reforms'' demanded by IFIs not only left untreated the problem triggering the Asian crisis of the nineties, but instead tried to enforce an unfeasible set of neoliberal policies. In addition, the IFIs actually took economic advantage of the crisis.

The impact of climate change on the world of today and the future is undeniable. Stipulated emission reduction targets for developed countries are still too modest under the Kyoto Protocol and the US, the world's largest polluter remains outside the agreement. The scientific community warns that a global coordinated response with participation of the major emitters and rapidly growing economies of China and India is the only way forward to avoid the worse predicted effects of global warming. This paper reviews the debates and attempts to trace the path to the future.

This paper deals with an important form of discrimination in the countryside, the lack of access of Dalit (Scheduled Caste) and Adivasi (Scheduled Tribe) households to ownership and operational holdings of land in rural India. It includes a case study of the impact of land reforms in one State of India, West Bengal, on land holding among Dalit and Adivasi households. The aim of this paper is to determine Dalit households' access to land for production, and compare this access with that of other social groups. The findings suggest that the land redistribution programme followed in the state has increased land access for such marginalised groups.

Mexico has been an early and radical reformer by signing, almost fifteen years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA. This study shows the course of the Mexican economy and explores to what degree the objectives of the reforms, as regards growth and employment, have progressed, following liberalization and the implementation of NAFTA. At the Mexican level of development, a more aggressive public investment policy is needed since the experience during the last two decades has shown that the reform process has not improved the greater well-being of the society.

In spite of the astounding economic growth in China, the well being of workers has emerged as a major issue for concern. Even though there is not much theoretical support or hard evidence to connect economic performance to labour market flexibility, policy makers, almost everywhere in the world, including in China, appear to be persuaded by such a connection. This paper focuses on some issues related to the well-being of labour in contemporary China. In particular, it takes a look at the relevant labour related policies and their implications for employment.

This paper revisits Nurkse's position on the question of the finance for development and suggests that a better way to understand the issue would be to draw a distinction between Nurkse who believed that development was basically demand constrained, against his critics who believe development to be supply constrained. The paper argues that Nurkse provides a fresh alternative view to current monoeconomics that says that all that is required is getting the supply side right and the market will produce economic development. By placing the emphasis on the demand constraints to development, Nurkse provides an alternative perspective to elucidate many of the vexing problems of development.

This paper discusses the inherent instability in the current financial system. It arises from major movements in bank reserves and the creation of liquidity which can not be controlled significantly. As a result, increased laxity in lending criteria as banks compete with each other to find borrowers produces a decline in asset quality. It is the change in liquidity preferences of the banks which eventually leads them to stop liquidity creation, rather than the maturity mismatch, which causes fragility. The paper also discusses the available methods of dampening such instability in the financial system and the current constraints on them.