Peet Strydom celebrated his 75th birthday on 20 January 2012. Within the spirit of the Ruiterbosch Conferences over the past 14 years, the editors suggested a book to commemorate this event and to celebrate the stimulating and fruitful discussions we had in the past. The invitation to all participants was that they should write a chapter on their particular field of interest. The end result is this book with a wide range of very interesting national and international economic perspectives, all in honour of Peet Strydom.