This book places the troubles of ordinary people at the centre of economic change in Mexico, arguing that conflicts over small-scale unpaid debts were a stress test for the economic and political order. Studying malfunction – what happened when contracts broke or soured – exposes the ways in which debt trouble became a driving force in the history of accumulation and justice in the modern world. This concluding chapter offers final thoughts on the book’s core proposal: that a broad sense of fairness and justice provided a bedrock of stability that allowed for massive economic transformation over a long chronological horizon.

This chapter explores the interplay between China’s economic transformation and its shifting demographic landscape over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It examines how an initially favorable age structure and abundant labor drove a period of material abundance and rapid growth, yielding a significant lifecycle surplus. Using a lifecycle approach with National Transfer Accounts, the authors analyze changes in labor income and consumption profiles, revealing that while early decades witnessed rising surplus driven by robust income growth and low dependency, the 2010s saw consumption outpacing income amid accelerating population aging. This resulted in a sharp contraction of the aggregate lifecycle surplus and a declining effective support ratio. The analysis further decomposes the impacts of changes in per capita income–consumption patterns versus demographic shifts, projecting that continuing aging will likely exhaust the surplus in the coming decades, posing critical challenges for China’s future economic and social policies.

This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of China’s economic transformation over the past four decades. It traces the dramatic growth in China’s GDP – from a modest base in 1990 to a global powerhouse in 2023 – and examines the contributions of capital, labor, and productivity. The chapter juxtaposes optimistic and cautious expert forecasts, highlighting challenges such as a structural slowdown, decelerating productivity, and the risks of excessive investment in real estate. It also explores the evolving dynamics of state control, the impact of global trade shifts, and the role of innovation and industrial policy in shaping future growth. Additionally, the analysis delves into demographic trends, particularly the implications of the “demographic dividend” turning into a deficit and the complexities of forecasting in a rapidly changing economic environment. Overall, the chapter sets the stage for a broader discussion on the policy reforms and strategic shifts necessary for sustaining China’s long-term economic progress.

In light of Mozambique’s natural resources boom—especially its large-scale investments in mining, oil, and gas—this chapter analyses the prospects for the extractive industries to contribute to economic transformation from an institutional perspective. For this purpose, we address the institutional dynamics of the resources sector and consider the underlying causes of the identified outcomes, and we discuss the National Development Strategy, as the instrument outlining the vision for economic transformation and diversification. The chapter is based on a desk review—documental and bibliographic—and on primary data gathered by the authors as part of their research into the field of natural resources and the political economy of development. We conclude that, given Mozambique’s political patronage and clientelism, intra-ruling elite competition, limited productive base, weak state capacity, high level of poverty, and recurrent fiscal deficits, the prospects of the current resource boom leading to economic transformation, despite its considerable potential, are at best uncertain.

Dynastic periodization has traditionally structured the chronological ordering of China’s history. The period from 900 to 1350 encompasses two major dynasties, Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1279–1367). Historians in China and elsewhere typically saw the Song as culturally vibrant and militarily weak, and the Yuan as a conquest dynasty that briefly interrupted the narrative flow of Chinese history until the restoration of “native” rule in the following Ming (1368–1644). Twentieth-century national politics recast China’s history along a linear (ancient, medieval, modern) timeline rather than a dynastic cyclical one, placing the Song and Yuan in a medieval-to-modern transition. The high degree of commercialization and monetization of the Song economy led scholars to view the Song as experiencing an economic transformation that fostered dramatic changes in Song society. Recent interest in cultural diversity as well as political concerns with the role of minority peoples – in both the People’s Republic of China and elsewhere – have drawn new attention to the Khitan Liao, Tangut Xi Xia, and Jurchen Jin empires that rose on the Song borders, as well as the Mongol conquest and rule of China as the Yuan dynasty. Middle-period China encompasses processes of political unification, social and economic transformations, and profound cultural achievements.

Polish firms focused on international markets only recently, as they were not present in the international markets during the planned economy era and thus did not develop managerial capabilities to compete. With the 1989 transition, huge opportunities for growth and development in the local market absorbed entrepreneurial talentat first. As a result, exports and outward foreign direct investments gained momentum only from the late 1990s. This chapter begins with a general picture of the economic transformation of Poland, and then analyzes the internationalization strategies and capabilities enhancing the efforts of a selected set of firms in foreign markets. Our findings reveal that the firms’ performance in foreign markets is shaped mainly by their ability to develop strategic competences related to product and technology improvement, management of relationships with partners, and those specific sensitivities to the cultural and business environment that enable the firm to gain reputation and the trust of local partners and customers and to overcome any legacy liabilities ascribed to country of origin.

Until 1989, communist parties were hegemonic throughout the Central and Southeast European region. With the downfall of communism in the course of 1989–1990, new challenges, opportunities, and problems have presented themselves. In the years following 1989, two states – Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia – broke up into their constituent parts, ten of the resulting fourteen states were admitted into NATO and eight of them also joined the European Union (EU). States in the southern tier continue to be affected by corruption, cronyism, and monopolization of the media. But, prior to 2010, most observers were optimistic about the prospects for states in the northern tier to continue to build liberal democratic states. However, since May 2010 in Hungary and since October 2015 in Poland, there have been tendencies of backsliding, with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán even proclaiming his intention to build and maintain an illiberal de-facto one-party state. Poland’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán have followed the same playbook – restricting and, in Hungary, taking over control of, the media; establishing party control of the judiciary; and playing the patriotic card, while ostracizing gays and lesbians. Religion remains strong in most of the region, with religious affiliation even gaining ground in Bulgaria since 1989.