The Bridge to a Global Middle Class compiles a unique series of papers originally commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations in the wake of the financial crises of 1997-1998. This thought-provoking retrospective culls the views of economists, international financial institutions, Wall Street, organized labor and varying public-interest organizations on the issue of how to fortify our global financial infrastructure. Their effort is the culmination of an 18-month study - The Project on Development, Trade, and International Finance - that seeks to encourage the evolution of middle-class oriented economic development in emerging market countries. In addressing the world economic problems that led to the crises and examining methods to improve the workings of the world's financial markets, they offer ideas, policy recommendations, and suggest the concrete forms these might take, in the drive to transition the world economy toward strategies that offer the developing world an improved standard of living. These papers make a convincing case for middle-class-oriented economic development as the key to global prosperity and stability. U.S. and international policy-makers will find these insightful discussions valuable in forming new policy and providing the appropriate stimulus for economic development in emerging economies.

Decades ago, there was no distinct middle class in the People's Republic of China. Any meaningful discussion of China's economy, politics, or society must take into account the rapid emergence and explosive growth of the Chinese middle class. This book details the origins and characteristics of this dramatic change.

Why does capital formation often fail to occur in developing countries? Capital and Collusion explores the political incentives that either foster growth or steal nations' growth prospects. Hilton Root examines the frontier between risk and uncertainty, analyzing the forces driving development in both developed and undeveloped regions. In the former, he argues, institutions reduce everyday economic risks to levels low enough to make people receptive to opportunities for profit, stimulating developments in technology and science. Not so in developing countries. There, institutions that specialize in sharing risk are scarce. Money hides under mattresses and in teapots, creating a gap between a poor nation's savings and its investment. As a consequence, the developing world faces a growing disconnect between the value of its resources and the availability of finance. What are the remedies for eliminating this disparity? Root shows us how to close the growing wealth gap among nations by building institutions that convert uncertainty into risk. Comparing China to India, Latin America to East Asia, and contemporary to historical cases, he offers lessons that can help the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to tackle the political incentives that are the source of poor governance in developing nations.

Europe's Greece evaluates Greece's European membership and finds that it has been largely successful. Despite its reputation as a southern laggard with very little improvement, Greece has behaved much like any other members of the EU, pushing its interests and stumbling upon the large issues that are associated with membership.

‘Inclusive Growth, Full Employment, and Structural Change: Implications and Policies for Developing Asia’ discusses policies to achieve inclusive growth in developing Asia, including those relating to agriculture, investment, certain state interventions, monetary, fiscal, and the role of the state as employer of last resort. Felipe argues that in order to deliver inclusive growth, Asian leaders must commit to the goal of full employment.

Since financial myths exploded in the 1980s, the perspective of time creates a unique opportunity to update and expand the analysis begun in Glenn Yago's 1991 book, Junk Bonds: How High Yield Securities Restructured Corporate America (Oxford University Press). At the time of its publication, Junk Bonds drew controversial responses from the Federal Reserve and government agencies. In retrospect, the evidence clearly casts favorable light on the role of high yield securities. The research presented here demonstrates how financial innovations enabled capital access for industrial restructuring, capital and labor productivity gains, and improved global competitiveness. Enough time has now passed to allow this dispassionate empirical analysis to shear away the hype and hysteria that surrounded the Wall Street scandals, Washington controversies, and media frenzy of the time. Beyond Junk Bonds provides a one-stop data, reference and case study presentation of the firms and securities in the contemporary high yield market and the financial innovations that spurred growth in the nineties and will continue to finance the future. The high yield market incubated successive waves of financial technologies that now proliferate beyond junk bonds to all the dimensions and dynamics of global debt and equity capital markets. It charts the recovery of the market in the 1990s, the recent wave of fallen angels, distressed credits and defaults, and suggests how the high yield market will be recreated in the global market of the 21st century. It explicates the linkages between the high yield market, and other credit and equity markets in managing a firm's capital structure to execute its business strategy. The weakening of the U. S. economy in 2001 and the huge shock to Wall Street from the terrorist attacks of September 11 witnessed a historic increase in the yield to maturity of high yield bonds. Despite the volatility in the flow of funds to high yield mutual funds and occasionally sharp increases in non-investment grade debt yields, the asset class has been one of the best performing fixed income investments of the past decades. In fact, high yield bonds offer an attractive risk-reward ratio competitive with more traditional asset classes. Anyone active in corporate finance, financial institutions and capital markets will find this book a must read for interpreting and understanding the recent history both of the high yield marketplace and its interaction with private equity, public equity, and fixed income markets.