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Infrastructure Investment in Indonesia: A Focus on Ports presents an important and original collation of current material investigating the efficient facilitation of major infrastructure projects in Indonesia and Australia, with an emphasis on infrastructure investment and a focus on port planning and development.
This interdisciplinary collection—spanning the disciplines of engineering, law and planning—draws helpfully on a range of practical and theoretical perspectives. It is the collaborative effort of leading experts in the fields of infrastructure project initiation and financing, and is based on international research conducted by the University of Melbourne, Universitas Indonesia and Universitas Gadjah Mada.
The volume opens with a macroscopic perspective, outlining the broader economic situations confronting Indonesia and Australia, before adopting a more microscopic perspective to closely examine the issues surrounding major infrastructure investment in both countries. Detailed case studies are provided, key challenges are identified, and evidence-based solutions are offered. These solutions respond to such topical issues as how to overcome delays in infrastructure project initiation; how to enhance project decision-making for the selection and evaluation of projects; how to improve overall efficiency in the arrangement of project finance and governance; and how to increase the return provided by investment in infrastructure. Special focus is given to proposed improvements to the portal cities of Indonesia in the areas of major infrastructure project governance, policies, engagement, operation and processes.
By rigorously investigating the economic, transport, finance and policy aspects of infrastructure investment, this book will be a valuable resource for policy makers and government officials in Indonesia and Australia, infrastructure investment organisations, and companies involved in exporting services between Indonesia and Australia. This book will also be of interest to researchers and students of infrastructure planning and financing, setting a solid foundation for subsequent investigations of financing options for large-scale infrastructure developments.
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This open access book examines the future of inequality, work and wages in the age of automation with a focus on developing countries. The authors argue that the rise of a global ‘robot reserve army’ has profound effects on labor markets and economic development, but, rather than causing mass unemployment, new technologies are more likely to lead to stagnant wages and premature deindustrialization. The book illuminates the debate on the impact of automation upon economic development, in particular issues of poverty, inequality and work. It highlights public policy responses and strategies–ranging from containment to coping mechanisms—to confront the effects of automation.
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This open access book brings together narratives of inbound and outbound expatriate entrepreneurship in Japan to provide a comprehensive overview of international entrepreneurship in the region. Through in-depth interviews with expatriate entrepreneurs, policymakers, and additional stakeholders it provides the reader with a solid understanding of the current landscape of international entrepreneurship as it relates to Japan and the challenges for policymakers. The topics addressed in this book include definitions of expatriate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship policy development and implementation, concepts of mindset, cultural brokerage, community, and identity as they relate to Japanese self-initiated expatriate entrepreneurs working in South East Asia and to non-Japanese self-initiated expatriate entrepreneurs working in Japan. Additionally, the book provides an overview of issues connected to regional development and economic growth in Asia. Illustrated through carefully chosen cases from Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia and developed by connecting these cases to policy and interdisciplinary studies, this book is highly recommended to scholars, policymakers and practitioners who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the field of expatriate entrepreneurship in Asia.
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This open access book explores the concept of Industry 4.0, which presents a considerable challenge for the production and service sectors. While digitization initiatives are usually integrated into the central corporate strategy of larger companies, smaller firms often have problems putting Industry 4.0 paradigms into practice. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) possess neither the human nor financial resources to systematically investigate the potential and risks of introducing Industry 4.0. Addressing this obstacle, the international team of authors focuses on the development of smart manufacturing concepts, logistics solutions and managerial models specifically for SMEs. Aiming to provide methodological frameworks and pilot solutions for SMEs during their digital transformation, this innovative and timely book will be of great use to scholars researching technology management, digitization and small business, as well as practitioners within manufacturing companies.
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The countries of the South Pacific have struggled to generate sustainable economic growth since their independence. Interventionist policies have failed in the past here, as they have in all other regions. Business and government leaders in this region are now beginning to acknowledge - as has happened in many other developing country regions over the past two decades - that major reforms are needed to put their economies onto a higher growth path. This study examines the growth record of key Pacific island economies and indentifies the reasons for their relatively poor performance. It then looks at the process of globalization that is affecting those and indeed all economies increasingly; and the role the WTO has played in that process.
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This two-volume collection brings together the first 53 Joseph Fisher Lectures in economics and commerce, presented at the Adelaide University every other year since 1904. Funds for the Lectures, together with a medal for the top accounting student each year, were kindly provided by a £1,000 endowment to the University by the prominent Adelaide businessman Joseph Fisher in 1903. The Lectures address a wide range of Australian economic issues, in addition to some international economic issues of national significance. They have stood the test of time extremely well, while also providing a reminder of the events and concerns that were prominent at different times during the past century.
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This two-volume collection brings together the first 53 Joseph Fisher Lectures in economics and commerce, presented at the Adelaide University every other year since 1904. Funds for the Lectures, together with a medal for the top accounting student each year, were kindly provided by a £1,000 endowment to the University by the prominent Adelaide businessman Joseph Fisher in 1903. The Lectures address a wide range of Australian economic issues, in addition to some international economic issues of national significance. They have stood the test of time extremely well, while also providing a reminder of the events and concerns that were prominent at different times during the past century.
