894 Posts Found

Being able to get a job is more important than stable prices to people’s sense of satisfaction and happiness. So says research on the effects of inflation and unemployment by Justin Wolfers, assistant professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His findings, based on analysis of over half a million individual surveys, show that unemployment outweighs inflation by a ratio of … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Justin Wolfers | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Economics

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The majority of the products in most companies are cash traps. They will absorb more money forever than they will generate. This is true even though they may show a profit according to the books of account. Continued investment sends good money after bad. Escape from the trap requires extreme measures. Either stop investing and manage solely to maximize cash withdrawal, or invest so heavily … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Competition, Economics

Capitalism at the Crossroads is a generally well-written and well-argued collection of ideas developed over several decades of research on the promise of what Professor Hart calls the sustainable global enterprise – “a new private sector-based approach to development that creates profitable businesses that simultaneously raise the quality of life for the world’s poor, respect cultural diversity, and conserve the ecological integrity of the planet … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Stuart L. Hart | Subjects: Economics, International

Economy.com’s FreeLunch provides you with FREE access to over 100,000 economic, financial, and demographic data series. Topics include:
– Consumer Markets
– Demographics
– Flow of Funds
– GDP
– Government
– Income & Earnings
– Industry
– International Trade
– Labor markets
– Money, Credit & Interest rates
– Prices
– Real Estate
– Society
– Stock Markets & Foreign Currency

Content: Online Resource | Source: Economy.com | Subjects: Economics, Finance

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Celebrated economist Jeffrey Sachs has a plan to eliminate extreme poverty around the world by 2025. If you think that is too ambitious or wildly unrealistic, you need to read this book. His focus is on the one billion poorest individuals around the world who are caught in a poverty trap of disease, physical isolation, environmental stress, political instability, and lack of access to capital, … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Jeffrey Sachs | Subjects: Economics, International

This article argues that a big new managerial challenge is to lower transaction costs and that the way to do this is to make trust scalable. It’s not an argument you hear every day. In fact, it may surprise people. Most of us think that IT has lowered transaction costs. But the authors present evidence that our obsession with lowering production costs has led to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Bob Wolf, Philip Evans | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Economics, Miscellaneous

America is spending while the rest of the world is saving. But for how long?

Editor’s Note: I don’t usually like to add topical articles but the analysis in this one has learning value that I believe will extend beyond the current economic environment…

Content: Article | Author: Zanny Minton Beddoes | Source: The Economist | Subject: Economics

Markets are the most potent antipoverty engine there is – but only where they work well. The caveat is crucial.

Left to themselves, markets can fail. To deliver their full benefits they need support from a set of rules, customs, and institutions. They cannot operate efficiently in a vacuum. If the rules of the market game are inadequate, as often they are, it is difficult … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Stanford University | Subject: Economics

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Stephen J. Dubner, Steven D. Levitt | Subject: Economics

Subsidy delays adjustment and innovation rather than promoting it. . . . Ongoing subsidies dull incentives and create an attitude of dependence. Government support makes it difficult to get industry to invest and take risk without it. Attention is focused on renewing subsidies rather than [on] creating true competitive advantage. One subsidized industry propagates its noncompetitiveness to others. Once started, subsidy is difficult to stop. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Sources: The Competitive Advantage of Nations, The Independent Review | Subjects: Economics, Government

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The savings enjoyed by companies that move labor-intensive service industry work from the United States to countries with lower labor costs have triggered an exodus of US business-processing jobs. Some analysts project that by 2015 roughly 3.3 million of them will have moved abroad. This prospect has prompted calls for the government to restrict offshoring. But they overlook the benefits that accrue to the US … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Diana Farrell, Vivek Agrawal | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subject: Economics

In a deconstructed value chain, one of the surest paths to dominance is to establish a standard in a key business layer…The existence of standards benefits consumers in two fundamental ways. In the layer itself, a single standard greatly expands value for consumers by allowing them to take advantage of powerful network effects…Standards also have an enormous second-order economic impact. The adoption of a standard … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Economics, Strategy

Ethan Kapstein poses the question of what economic “justice” actually means in today’s increasingly interconnected world. He compares the views held by the three predominant contemporary schools of thought on globalisation issues – the communitarians, the liberal internationalists and the cosmopolitans – and offers evidence either supporting or undermining their different positions.

Editor’s Note: I don’t know why, but there is no direct link to … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ethan Kapstein | Source: INSEAD Knowledge | Subjects: Economics, Social Responsibility (ESG)

One of the central questions in the field of developmental economics is why some countries develop over time and become advanced, while others remain very poor? Executive MBA students at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, led by fellow student Lynn Taylor, a trained psychologist, set out to determine whether factors predictive of resilience among children from disadvantaged backgrounds and factors associated with organizational resilience could … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: Knowledge@Emory | Subjects: Economics, International

In recent years, productivity-enhancing information technology has wrought significant changes in global labor markets. But the process may just be getting started.

Content: Article | Author: Alexander Tuzhilin | Source: STERNbusiness (NYU) | Subjects: Economics, IT / Technology / E-Business

Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim, in his new book, The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Thomas L. Friedman | Subjects: Economics, International

Globalization is a fact. You can’t stop it; it has already happened; it is here to stay. And we are moving into a new global stage.

A radically new world is taking shape from the ashes of yesterday’s nation-based economic world. To succeed, you must act on the global stage, leveraging radically new drivers of economic power and growth. Legendary business strategist Kenichi Ohmae-who in The … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Author: Kenichi Ohmae | Subjects: Economics, International