Knowledge that Transforms

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. An Index of Authors of New Books appearing in the Annotated Listings will appear at the end of the General Index in the December issue.

The categories listed below are used to classify books, book reviews, journal articles, and dissertations indexed in JEL, JEL on CD, EconLit, and www.e-JEL.org . New changes to the classification system appear as soon as possible on www.econlit.org . The JEL classification system may be used freely for scholarly purposes. We suggest the following format: “JEL: A10, B10, etc.”

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. An Index of Authors of New Books appearing in the Annotated Listings will appear at the end of the General Index in the December issue.

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. An Index of Authors of New Books appearing in the Annotated Listings will appear at the end of the General Index in the December issue.

Editor's Note Our policy is to annotate all English-language books on economics and related subjects that are sent to us. A very small number of foreign-language books are called to our attention and annotated by our consulting editors or others. Our staff does not monitor and order books published; therefore, if an annotation of a book does not appear six months after the publication date, please write to us or the publisher concerning the book. An Index of Authors of New Books appearing in the Annotated Listings will appear at the end of the General Index in the December issue.

The list below specifies doctoral degrees conferred by U.S. and Canadian universities during academic year July 2006 to June 2007. Lists of degree recipients and subject classifications are provided by the university. Note: Dissertations without classifications may be found under “Y Miscellaneous Categories.”

This paper discusses the nature, and magnitude, of externalities associated with automobile use, including local and global pollution, oil dependence, traffic congestion and traffic accidents. It then discusses current federal policies affecting these externalities, including fuel taxes, fuel economy and emissions standards, and alternative fuel policies, summarizing, insofar as possible, the welfare effects of those policies. Finally, we discuss emerging pricing policies, including congestion tolls, and insurance reform, and summarize the appropriate combination of policies to address automobile externalities.

In Fair Trade for All: How Trade Can Promote Development, Stiglitz and Charlton prescribe what a multilateral trade agreement—that promotes development and is fair for all—would include. This review appraises their prescriptions and offers some alternatives. Many of their ideas about what developed countries should do (opening markets, especially of labor intensive goods and services and cutting farm subsidies) are quite familiar and sensible. More controversially, however, they propose that all WTO members (both developed and developing) completely open their markets to all developing countries poorer and smaller than themselves. They also stress the importance of preserving domestic policy space, dropping intellectual property rules from the WTO and keeping restrictive rules off the agenda. Among its criticisms of the book, the review points out that the liberalization proposal contradicts their own arguments favoring individually tailored policies in developing countries and is likely to maximize trade diversion. In addition, their prescriptions for more policy space neglects the more desirable possibility of a WTO in which members accept differentiated commitments.

Written by Maurice Obstfeld and Alan Taylor, Global Capital Markets: Integration, Crisis, and Growth was a much-needed book that will be cited extensively by those with interests in the long run evolution of the world financial capital market. The book does not simply assess changes in the efficiency of global capital markets over the past 150 years, but rather adds significantly to debates about instability and crisis, asymmetry between rich and poor countries in the costs of going open, the Lucas Paradox, the connections between foreign exchange and financial capital market regimes, and much more. The book makes far better use of the comparative evidence generated by the three epochs since 1850—the first global century before 1914, the second global century after 1950, and the autarchy in between—than do competitors that focus solely on one regime, whether the gold standard, post–World War II Breton Woods, or the float since. In addition, while the financial literature rarely assesses in any useful empirical way the connection between financial markets and the real economy, this book makes that connection absolutely clear. Global Capital Markets is a stimulating book with a very wide and deep reach.

The categories listed below are used to classify books, book reviews, journal articles, and dissertations indexed in JEL, JEL on CD, EconLit, and www.e-JEL.org . New changes to the classification system appear as soon as possible on www.econlit.org . The JEL classification system may be used freely for scholarly purposes. We suggest the following format: “JEL: A10, B10, etc.”