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The purpose of this Special Issue is to investigate topics related to sustainability issues in the new era, especially in Industry 4.0 or other new manufacturing environments. Under Industry 4.0, there have been great changes with respect to production processes, production planning and control, quality assurance, internal control, cost determination, and other management issues. Moreover, it is expected that Industry 4.0 can create positive sustainability impacts along the whole value chain. There are three pillars of sustainability, including environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. This Special Issue collects 15 sustainability-related papers from various industries that use various methods or models, such as mathematical programming, activity-based costing (ABC), material flow cost accounting, fuel consumption model, artificial intelligence (AI)-based fusion model, multi-attribute decision model (MADM), and so on. These papers are related to carbon emissions, carbon tax, Industry 4.0, economic sustainability, corporate social responsibility (CSR), etc. The research objects come from China, Taiwan, Thailand, Oman, Cyprus, Germany, Austria, and Portugal. Although the research presented in this Special Issue is not exhaustive, this Special Issue provides abundant, significant research related to environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Nevertheless, there still are many research topics that require our attention to solve problems of sustainability.
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This book shows that a new strategic vision is needed for the Pacific to realise its potential as a prosperous, dynamic region. The Pacific currently lacks a vision that
marries forward-looking goals with the depth of regional integration needed to resolve the current underlying causes of regional disorder. The book proposes that members of the Pacific Islands Forum should pursue five goals: sustainable economic development; security; the rule of law; democracy; and integration with the wider region. To realise these goals, Forum members must commit to far more substantive regional integration in these critical areas. To this end, the Forum needs to evolve into a new body, the Oceania Community, that follows, and improves on, the European Union model. The Pacific’s challenges can only be addressed through the shared sovereignty and leverage possible in such a Community.
The book begins by outlining the Pacific’s current challenges, policy settings and institutions, to identify the need for such a new vision. Next, the guiding philosophy of a new vision is considered, and the overarching features of the Oceania Community outlined. The book then details the new agreements and institutions needed to promote the five goals through the Oceania Community.
These plans involve: a common market; a regional commitment to inflation targeting and, in many instances, monetary union; a security centre and standing peace monitoring group; a human rights commission; a regional court; and a regional parliament. Further, the Community needs to seek out integration actively with other states in the wider Pacific. A regional community dedicated to the promotion of sustainable economic development, security, the rule of law, democracy and wider integration through these agreements and institutions represents an integrated new strategic vision for the Pacific. This vision is necessary, it is achievable, and it is the best way, perhaps the only way, for the Pacific to realise its potential as a prosperous, dynamic region.
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This open access Pivot demonstrates how a variety of technologies act as innovation catalysts within the banking and financial services sector. Traditional banks and financial services are under increasing competition from global IT companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and PayPal whilst facing pressure from investors to reduce costs, increase agility and improve customer retention. Technologies such as blockchain, cloud computing, mobile technologies, big data analytics and social media therefore have perhaps more potential in this industry and area of business than any other. This book defines a fintech ecosystem for the 21st century, providing a state-of-the art review of current literature, suggesting avenues for new research and offering perspectives from business, technology and industry.
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In the light of the deepening crisis of capitalism and continued non-Western capitalist accumulation, Henry Heller re-examines the debates surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe and elsewhere. Focusing on arguments about the origin, nature and sustainability of capitalism, Heller offers a new reading of the historical evidence and a critical interrogation of the transition debate. He advances the idea that capitalism must be understood as a political as well as an economic entity. This book breathes new life into the scholarship, taking issue with the excessively economistic approach of Robert Brenner, which has gained increasing support over the last ten years. It concludes that the future of capitalism is more threatened than ever before. The new insights in this book make it essential reading for engaged students and scholars of political economy and history.
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I had the good fortune to grow up in a wonderful area of Jerusalem, surrounded by a diverse range of people: Rabbi Meizel, the communist Sala Marcel, my widowed Aunt Hannah, and the intellectual Yaacovson. As far as I'm concerned, the opinion of such people is just as authoritative for making social and economic decisions as the opinion of an expert using a model. Part memoir, part crash-course in economic theory, this deeply engaging book by one of the world's foremost economists looks at economic ideas through a personal lens. Together with an introduction to some of the central concepts in modern economic thought, Ariel Rubinstein offers some powerful and entertaining reflections on his childhood, family and career. In doing so, he challenges many of the central tenets of game theory, and sheds light on the role economics can play in society at large. The book is as thought-provoking for seasoned economists as it is enlightening for newcomers to the field. Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, describes Economics Fables as a "wonderfully inviting introduction to game theory, rich in personalities, history and sense of place. Ariel Rubinstein is not only a brilliant theorist with a knack for lucid exposition, but a gifted storyteller. Students will find the ideas surprisingly accessible. Aspiring scholars, wondering whether a life of the mind is worth pursuing, will find his personal journey of intellectual discovery thrilling.
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The authors take a detailed look at the economic competence and financial literacy of young adults, especially of those who start an apprenticeship or who take up their studies at a university. Economic competence and financial literacy are of special interest within this group, because these young people are – mostly for the fi rst time in their lives – responsible for autonomously managing their own fi nancial affairs and deal with economic challenges.
