Synopsis
To demonstrate how economic and financial liberalization can help the well-being of peoples of poor nations, Ariff (finance, Monash U., Melbourne) and Khalid (economics and finance, Bond U., Australia) document and analyze the myriad liberalization steps undertaken in eight Asian countries, identifying potential lessons for other countries pondering how to improve the human conditions in the newer and increasingly globalizing world of the 21st century. In 2000, they published a similar work on 13 Asian countries over a 35-year span ending in 1998, and here narrow their focus to eight of those in order to bring the story forward another five years. Among their examples are China as a command economy responding well to market signals for a long while now, liberalization in Indonesia amidst exchange rate and now growing political stability, and continual reforms to maintain financial center status in Singapore. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR