The current dynamic of increasing credit card use juxtaposed with regulatory pressure on the credit card industry reflects our society's deep ambivalence about paying with plastic. This Review of Professor Ronald J. Mann's Charging Ahead: The Growth and Regulation of Payment Card Markets, praises the book for its refreshingly balanced perspective on the optimal use of credit cards. The Review begins by unpacking the regression analyzes that are the centerpiece of the book's examination of the economic effects of credit cards. Mann isolates credit card spending as a driver of increased total consumer debt, even after controlling for card debt. He then shows that borrowing on cards - distinguished from noncard borrowing - is separately associated with an increase in bankruptcy filings. The Review then identifies an important limitation of Charging Ahead. An aggregate examination of the effects of credit cards does not reveal how card use affects the variety of card use strategies by individual families. Analyzing original data from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, the Review highlights the vulnerability of quot;cardlessquot; families to financial hardship. Credit card reform may effectively alter Americans' calculus about whether to pay with credit cards, and Mann offers many cogent reforms. Such behavioral change does not itself provide families with the income and savings necessary to protect them from adverse economic events as many factors beyond card use expose families to financial stress.

Chris C. Carvounis provides the background, the theory and definition, and the analytical tools necessary to understand the scenarios now being played out in the various LDCs. After presenting general issues related to LDC debt from the functionally distinct positions of borrowers, lenders, and negotiators, Carvounis examines in detail the cases of five specific debtor nations--Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Poland. For each country, a chronology provides background information and a commentary analyzes the key debtor-related matters. The commentaries discuss national economic development strategy, the orchestration of internal and external economies, the role of the central government as investor and regulator, domestic and foreign political factors pertinent to the country's external debts, and other significant factors.

As the recent Mexican crisis has demonstrated, Third World debt remains a silent virus in the global economy and not knowing when and where it will explode next should prompt questions about the nature and process of how debt is negotiated. This text is an attempt to understand the ways in which indebted Caribbean states and the IMF negotiate debt. Issues raised attempt to discuss the following questions: how do small dependent Caribbean states with limited resources negotiate debt with a powerful international agency such as IMF?; what are the various bargaining tactics and leverages that Caribbean governments and the IMF utilize in the negotiation of debt to shape the conditionality outcomes of economic adjustment?; and how does US hegemony in the Caribbean impact the process and outcome of negotiating debt?