International Business

The eruption of the worldwide financial crisis has radically recast prospects for the world economy. 'Global Economic Prospects 2009: Commodity Markets at the Crossroads' analyzes the implications of the crisis for low- and middle-income countries, including an in-depth look at long-term prospects for global commodity markets and the policies of both commodity producing and consuming nations.

Currency values, prices, consumption and incomes are at the heart of the economic performance of all countries. In order to make a meaningful comparison between one economy and another, economists routinely make use of purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, but while PPP rates are widely used and well understood, they take a lot of effort to produce and suffer from publication delays. Currencies, Commodities and Consumption analyses the strengths and weaknesses of two alternatives to PPP.

The aim of this book is to grasp the diversity of the globalization processes in a systematic way by adopting a common analytical framework, the Global Value Chain approach. Commodity-specific data in two or more countries are taken as a point of departure and the variations and similarities in linkages between local, national, regional and global chain segments are examined.

Compiles information on production and prices of over 100 commodities traded on U.S. commodity exchanges. latest edition available in reference; 1993 through 2010 coverage available in periodical storage (with some gap years).
NOTE: Archive also available electronically.