This book, originally published in 1994, explores the effects of federal policies on the US auto industry in the 1970s and 80s which were designed to save jobs and help the domestic industry become more competitive. The author develops a new model based on modern oliopoly theory to estimate the effects of the voluntary Restraint Agreements (which limited Japanese imports) on the US auto market. The results demonstrate that VRAs caused price increases which adversely affected the comptitive...

Boilerplate language in contracts tends to stick around long after its origins and purpose have been forgotten. Usually there are no serious repercussions, but sometimes it can cause unexpected problems. Such was the case with the obscure pari passu clause in cross-border sovereign debt contracts, until a novel judicial interpretation rattled international finance by forcing a defaulting sovereign—for one of the first times in the market’s centuries-long history—to repay its forei...

In today's global markets, commercial contracts are the backbone of complex financial and corporate transactions. Yet despite their centrality, these documents are often riddled with flaws-ambiguous terms, outdated provisions, and strategic traps-that persist across deals and markets. Legal theory tends to overlook these imperfections, assuming contracts are coherent, intentional, and complete. But the reality of contract production tells a different story. Contract Hazards: Lawyers an...

Fifteen of the best Indie authors. Fifteen extraordinary stories. One bestselling universe.It's the Twenty-Second Century. The galaxy has opened up to humanity as a hyperactive beehive of stargates and new technologies, and we suddenly find ourselves in a vast playground of different races, environments, and cultures. There's just one catch: we are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain, and there's only one way for humanity to move up—by becoming mercenaries.In every ...

The Greatest Scottish Books of All Time gathers a remarkable constellation of Scottish literary achievement, ranging from historical romance and imperial adventure to fantasy, domestic realism, moral fable, and psychologically shaded tales of childhood and memory. Its breadth suggests the richness of a national literature shaped by borderlands, islands, cities, faith, folklore, and the uneasy inheritances of empire. Across its pages, stirring quests, haunted landscapes, village chronicles,...

A hunted warrior crosses the forests of ancient Britain expecting bandits, wild beasts, and hostile tribes. What he finds instead is far stranger: a hidden civilization buried beneath the earth, clinging to the last fragments of a shattered kingdom. Deep within torchlit caverns, Cororuc faces a people who have not forgotten the wars that drove them into exile. Their hatred has survived longer than memory, and their leader carries the bitterness of centuries like a blade held against the th...

The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune is an early fantasy tale by Robert E. Howard featuring Kull, the brooding king of Valusia. Restless on his throne and questioning the nature of reality, Kull seeks wisdom from Tuzun Thune, a mysterious sage whose room of mirrors reflects more than mere images. What begins as philosophical curiosity slowly becomes a quiet descent — Kull finds himself drawn toward a reflection that seems to hold another world, another truth, or perhaps a trap. The story is...

Some dreams fade with morning. This one never does. In The Dream Snake, a man confesses a recurring nightmare so detailed, so immersive, that it feels like another life entirely. Each time the dream returns, he stands alone in an isolated bungalow on the African grasslands, waiting through endless nights for something massive and unseen that moves through the tall grass outside.What makes the dream unbearable is not what he sees, but what he knows will eventually happen. W...

A man volunteers to keep vigil beside a corpse in an isolated house, dismissing superstition as foolishness and fear as weakness. As the hours drag past midnight, the silence thickens, the darkness presses close, and each small sound begins to carry a weight far heavier than it should.What begins as mild discomfort sharpens into something far more dangerous. The mind, left alone in a room with the dead, has a way of filling the void. A sheet shifts. A lamp goes out. A memory of col...

If you were looking for the definitive Christmas anthology, consider yourself lucky, because you just found it!This book is everything you want Christmas to be — loving, warm and celebratory. Timeless and adorable, beautifully designed, "The Big Book of Christmas" is a great big stocky book — stuffed with novels, novellas, short stories, poems, carols and songs.Inside you'll find:· Novels, novellas and short stories from Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Hans Chri...

From haunting ghost stories to classic fairy tales, Going Public … In Shorts! is a collection of forty classic and lesser-known works by history's greatest writers.Among the stories included are "The Death of a Government Clerk," Anton Chekhov's defining vignette; "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," Mark Twain's comedic story that earned him national fame; "The Gift of the Magi," O. Henry's masterful Christmastime tale about love and sacrifice; and "The Stor...

“Constitutes an important and timely addition to the literature on peasant rebellion; wisely, the editors have been eclectic in drawing from some of the leading historians, anthropologists, political scientists, and sociologists active in the field an analysis of the forms that rural violence has taken through the past three centuries.”—Pacific Affairs