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Big Data collected by customer-facing organisations – such as smartphone logs, store loyalty card transactions, smart travel tickets, social media posts, or smart energy meter readings – account for most of the data collected about citizens today. As a result, they are transforming the practice of social science. Consumer Big Data are distinct from conventional social science data not only in their volume, variety and velocity, but also in terms of their provenance and fitness for ever more research purposes. The contributors to this book, all from the Consumer Data Research Centre, provide a first consolidated statement of the enormous potential of consumer data research in the academic, commercial and government sectors – and a timely appraisal of the ways in which consumer data challenge scientific orthodoxies.
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Thirty years after Chomsky and Herman elaborated the Propaganda Model this title aims to introduce a new generation of readers to it. It presents cutting-edge research demonstrating the model’s general validity as well as new attempts – in the light of digital media and 21st century politics – to critically update, expand, and refine it. International researchers thus analyse the continuities and new developments in media Environments throughout various regions of the world. Part I addresses the theoretical and methodological dimensions of the PM beginning with an interview with Edward Herman on the model itself. Part II reflects on propaganda as a concept and practice within new mediated digital communications systems and interfaces. Applications of the Propaganda Model are featured in Part III notably new forms of media and content not previously analysed within it: the entertainment industries through the analysis of television, professional sports, Hollywood movies and videogames using quantitative and qualitative research methods. The last section presents case studies of corporate media and reporting practices as reflections of elite power. An extensive re-visioning of the PM this book concludes by identifying the fundamental dimensions of the model, the key modifications and expansions that are suggested—such as the inclusion of new filters—whilst assessing the model’s overall value for conducting research in different geographical contexts and media systems and products.
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Online advertising will soon form the largest share of global advertisement revenues. Google and Facebook netted profits of US $29 billion in 2016. While these two giants control more than 66% of all online advertising revenues complex legal company structures have minimised their tax liabilities. This extended policy report considers where they should be taxed and where the value of their activities is actually created. It argues that tax paid by those platforms should be levied in the country where platform users are located when they click on or view an advertisement. Furthermore, the report examines the practical steps needed to ensure transparent accounting of taxed transactions in order to avoid long term negative effects for media and democracy. Considering counter-arguments the author makes the case for an online advertising tax alongside a public service Internet strategy that could support other viable platforms and counter the dangers of duopoly or oligopoly and the high risks of financial bubbles in a world where advertising is the Internet's dominant business model.
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Google and Facebook currently control close to two-thirds of global advertising revenue. While dominating the online advertising market, these two companies have thus far avoided paying adequate taxes. This CAMRI policy brief presents a new policy innovation, the online advertising tax. Considering the key role of user activity and user data for the value of Google and Facebook’s services, it explains how digital advertising companies’ revenues could be taxed based on the respective country in which targeted users are located. The author reviews existing policy arguments and policy options and sets out practical steps to ensure that tax avoidance by online advertising companies is mitigated. Furthermore, he illustrates how tax revenues could be used to support public service internet platforms.
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Through algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), objects and digital services now demonstrate new skills they did not have before, right up to replacing human activity through pre-programming or by making their own decisions. As part of the internet of things, AI applications are already widely used today, for example in language processing, image recognition and the tracking and processing of data. This policy brief illustrates the potential negative and positive impacts of AI and reviews related policy strategies adopted by the UK, US, EU, as well as Canada and China. Based on an ethical approach that considers the role of AI from a democratic perspective and considering the public interest, the authors make policy recommendations that help to strengthen the positive impact of AI and to mitigate its negative consequences.
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What is ‘social capital’? The enormous positivity surrounding it conceals the instrumental economic rationality underpinning the notion as corporations silently sell consumer data for profit. Status chasing is just one aspect of a process of transforming qualitative aspects of social interactions into quantifiable metrics for easier processing, prediction, and behavioural shaping. A work of critical media studies, Social Capital Online examines the idea within the new ‘network spectacle’ of digital capitalism via the ideas of Marx, Veblen, Debord, Baudrillard and Deleuze. Explaining how such phenomena as online narcissism and aggression arise, Faucher offers a new theoretical understanding of how the spectacularisation of online activity perfectly aligns with the value system of neoliberalism and its data worship. Even so, at the centre of all, lie familiar ideas – alienation and accumulation – new conceptions of which he argues are vital for understanding today’s digital society.
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In recent years research into creative labour and cultural work has usually addressed the politics of production in these fields, but the sociotechnical and aesthetic dimensions of collaborative creative work have been somewhat overlooked. This book aims to address this gap. Through case studies that range from TV showrunning to independent publishing, from the film industry to social media platforms such as Tumblr and Wattpad, this collection develops a critical understanding of the integral role collaboration plays in contemporary media and culture. It draws attention to diverse kinds of creative collaboration afforded via the intermediation of digital platforms and networked publics. It considers how these are incorporated into emergent market paradigms and investigates the complicated forms of subjectivity that develop as a consequence. But it also acknowledges historical continuities, not least in terms of the continued exploitation of ‘support personnel’ and of resulting artistic conflicts but also of alternative models that resist the precarious nature of contemporary cultural work. Finally, this volume attempts to situate creative collaboration in broader social and economic contexts, where the experience and outcomes of such work have proved more problematic than the rich potential of their promise would lead us to expect.
