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This open access book provides insight into the implementation of Life Cycle approaches along the entire business value chain, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the development of industrial technologies, products, services and policies; and the development and management of smart agricultural systems, smart mobility systems, urban infrastructures and energy for the built environment.
The book is based on papers presented at the 8th International Life Cycle Management Conference that took place from September 3-6, 2017 in Luxembourg, and which was organized by the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) and the University of Luxembourg in the framework of the LCM Conference Series.
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This cutting edge text considers how Asian philanthropists and charitable organizations break with Western philanthropic traditions and examines the key traits and trends that make social investment in Asia unique. Based on 30 case studies of excellent social delivery organizations (SDOs) and social enterprises as well as interviews with ultra-high net-worth individuals throughout Asia, this book examines which characteristics and strategies lead to successful philanthropy and social delivery organizations. Providing evidence based findings on philanthropy, social investment and social delivery organizations in Asia, this book provides invaluable resources for those wishing to deepen their understanding of the sector and what this means for political and economic development in the region.
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This book defines the new field of "Bioeconomy" as the sustainable and innovative use of biomass and biological knowledge to provide food, feed, industrial products, bioenergy and ecological services. The chapters highlight the importance of bioeconomy-related concepts in public, scientific, and political discourse. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the authors outline the dimensions of the bioeconomy as a means of achieving sustainability.
The authors are ideally situated to elaborate on the diverse aspects of the bioeconomy. They have acquired in-depth experience of interdisciplinary research through the university’s focus on “Bioeconomy”, its contribution to the Bioeconomy Research Program of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, and its participation in the German Bioeconomy Council.
With the number of bioeconomy-related projects at European universities rising, this book will provide graduate students and researchers with background information on the bioeconomy. It will familiarize scientific readers with bioeconomy-related terms and give scientific background for economists, agronomists and natural scientists alike.
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Given the manifold challenges of financial sectors in developing and transition countries, one might be tempted to believe that embarking on “green” finance is not a priority for financial systems development. However, there are a number of arguments against this view. Environmental finance, particularly energy efficiency and renewable energy (EERE) finance, can and should serve as an interface to other sub-sectors of financial sector promotion such as microfinance, housing finance or agricultural finance. For example, existing clients of financial institutions include small and medium-sized enterprises and households, and these are often suffering from high energy prices or have no access to sustainable energy supply. At the same time, these clients are vulnerable to extreme weather events, and often hit hardest by the impact of climate change. There are many other examples which show that the financial sector has an enormous potential to support “green” investments. In order to tap this potential on a sustainable basis, it is important to have a sound understanding which role financial institutions can and should play.
Likewise, financial institutions need to understand the demand side of environmental finance markets and the framework conditions in order to be able to design adequate financial products.
This book provides a blend of well-founded professional and scientific perspectives on the potential of Environmental finance in developing and transition countries.
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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 book provides an in-depth study of the management of standards and regulation in sustainable and radical innovation development. It considers the case of micro Combined Heat and Power (mCHP) technology. The developers of this radical innovation in the European heating sector encountered major conflicts when attempting to create or adapt standards when bringing the technology to market. Utilising rich research data and interviews with key actors, the author uses this case to derive a grounded theory on the management of standards and regulation during an innovation process. The results also have important implications for innovators, which are reflected in clear advice for practice.
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Resilience has become an important topic on the safety research agenda and in organizational practice. Most empirical work on resilience has been descriptive, identifying characteristics of work and organizing activity which allow organizations to cope with unexpected situations. Fewer studies have developed testable models and theories that can be used to support interventions aiming to increase resilience and improve safety. In addition, the absent integration of different system levels from individuals, teams, organizations, regulatory bodies, and policy level in theory and practice imply that mechanisms through which resilience is linked across complex systems are not yet well understood. Scientific efforts have been made to develop constructs and models that present relationships; however, these cannot be characterized as sufficient for theory building. There is a need for taking a broader look at resilience practices as a foundation for developing a theoretical framework that can help improve safety in complex systems.
This book does not advocate for one definition or one field of research when talking about resilience; it does not assume that the use of resilience concepts is necessarily positive for safety. We encourage a broad approach, seeking inspiration across different scientific and practical domains for the purpose of further developing resilience at a theoretical and an operational level of relevance for different high-risk industries. The aim of the book is twofold:
1. To explore different approaches for operationalization of resilience across scientific disciplines and system levels.
2. To create a theoretical foundation for a resilience framework across scientific disciplines and system levels.
By presenting chapters from leading international authors representing different research disciplines and practical fields we develop suggestions and inspiration for the research community and practitioners in high-risk industries.
This book is Open Access under a CC-BY licence.
