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Exchange rate policy has profound consequences for economic development, financial crises, and international political conflict. Some governments in the developing world maintain excessively weak and “undervalued” exchange rates, a policy that promotes export-led development but often heightens tensions with foreign governments. Many other developing countries “overvalue” their exchange rates, which increases consumers' purchasing power but often reduces economic growth. This book argues that the demands of powerful interest groups often dictate government decisions about the level of the exchange rate. Combining case studies of China, Argentina, South Korea, Mexico, and Iran with cross-national statistical analyses, the book reveals that exchange rate policy is heavily influenced by a country's domestic political arrangements. Interest group demands influence exchange rate policy, and national institutional structures shape whether interest groups lobby for an undervalued or an overvalued rate. A country's domestic political system helps determine whether it undervalues its exchange rate and experiences explosive economic growth or if it overvalues its exchange rate and sees its economy stagnate as a result.

This book relays a compelling narrative of the U.S. economy's struggle to emerge from the Great Recession of 2008. It explains the causes and impact on working Americans of the most catastrophic economic policy failure since the 1920s. Economic growth since the late 1970s has been slow and inequitably distributed, largely as a result of poor policy choices. These choices only got worse in the 2000s, leading to an anemic economic expansion. What growth we did see in the economy was fueled by staggering increases in private-sector debt and a housing bubble that artificially inflated wealth by trillions of dollars. As had been predicted, the bursting of the housing bubble had disastrous consequences for the broader economy, spurring a financial crisis and a rise in joblessness that dwarfed those resulting from any recession since the Great Depression. The fallout from the Great Recession makes it near certain that there will be yet another lost decade of income growth for typical families, whose incomes had not been boosted by the previous decade's sluggish and localized economic expansion. In its broad narrative of how the economy has failed to deliver for most Americans over much of the past three decades, the book also offers compelling graphic evidence on jobs, incomes, wages, and other measures of economic well-being most relevant to low-and middle-income workers. It tracks these trends carefully, giving a lesson in economic history that is readable yet rigorous in its analysis.

This book examines the implications of post-1980s market-oriented economic reform for labor systems in China, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand. Adopting a critical institutionalist perspective, it explores the impact of elite economic interests and strategies, labor politics, institutional path dependencies, and changing economic circumstances on regimes of labor and social regulation in these four countries. Of particular importance are reform-driven socioeconomic and political tensions that, especially following the regional financial crisis of the late 1990s, have encouraged increased efforts to integrate social and developmental agendas with those of market reform. Using analysis of the social economy of East and Southeast Asia, the book suggests that several Asian countries may now be positioned to repeat what they achieved in earlier decades: a prominent role in defining new international models of development and market reform that adapt to the pressures and constraints of the evolving world economy.

Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address non-union workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members. This book serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. It presents the findings of a collaborative project which investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. It assesses the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), the book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents.