Klaipėdos universitetas

“The book “Small States In A Global Economy: Crisis, Cooperation and Contributions” written by Professor Hilmar Þór Hilmarsson is informative and basically about a wide range of economic issues of Iceland and the Baltic States during pre, per and post 2008 financial crisis.Professor Hilmarsson has applied case study method in order to analyse various economic issues with the use of qualitative and quantitative data. In his writings, he has used his observation and experience of working for the World Bank for 12 years in three continents and working as a Special Advisor to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Iceland. Besides, the author has used data provided by International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Finance Corporation, European Union, Statistics Iceland etc. Besides, scholarly articles, books and e-mail etc. have been used as a valuable source for the writings.

The book The Economic Crisis and its Aftermath in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Do As We Say and Not As We Do written by Professor Dr. Hilmar Þór Hilmarsson is unique in many respects. It provides a broad view about the Nordic-Baltic countries, their response to the crisis of 2008/09 and the post-crisis consequences. Both regional and international aspects have been analyzed, namely regional institutions such as the European Union (EU) and global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the operational sphere where policy choices of these nations get influenced. The author points out that Barry Eichengreen (Professor of Economics and Political Science at UC Berkeley) suggested that the title of this book should include: ‘Do as we say and not as we do’, reflecting author’s view mainly to a comparison between how Nordic countries may want the Baltic States to respond to crisis as compared to how they would respond themselves in comparable situations. In order to support this statement, the author mentions some instances, for example, comparison of how Finland and Sweden responded to the banking crisis they experienced in the early 1990s with how the Baltic States responded to the 2008/09 global economic and financial crisis, arguably under Nordic (mainly Swedish) influence. All those countries are then influenced by regional and global institutions. Thus, the author framed the title of the book as “The Economic Crisis and its Aftermath in the Nordic and Baltic Countries: Do as we say and not as we do”.

“Gray customs system” is an illegal practice of getting goods across the border without official customs approval. Such practice makes a negative impact on Russia-China economic relations and is, therefore, considered as a barrier for bilateral economic relations between Russia and China. In this context, the paper examines the problems occurred due to the gray customs system and the action taken to mitigate this problem. The research method used for this article is the case study method referring to secondary data, scholarly literature and reports.