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This open access book summarizes research being pursued within the Manutelligence project, the goal of which is to help enterprises develop smart, social and flexible products with high value added services. Manutelligence has improved Product and Service Design by developing suitable models and methods, and connecting them through a modular, collaborative and secure ICT Platform. The use of real data collected in real time by Internet of Things (IoT) technologies underpins the design of product-service systems and makes it possible to monitor them throughout their life cycle. Available data allows costs and sustainability issues to be more accurately measured and simulated in the form of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Analysing data from IoT systems and sharing LCC and LCA information via the ICT Platform can help to accelerate the design of product-service systems, reduce costs and better understand customer needs. Industrial partners involved in Manutelligence provide a clear overview of the project’s outcomes, and demonstrate how its technological solutions can be used to improve the design of product-service systems and the management of product-service life cycles.
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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 book illustrates a new type of formative intervention for in-service teacher training in entrepreneurship education. The book describes a Change Laboratory and shows how teachers and workshop assistants develop the idea of a multidisciplinary project entailing the design of a self-service and parking lot in a dismissed area close to the city centre. The multidisciplinary project is taken as example of how an idea is debated and turned into collective action and change, the very essence of initiative and entrepreneurship. The Change Laboratory thus increases the participation of students, teachers and stakeholders in the school towards a new curriculum through the implementation of a multidisciplinary project connecting school with the world outside and working life.
The book features a foreword by Luke Pittaway, USASBE Entrepreneurship Educator of 2018.
The manuscript discusses key concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory’s Change Laboratory as a formative intervention in a coherent and accessible manner. Beyond that it carefully illustrates how the Change Laboratory and its principles of double stimulation and ascending from the abstract to the concrete can be used as a theory of change to address one of the difficult and new demands of the European Union’s New Skills Agenda. The author takes the reader through the expansive learning journey and uses strong evidence to show how a new object can be developed, and how associated tensions and contradictions can be surfaced and tackled by actors with a partially shared object, and how a new concept can be formed and enriched through implementation and reflection in a manner that generates collective transformative agency. (Reviewer)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 654101.
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This open access book asks why and how some of the developing countries have “emerged” under a set of similar global conditions, what led individual countries to choose the particular paths that led to their “emergence,” and what challenges confront them. If we are to understand the nature of major risks and uncertainties in the world, we must look squarely at the political and economic dynamics of emerging states, such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, and ASEAN countries. Their rapid economic development has changed the distribution of wealth and power in the world. Yet many of them have middle income status. To global governance issues, they tend to adopt approaches that differ from those of advanced industrialized democracies. At home, rapid economic growth and social changes put pressure on their institutions to change. This volume traces the historical trajectories of two major emerging states, China and India, and two city states, Hong Kong and Singapore. It also analyzes cross-country data to find the general patterns of economic development and sociopolitical change in relation to globalization and to the middle income trap.
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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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This book presents research-based answers to some of the uncertainties that managers, investors, employees and policy makers face.
On its 75th anniversary, BI Norwegian Business School is undoubtedly a research-based school at the forefront of global research. Its research groups contribute excellent, original research that is at the international forefront appearing in top international journals while its graduates, more than any other school, populate CEO positions.
Being at the forefront requires that we look ahead, not merely celebrate past successes. This book does exactly that. It covers three themes:
1) The Digital organization, including algorithm-based decision making and management, digital labor, business models, corporate reputation and branding.
2) The governance of corporations, with specific reference to state-owned and family-owned firms and their auditing.
3) Decision making, incentives and innovation, covering issues such as employee motivation and creativity, environmental R;D, political decision making and customer experience.
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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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This is a good time to reflect on opportunities and challenges for Australia in Latin America. Impressive economic growth and opportunities for trade and investment have made Latin America a dynamic area for Australia and the Asia Pacific region. A growing Latin American population, Australia’s attractiveness to Latin American students, a fascination with the cultural vibrancy of the Americas and an awareness of Latin America’s increasingly independent stance in politics and economic diplomacy, have all contributed to raising the region’s profile. This collection of essays provides the first substantial introduction to Australia’s evolving engagement with Latin America, identifying current trends and opportunities, and making suggestions about how relationships in trade, investment, foreign aid, education, culture and the media could be strengthened.
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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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China is so large that its trading interests and influence are global. But its interests are disproportionately powerful in its immediate Western Pacific and Asia Pacific partners. The evolution of China’s economic relationships with its Asia Pacific partners, in which APEC came to play a significant role in the 1990s, is thus a central part of the story of China’s rapidly growing and changing interaction with the global economy.” - Ross Garnaut
APEC is an important forum thorugh which China can demonstrate its commitment to economic openness. APEC has also been an important vehicle for China’s trade liberalisation on the way towards accession to the WTO.
In facilitating trade liberalisation, APEC and te WTO are mutually reinforcing. APEC prepares China for the WTO and WTO accession encourages China’s active participation in the APEC process. Both APEC membership and WTO accession help with the huge task of China’s domestic reform.