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As the recent financial crisis has revealed, the state is central to the stability of the money system, while the chaotic privately-owned banks reap the benefits without shouldering the risks. This book argues that money is a public resource that has been hijacked by capitalism. Mary Mellor explores the history of money and modern banking, showing how finance capital has captured bank-created money to enhance speculative ‘leveraged’ profits as well as destroying collective approaches to economic life. Meanwhile, most individuals, and the public economy, have been mired in debt. To correct this obvious injustice, Mellor proposes a public and democratic future for money. Ways are put forward for structuring the money and banking system to provision societies on an equitable, ecologically sustainable ‘sufficiency’ basis. This fascinating study of money should be read by all economics students looking for an original analysis of the economy during the current crisis.
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In an age of political and economic uncertainty, from the Great Recession to the election of Donald Trump, it is essential to understand the ways capitalism and imperialism are central to the American way of life. The story told in this book brings together a new interpretation of American history beyond mainstream perspectives to chart the ways in which white-settler colonialism pushed expansion on the western frontier of empire, and locates the history through which empire gradually took on a capitalist form. It follows the pathway of expansion from the making of an Atlantic world market through the creation of white colonies in New England and Virginia. From here the book charts the growth of empire across the north and south, highlighting the gendered dynamics of empire-building, and culminates in a discussion of the Civil War and the consolidation of over two centuries of capitalist development explaining how a society with capitalism became a capitalist society.
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This book explores a central contradiction of 21st century economy and society: the more morally and politically unaccountable capitalism and capitalists are, the more accountable the mass majority of its subjects must become. The technocratic ideology and surveillance culture of our modern marketized societies hides a deeper reality of a free market that is unmanageable and a corporate elite whose actions cannot be traced let alone regulated. This work highlights the paradoxical way an often disjointed and unjustifiable modern neoliberalism persists through subjecting individuals and communities to a wide range of technical and ethical 'accounting' in all areas of contemporary life. These pervasive practices of monitoring and codifying everything and everyone mask how at its heart this system and its elites remain socially uncontrollable and ethically out of control.
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The Greater China Australia Dialogue on Public Administration has held annual workshops since 2011 on public administration themes of common interest to the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Australia.
This book presents and discusses a selection of papers developed from the Dialogue’s fifth workshop held in late 2015 hosted by the National Taiwan University in Taipei. The theme, ‘Value for Money’, focused on budget and financial management reforms, including how different nations account for the relative performance of their public sectors.
All governments face the challenge of scarce resources requiring budgetary management processes for identifying the resources required by and available to government, and then for allocating them and ensuring their use or deployment represents value for money. Such budgetary and financial management processes need to inform decision-making routinely and protect the integrity of the way public resources are used – with some public accountability to indicate that their uses are properly authorised and reflect the policies of legitimate government leaders.
The chapters in this book explore budgeting and financial management in three very different jurisdictions: Australia, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). These activist and at times innovative countries are keen to analyse and reflect upon each other’s policy achievements and patterns of public provision. They are keen to learn more about each other as their economic and social engagement continues to deepen. They are also conscious that fundamental differences exist in terms of economic development and global strategic positioning, and levels and philosophies of political development; to an extent these differences are representative of differences amongst countries around the globe.
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This open access book offers something for everyone working with market segmentation: practical guidance for users of market segmentation solutions; organisational guidance on implementation issues; guidance for market researchers in charge of collecting suitable data; and guidance for data analysts with respect to the technical and statistical aspects of market segmentation analysis. Even market segmentation experts will find something new, including a vast array of useful visualisation techniques that make interpretation of market segments and selection of target segments easier.
The book talks the reader through every single step, every single potential pitfall, and every single decision that needs to be made to ensure market segmentation analysis is conducted as well as possible. All calculations are accompanied not only with a detailed explanation, but also with R code that allows readers to replicate any aspect of what is being covered in the book using R, the open-source environment for statistical computing and graphics.
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The conventional approach to risk communication, based on a centralized and controlled model, has led to blatant failures in the management of recent safety related events. In parallel, several cases have proved that actors not thought of as risk governance or safety management contributors may play a positive role regarding safety. Building on these two observations and bridging the gap between risk communication and safety practices leads to a new, more societal perspective on risk communication, that allows for smart risk governance and safety management.
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Economists have long sought to maximise economic growth, believing this to be their best contribution to improving human welfare. That approach is not sustainable in the face of ongoing issues such as global climate change, environmental damage, rising inequality and enduring poverty. Alternatives must be found.
This open access book addresses that challenge. It sets out a wellbeing economics framework that directly addresses fundamental issues affecting wellbeing outcomes. Drawing inspiration from the capabilities approach of Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen, the book demonstrates how persons can enhance prosperity through their own actions and through collaboration with others.
The book examines national public policy, but its analysis also focuses on choices made by individuals, households, families, civil society, local government and the global community. It therefore offers important insights for anyone concerned with improving personal wellbeing and community prosperity.
Paul Dalziel is Professor of Economics and Deputy Director of the Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit at Lincoln University, New Zealand.
Caroline Saunders is Professor of Trade and Environmental Economics and Director of the Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit at Lincoln University, New Zealand.
Joe Saunders is Assistant Professor in Post-Kantian Philosophy at the University of Durham, UK.
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This book presents theories and case studies for corporations in developed nations, including Japan, for designing strategies to maximize opportunities and minimize threats in business expansion into developing nations. The case studies featured here focus on Asia, including China and India, and use examples of Japanese manufacturers. Five case studies are provided, including Hitachi Construction Machinery and Shiseido in China and Maruti Suzuki in India. These cases facilitate the reader’s understanding of the business environments in emerging economies. This volume is especially recommended for businesspeople responsible for international business development, particularly in China and India. In addition, the book serves as a useful resource for students in graduate-level courses in international management.