This book sets out China’s strategic interests in APEC in the lead-up to the APEC summit in Shanghai in 2001. Contributors include leading Chinese economists from the APEC Policy Research Centre in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences–Zhang Yunling, Zhang Jianjun, Sun Xuegong, Li Kai, Chen Luzhi, Zhou Xiaobing, Zhao Jianglin–and from the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management at The Australian National University–Peter Drysdale, Ligang Song, Ross Garnaut, hristopher Findlay, Andrew Elek, Yongzheng Yang, Yiping Huang, K.P. Kalirajan, Hadi Soesastro and Chen Chunlai
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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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Production ergonomics – the science and practice of designing industrial workplaces to optimize human well-being and system performance – is a complex challenge for a designer. Humans are a valuable and flexible resource in any system of creation, and as long as they stay healthy, alert and motivated, they perform well and also become more competent over time, which increases their value as a resource. However, if a system designer is not mindful or aware of the many threats to health and system performance that may emerge, the end result may include inefficiency, productivity losses, low working morale, injuries and sick-leave. To help budding system designers and production engineers tackle these design challenges holistically, this book offers a multi-faceted orientation in the prerequisites for healthy and effective human work. We will cover physical, cognitive and organizational aspects of ergonomics, and provide both the individual human perspective and that of groups and populations, ending up with a look at global challenges that require workplaces to become more socially and economically sustainable. This book is written to give you a warm welcome to the subject, and to provide a solid foundation for improving industrial workplaces to attract and retain healthy and productive staff in the long run.
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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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This book serves as a guide for local governments and private enterprises as they navigate the unchartered waters of investing in climate change adaptation and resilience. This book serves not only as a resource guide for identifying potential funding sources but also as a roadmap for asset management and public fi nance processes. It highlights practical synergies between funding mechanisms, as well as the confl icts that may arise between varying interests and strategies. While the main focus of this work is on the State of California, this book offers broader insights for how states, local governments and private enterprises can take those critical fi rst steps in investing in society’s collective adaptation to climate change.
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The Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is written for applied intermediate microeconomics courses. The book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, and natural resource sectors. The field of agricultural economics is relevant, important and interesting. The study of market structures, also called industrial organization, provides powerful, timely, and useful tools for any individual or group making personal choices, business decisions, or public policies in food and agriculture industries.
Readers will benefit from a large number of real-world examples and applications of the economic concepts under discussion. The book introduces economic principles in a succinct and reader-friendly format, providing students and instructors with a clear, up-to-date, and straightforward approach to learning how a market-based economy functions, and how to use simple economic principles for improved decision making. The principles are applied to timely, interesting, and important real-world issues through words, graphs, and simple algebra and calculus. This book is intended for students who study agricultural economics, microeconomics, rural development and environmental policy.
The goal of the book is to encourage students to learn to “think like an economist” through application of benefits and costs to every decision, idea, and strategic decision. This objective is accomplished by including extended examples that cover such topics as the analysis of consumer decisions, supply and demand, and market efficiency; the design of pricing strategies; advertising and marketing decisions; and public policy analysis.
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This book analyzes the possibilities for effective global governance of science in Europe, India and China. Authors from the three regions join forces to explore how ethical concerns over new technologies can be incorporated into global science and technology policies. The first chapter introduces the topic, offering a global perspective on embedding ethics in science and technology policy. Chapter Two compares the institutionalization of ethical debates in science, technology and innovation policy in three important regions: Europe, India and China. The third chapter explores public perceptions of science and technology in these same three regions. Chapter Four discusses public engagement in the governance of science and technology, and Chapter Five reviews science and technology governance and European values. The sixth chapter describes and analyzes values demonstrated in the constitution of the People’s Republic of China. Chapter Seven describes emerging evidence from India on the uses of science and technology for socio-economic development, and the quest for inclusive growth. In Chapter Eight, the authors propose a comparative framework for studying global ethics in science and technology. The following three chapters offer case studies and analysis of three emerging industries in India, China and Europe: new food technologies, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. Chapter 12 gathers all these threads for a comprehensive discussion on incorporating ethics into science and technology policy. The analysis is undertaken against the backdrop of different value systems and varying levels of public perception of risks and benefits. The book introduces a common analytical framework for the comparative discussion of ethics at the international level. The authors offer policy recommendations for effective collaboration among the three regions, to promote responsible governance in science and technology and a common analytical perspective in ethics.
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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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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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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, Macroeconomics: 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 social security, globalization, and the wealth and poverty of nations.
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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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.
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This textbook introduces readers to the idea of cooperation and mutualism. Cooperatives and mutuals are participatory organizations in which members participate in control and governance, receive economic benefits through patronage refunds or net income, and become owners through equity. These mutual-benefit organizations exist alongside non-profit organizations and investor-benefit organizations through the global economy.