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Taking the business model as point of departure, this open access book explores how companies and organizations can contribute to a more sustainable future by designing innovative models that are both sustainable and profitable. Based upon years of research, it draws together theoretical foundations and existing literature on the topic of sustainable business alongside case studies and practical solutions. After examining the theoretical foundations of sustainable business model innovation, the authors present their own framework – RESTART. Consisting of seven factors, this framework can be the basis for restarting any business model. The final section outlines a research agenda for sustainable business informed by the perspectives and frameworks put forward in this book.
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This book focuses on the achievements, current trends and further potential of microfinance to scale-up and serve many more clients with financial services that enable them to improve their living conditions. The book asks what it takes to achieve sustainable impact: to know your clients and to understand their needs, to treat them in a fair and transparent way, and to safeguard the synthesis between the financial and social dimension of sustainable microfinance. The book also sheds light on the future funding landscape and what is necessary to bring more commercial funders on board while ensuring that these new funders will continue the commitment to responsible finance.While being forward looking, the book reflects the debate on core values of microfinance, triggered by recent criticisms of an approach that was hailed as a panacea in the beginning and which had proved over time as one of the most effective models of development finance. These criticisms emerged over signs of overheating in some markets, particularly the 2010 events in Andhra Pradesh, and turned into an assumption of a worldwide microfinance crisis, putting seriously at stake the good reputation microfinance had enjoyed so far.
Half of the world, and 80 percent of the poor, are excluded from formal financial services. This means that they have to rely on the age-old, informal alternatives that can be unreliable and expensive. Microfinance 3.0 is a highly welcome contribution to the frontiers of financial inclusion – a world in which poor households in the informal economy can access and use the broad range of financial services they need to create livelihoods, smooth consumption, and better manage risks.
Tilman Ehrbeck, CEO CGAP (Consultative Group For The Poor)
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In this open access book the cost and revenue overruns of Olympic Games from Sydney 2000 to PyeongChang 2018 from eight years before the Games to Games‐time are investigated to provide a base for future host cities. The authors evaluated the development of expenditure and revenues of the organizing committees to operate the event, and the investment of taxpayers’ money for Olympic venues (non‐OCOG budget). The study is based on data collected worldwide and is currently the most advanced study on cost and revenue changes of Olympic Games.
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This open access book analyses the development problems of sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) from the eyes of a Korean diplomat with knowledge of the economic growth Korea has experienced in recent decades. The author argues that Africa's development challenges are not due to a lack of resources but a lack of management, presenting an alternative to the traditional view that Africa's problems are caused by a lack of leadership. In exploring an approach based on mind-set and nation-building, rather than unity - which tends to promote individual or party interests rather than the broader country or national interests - the author suggests new solutions for SSA's economic growth, inspired by Korea's successful economic growth model much of which is focused on industrialisation.
This book will be of interest to researchers, policymakers, NGOs and governmental bodies in economics, development and politics studying Africa's economic development, and Korea's economic growth model.
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This open access Pivot demonstrates how a variety of technologies act as innovation catalysts within the banking and financial services sector. Traditional banks and financial services are under increasing competition from global IT companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and PayPal whilst facing pressure from investors to reduce costs, increase agility and improve customer retention. Technologies such as blockchain, cloud computing, mobile technologies, big data analytics and social media therefore have perhaps more potential in this industry and area of business than any other. This book defines a fintech ecosystem for the 21st century, providing a state-of-the art review of current literature, suggesting avenues for new research and offering perspectives from business, technology and industry.
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The aim of the Special Issue is to address some of the main challenges individuals and companies face in managing financial and actuarial risks, when dealing with their investment / retirement or business-related decisions.
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Aboriginal australian; Social conditions; Economic conditions
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The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 shook the foundations of the global economy. What began as a localised currency crisis soon engulfed the entire Asian region. What went wrong and how did the Asian economies, long considered 'miracles', respond? How did the United States, Japan and other G-7 countries react to the crisis? What role did the IMF play? Why did China, which suffers from many of the same structural problems responsible for the crisis, remain conspicuously insulated from the turmoil raging in its midst? What explains Asia's remarkable recovery just three years after the crisis? In what fundamental ways did the Asian crisis serve as a catalyst to the current thinking about the 'new international financial architecture'? What lessons can be learnt from the crisis by other emerging economies? This book provides answers to all the above questions and more. It gives a comprehensive account of how the international economic order operates, examines its strengths and weaknesses, and what needs to be done to fix it. The book will be vital to students of economics, international political economy, Asian and development studies.
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The Pacific Trade and Development (PAFTAD) conference series has been at the forefront of analysing challenges facing the economies of East Asia and the Pacific since its first meeting in Tokyo in January 1968. The 38th PAFTAD conference met at a key time to consider international economic integration. Earlier in the year, the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union and the United States elected Donald Trump as their next president on the back of an inward-looking ‘America First’ promise. Brexit and President Trump represent a growing, and worrying, trend towards protectionism in the North Atlantic countries that have led the process of globalisation since the end of the Second World War.
The chapters in the volume describe the state of play in Asian economic integration but, more importantly, look forward to the region’s future, and the role it might play in defending the global system that has underwritten its historic rise. Asia has the potential to stand as a bulwark against the dual threats of North Atlantic protectionism and slowing trade growth, but collective leadership will be needed regionally and difficult domestic reforms will be required in each country.
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This book delves into the widely held belief that the 21st century will be the "Asian Century" by examining the Asia's rapid economic development in the post-war era and the challenges it faces in forging ahead of world leaders in the West. The impact of the current turbulent global political climate on Asia is critically analyzed, employing a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, combining economic, social, political and geopolitical perspectives. Written in an accessible style, the book offers students, business, government, and civil society players powerful insights on Asia.
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Accountability, good government and public trust are intricately linked. Supreme Audit Institutions fulfil an exceptional role in the public domain, checking if governments spend their money properly. They are like 'watchdogs' for citizens and parliaments with the purpose of auditing public expenditure and examining the effectiveness of policies. They aim to strengthen the trustworthiness of government institutions, all the more so in fragile democracies. They do so, for instance, in striving to disclose cases of corruption, not just in the highest echelons of government, but also in everyday petty bribery. And they can be found counting houses, roads and water taps, to see if government's promises are being kept. On the occasion of the retirement of Saskia J. Stuiveling as the president of the Netherlands Court of Audit, eight (former) heads of audit institutions talk candidly about their work and innovations in the area of public auditing, about how the financial crisis affected their profession, about the advent of open data and about the need for new skills to audit the oil industry. Each of them - Faiza Kefi (Tunisia), Josef Moser (Austria), Terence Nombembe (South Africa), Heidi Mendoza (Philippines), Alar Karis (Estonia), David Walker (USA), John Muwanga (Uganda) and Abdulbasit Turki Saeed (Iraq) - has made a difference in his or her country, often under difficult, adverse and sometimes outright dangerous circumstances.
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This book investigates recent policies introduced into Turkey which are designed to reduce state activities and open up the country to international investment and trade. This is done in the context of the UNs Millennium Development Goals continuing to stretch into the distant future amid the ongoing instability of the global financial system and economic pressures on the West. The focus is on agriculture and the major effects of a deliberate restructuring of an agrarian economy as seen through the lens of the peasant, the village and poverty. This unique socioeconomic review of Turkey, which is generally thought to be a contemporary success story of the neo-liberal paradigm, argues for a new understanding of the destructive effects of global capitalism. Some issues addressed are the effects on Turkey's countryside as its agricultural sector has been catapulted onto the world market, how farming has changed and what this has meant for small-scale enterprises. Also discussed is how rural communities have fared, capital relations have been transformed in the process and the impact this has had on the nation's poor. Finally, the ways in which neo-liberalism has guided government's response to the new social needs is discussed along with how Turkey's experience parallels similar developments worldwide. This serves as a window to the reality of development at a time when the philosophy for growth underpinning development is facing an increasingly profound crisis of confidence worldwide.
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This book contributes to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa through addressing the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture, in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men. It uses a longitudinal cross-country comparative approach, relying on the Afrint dataset—unique household-level longitudinal data for six African countries collected over the period 2002–2013/15. The book first descriptively summarizes findings from the third wave of the dataset. The book nuances the current dominance of structural transformation narratives of agricultural change by adding insights from gender and village-level studies of agrarian change. It argues that placing agrarian change within broader livelihood dynamics outside agriculture, highlighting country- and region-specific contexts is an important analytical adaptation to the empirical realities of rural Africa. From the policy perspective, this book provides suggestions for more inclusive rural development policies, outlining the weaknesses of present policies illustrated by the currently gendered inequalities in access to agrarian resources. The book also provides country-specific insights from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia.
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Public-private partnerships have become an important tool for delivering essential public goods, but critics fear that they erode public accountability. Making partnerships more accountable requires a clear understanding of what accountability means for partnerships and which mechanisms can be used to strengthen it. Accountability in Public Policy Partnerships develops a new model of accountability based on principal-agent theory. This model provides a firm normative foundation for accountability demands. At the same time, it shows which accountability standards apply to which kinds of partnerships. Norm-setting partnerships, for example, require strong mechanisms for participation, whereas implementation partnerships must focus on performance evaluation, competitive bidding and beneficiary feedback processes.
The accountability model and standards developed in this book provide a guide for partnership practitioners who are developing the governance structures of their partnerships; they serve as benchmarks for evaluating partnerships; and they provide new inputs for the ongoing accountability debates in the public, the corporate and the civil society sectors.
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"This book brings together a series of working papers, produced by interdisciplinary groups of academics within the project, on progress made under the Millennium Development Goals and introduces current debates surrounding the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 agenda. Originating from an interdisciplinary, multi-institution research collaboration, Thinking Beyond Sectors for Sustainable Development, funded by UCL Grand Challenges. The project brought together over thirty academics from UCL, SOAS, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Birkbeck, Institute of Education, and the Royal Veterinary College, and was coordinated by the London International Development Centre (LIDC). The book explores potential interactions between sustainable development goals in the post-2015 development agenda. Introduced and edited by Prof Jeff Waage (LIDC) and Christopher Yap (LIDC), chapters are dedicated to the topics of Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Human Health, Urban Poverty, Climate and Climate Change, Population Growth, Food and Agriculture, Information, Education and Knowledge, and Governance. Each chapter reflects on the three principle questions of 1) What is the historical process by which goal setting in this sector has developed?, 2) What progress has been achieved with this sector through MDGs and other processes? and 3) What is the current debate about future goal setting?"
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Big Data collected by customer-facing organisations – such as smartphone logs, store loyalty card transactions, smart travel tickets, social media posts, or smart energy meter readings – account for most of the data collected about citizens today. As a result, they are transforming the practice of social science. Consumer Big Data are distinct from conventional social science data not only in their volume, variety and velocity, but also in terms of their provenance and fitness for ever more research purposes. The contributors to this book, all from the Consumer Data Research Centre, provide a first consolidated statement of the enormous potential of consumer data research in the academic, commercial and government sectors – and a timely appraisal of the ways in which consumer data challenge scientific orthodoxies.
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Russell Cooper and Andrew John have written an economics text aimed directly at students from its very inception. You're thinking, ”Yeah, sure. I've heard that before.“
This textbook, Microeconomics: Theory Through Applications, centers around student needs and expectations through two premises: … Students are motivated to study economics if they see that it relates to their own lives. … Students learn best from an inductive approach, in which they are first confronted with a problem, and then led through the process of solving that problem.
Many books claim to present economics in a way that is digestible for students; Russell and Andrew have truly created one from scratch. This textbook will assist you in increasing students' economic literacy both by developing their aptitude for economic thinking and by presenting key insights about economics that every educated individual should know.
How? Russell and Andrew have done three things in this text to accomplish that goal:
1. Applications Ahead of Theory: They present all the theory that is standard in Principles books. But by beginning with applications, students get to learn why this theory is needed.
The authors take the kind of material that other authors put in ”applications boxes“ and place it at the heart of their book. Each chapter is built around a particular business or policy application, such as minimum wages, the stock exchange, and auctions.
Why take this approach? Traditional courses focus too much on abstract theory relative to the interests and capabilities of the average undergraduate. Students are rarely engaged and the formal theory is never integrated into the way students think about economic issues. And traditional books are organized around theoretical constructs that mean nothing to students. The authors' applications-first approach ensures that students will not see chapters with titles like ”Cost Functions“ or ”Short-Run Fluctuations“. They introduce tools and ideas as and when they are needed. Each chapter is designed with two goals. First, the application upon which the chapter is built provides a ”hook“ that gets students' attention. Second, the application is a suitable vehicle a vehicle for teaching the principles of economics.
2. Learning through Repetition: Important tools appear over and over again, allowing students to learn from repetition and to see how one framework can be useful in many different contexts.
Each piece of economic theory in this text is first introduced and explained in the context of a specific application. Most are re-used in other chapters, so students see them in action on multiple occasions. As students progress through the book, they accumulate a set of techniques and ideas. These are collected separately in a ”toolkit“ that provides students with an easy reference and also gives them a condensed summary of economic principles for examination preparation.
3. A Student's Table of Contents vs. An Instructor's Table of Contents: There is no further proof that Russell and Andrew have created a book aimed specifically at educating students about economics than their two tables of contents.
The Student's Table of Contents speaks to students, piquing their interest to involve them in the economics, and a Instructor's Table of Contents with the economics to better help you organize your teaching—and frankly, you don't need to get excited by economics, you already are.
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This book presents standard intermediate microeconomics material and some material that, in the authors' view, ought to be standard but is not. Introductory economics material is integrated. Standard mathematical tools, including calculus, are used throughout. The book easily serves as an intermediate microeconomics text, and can be used for a relatively sophisticated undergraduate who has not taken a basic university course in economics.
The focus of this book is on the conceptual tools and not on fluff. As such, it reflects the approach actually adopted by the majority of economists for understanding economic activity. There are lots of models and equations, and no pictures of economists ;-)
Economic analysis is used in many situations. When British Petroleum sets the price for Alaskan crude oil, it uses an estimated demand model, both for gasoline consumers and also for the refineries to which BP sells. Economic analysis was used by experts in the antitrust suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice both to understand Microsoft's incentive to foreclose (eliminate from the market) rival Netscape and consumer behavior in the face of alleged foreclosure. Stock market analysts use economic models to forecast the profits of companies to predict the price of their stocks. When the government forecasts the budget deficit or considers a change in environmental regulations, it uses economic models. This book presents the building blocks of the models in common use by an army of economists thousands of times per day.
This book, plus econometrics, provides most of the economic analysis tools to take upper division economics courses of any type.
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Microeconomics: Markets, Methods and Models provides a concise, yet complete, coverage of introductory microeconomic theory, application and policy in a Canadian and global environment. Our beginning is orthodox: we explain and develop the standard tools of analysis in the discipline. Economic policy is about the well-being of the economy's participants, and economic theory should inform economic policy. So we investigate the meaning of ‘well-being' in the context of an efficient use of the economy's resources early in the text.
We next develop an understanding of individual optimizing behaviour. This behaviour in turn is used to link household decisions on savings with firms' decisions on production, expansion and investment. A natural progression is to explain production and cost structures. From the individual level of household and firm decision making, the text then explores behaviour in a variety of different market structures.
Markets for the inputs in the productive process – capital and labour – are a natural component of firm-level decisions. But education and human capital are omnipresent concepts and concerns in the modern economy, so we devote a complete chapter to them. The book then examines the role of a major and important non-market player in the economy – the government, and progresses to develop the key elements in the modern theory of international trade.
Opportunity cost, a global economy and behavioural responses to incentives are the dominant themes.
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Macroeconomics: Theory, Markets, and Policy provides complete, concise coverage of introductory macroeconomics theory and policy. It examines the Canadian economy as an economic system, and embeds current Canadian institutions and approaches to monetary policy and fiscal policy within that system.
The text observes short-run macroeconomic performance, analysis, and policy motivated by the recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s, the financial crisis and recession of 2008-2009, and the prolonged recovery in most industrial countries.
A traditional Aggregate Demand and Supply (AD-AS) model is introduced, and a basic modern AD-AS model is developed.
Numerical examples, diagrams, and basic algebra are used in combination to illustrate and explain economic relationships. Students learn about: the importance of trade flows, consumption, and government budgets; money supply; financial asset prices, yields, and interest rates; employment and unemployment; and other key relationships in the economy. Canadian and selected international data are used to provide real world examples and comparisons.
This text is intended for a one-semester course, and can be used in a two-semester sequence with the companion text, Microeconomics: Markets, Methods, and Models. The three introductory chapters and the International Trade chapter (Chapter 15) are common to both books.
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International Trade: Theory and Policy is built on Steve Suranovic's belief that to understand the international economy, students need to learn how economic models are applied to real world problems. It is true what they say, that ”economists do it with models.“ That's because economic models provide insights about the world that are simply not obtainable solely by discussion of the issues. International Trade: Theory and Policy presents a variety of international trade models including the Ricardian model, the Heckscher-Ohlin model, and the monopolistic competition model. It includes trade policy analysis in both perfectly competitive and imperfectly competitive markets.
The text also addresses current issues such as free trade area formation and administered protection policies. The models are developed, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model's assumptions influence its conclusions. But more importantly, each model and theory is connected to real world policy issues.
The main purpose of the text is to provide a thorough grounding in the arguments concerning the age-old debate about free trade versus protectionism. This text has the following unique features: The text begins with an historical overview of trade policy issues to provide context for the theory. The text concludes with a detailed economic argument supporting free trade.The welfare analysis in the Ricardian, Heckscher-Ohlin and specific factors models emphasize the redistributive effects of free trade by calculating changes in real incomes.The trade policy chapter provides a comprehensive look at many more trade policies than are found in a printed textbook.
A chapter about domestic policies contains an evaluation of domestic taxes and subsidies that are often ignored in traditional trade textbooks but are increasingly important as large countries complain more about each other's domestic agriculture policies and labor and environmental policies.
The text uses the theory of the second-best to explain why protection can improve national welfare. This well-known theoretical result is rarely presented as methodically and consistently as it is in this text.
International Trade: Theory and Policy by Steve Suranovic is intended for a one-semester course in International Trade. After April 2010, you can check out the entire book online or request a desk copy.
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This text strives to reach a median between these two approaches. First, I believe that students need to learn the theory and models to understand how economists understand the world. I also think these ideas are accessible to most students if they are explained thoroughly. This text presents numerous models in some detail, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model's assumptions influence its conclusions. Second, and perhaps more important, students must learn how the models connect with the real world. I believe that theory is done primarily to guide policy. We do positive economics to help answer the normative questions; for example, what should a country do about its trade policy or its exchange rate policy? The results from models give us insights that help us answer these questions. Thus this text strives to explain why each model is interesting by connecting its results to some aspect of a current policy issue. A prime example is found in Chapter 11 "Evaluating the Controversy between Free Trade and Protectionism" of this book, which addresses the age-old question of whether countries should choose free trade or some type of selected protection. The chapter demonstrates how the results of the various models presented throughout the text contribute to our understanding of this long-standing debate.
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This textbook provides an innovative, internationally oriented approach to the teaching of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. Drawing on case studies involving companies and countries around the world, the textbook explores the social, ethical, and business dynamics underlying CSR in such areas as global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food production, free trade and fair trade, anti-sweatshop and living-wage movements, organic foods and textiles, ethical marketing practices and codes, corporate speech and lobbying, and social enterprise. The book is designed to encourage students and instructors to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices by stimulating a class debate based on each case study.
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Russell Cooper and Andrew John have written an economics text aimed directly at students from its very inception. You're thinking, ”Yeah, sure. I've heard that before.“
This textbook, Economics: Theory Through Applications, centers around student needs and expectations through two premises: … Students are motivated to study economics if they see that it relates to their own lives. … Students learn best from an inductive approach, in which they are first confronted with a problem, and then led through the process of solving that problem.
Many books claim to present economics in a way that is digestible for students; Russell and Andrew have truly created one from scratch. This textbook will assist you in increasing students' economic literacy both by developing their aptitude for economic thinking and by presenting key insights about economics that every educated individual should know.
How? Russell and Andrew have done three things in this text to accomplish that goal:
Applications Ahead of Theory: They present all the theory that is standard in Principles books. But by beginning with applications, students get to learn why this theory is needed.
Learning through Repetition: Important tools appear over and over again, allowing students to learn from repetition and to see how one framework can be useful in many different contexts.
A Student's Table of Contents vs. An Instructor's Table of Contents: There is no further proof that Russell and Andrew have created a book aimed specifically at educating students about economics than their two tables of contents.
