Managers are often under great pressure to improve the performance of their organizations. To improve performance, one needs to constantly evaluate operations or processes related to producing products, providing services, and marketing and selling products. Performance evaluation and benchmarking are a widely used method to identify and adopt best practices as a means to improve performance and increase productivity, and are particularly valuable when no objective or engineered standard is available to define efficient and effective performance. For this reason, benchmarking is often used in managing service operations, because service standards (benchmarks) are more difficult to define than manufacturing standards. Benchmarks can be established but they are somewhat limited as they work with single measurements one at a time. It is difficult to evaluate an organization's performance when there are multiple inputs and outputs to the system. The difficulties are further enhanced when the relationships between the inputs and the outputs are complex and involve unknown tradeoffs. It is critical to show benchmarks where multiple measurements exist. The current book introduces the methodology of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and its uses in performance evaluation and benchmarking under the context of multiple performance measures.

A lot of economic problems can formulated as constrained optimizations and equilibration of their solutions. Various mathematical theories have been supplying economists with indispensable machineries for these problems arising in economic theory. Conversely, mathematicians have been stimulated by various mathematical difficulties raised by economic theories. The series is designed to bring together those mathematicians who were seriously interested in getting new challenging stimuli from economic theories with those economists who are seeking for effective mathematical tools for their researchers. Members of the editorial board of this series consists of following prominent economists and mathematicians: Managing Editors: S. Kusuoka (Univ. Tokyo), A. Yamazaki (Hitotsubashi Univ.) - Editors: R. Anderson (U.C.Berkeley), C. Castaing (Univ. Montpellier II), F. H. Clarke (Univ. Lyon I), E. Dierker (Univ. Vienna), D. Duffie (Stanford Univ.), L.C. Evans (U.C. Berkeley), T. Fujimoto (Fukuoka Univ.), J. -M. Grandmont (CREST-CNRS), N. Hirano (Yokohama National Univ.), L. Hurwicz (Univ. of Minnesota), T. Ichiishi (Hitotsubashi Univ.), A. Ioffe (Israel Institute of Technology), S. Iwamoto (Kyushu Univ.), K. Kamiya (Univ. Tokyo), K. Kawamata (Keio Univ.), N. Kikuchi (Keio Univ.), T. Maruyama (Keio Univ.), H. Matano (Univ. Tokyo), K. Nishimura (Kyoto Univ.), M. K. Richter (Univ. Minnesota), Y. Takahashi (Kyoto Univ.), M. Valadier (Univ. Montpellier II), M. Yano (Keio Univ).

This book addresses several problems related to automated valuation methodologies (AVM). Following the non-agency mortgage crisis, it offers a variety of approaches to improve the efficiency and quality of an automated valuation methodology (AVM) dealing with emerging problems and different contexts. Spatial issue, evolution of AVM standards, multilevel models, fuzzy and rough set applications and quantitative methods to define comparables are just some of the topics discussed.

The last survey of the rent-seeking literature took place more than a decade ago. Since that time a great deal of new research has been published in a wide variety of journals, covering a wide variety of topics. The breadth of that research is such that very few researchers will be familiar with more than a small part of contemporary research, and very few libraries will be able to provide access to the full breadth of that research. This two-volume collection provides an extensive overview of 40 years of rent-seeking research.

The volumes include the foundational papers, many of which have not been in print for two decades. They include recent game-theoretic analyses of rent-seeking contests and also applications of the rent-seeking concepts and methodology to economic regulation, international trade policy, economic history, political competition, and other social phenomena. The new collection is more than twice as large as any previous collection and both updates and extends the earlier surveys. Volume I contains previously published research on the theory of rent-seeking contests, which is an important strand of contemporary game theory. Volume II contains previously published research that uses the theory of rent-seeking to analyze a broad range of public policy and social science topics.

The editors spent more than a year assembling possible papers and, although the selections fill two large volumes, many more papers could have been included. Our aim has been to include the most important contributions in the literature and give a broad overview of secondary contributions. The end result is a fine collection that shows the flexibility and power of the rent-seeking methodology, and the light shed on a broad range of political, social, and institutional research issues. Each volume begins with an extensive survey of the literature written by the editors and an overview of the contributions included in the two volumes.

The objective of this book is to construct an individually emancipatory economic and political philosophy. This means a concrete-based, man-centered, non-hypostatizing, anti-dialectical approach to the apprehension of the material, i.e. nature in general. This constitutes an emancipation from culture-based understandings of reality, and in particular from the metaphysically biased type of culture represented by capitalism. The proposed philosophical emancipation means individual liberation from the logically flawed, massifying character of the dominant mode of thought of capitalist times. From these bases, the social sciences can also be reformulated. Micocci argues that capitalism can be conceptualized as a limited and limiting socialized mode of thought, an intellectuality whose dialectical features are effectively identified by using the proxy of political economy, both marxist and mainstream. Political economy in fact, being a most representative instance of dialectical thinking, mirrors the dialectical nature of capitalist economic and political relationships. According to Micocci, non-dialectical occurrences in capitalism are simply excluded from normal social, economic, and intellectual activities, which are performed in a metaphysical, intellectually isolated environment. In capitalism, therefore, the materials, the concrete, i.e. nature itself, is not considered as a whole but only as occasional instances. Micocci describes capitalism, in sum, as an intellectually constructed culture (a metaphysics) which preserves itself, and props itself up, by means of its iterative (market-like) functioning.

Blending past and present, this brief history of economics is the perfect book for introducing students to the field.A Brief History of Economics illustrates how the ideas of the great economists not only influenced societies but were themselves shaped by their cultural milieu. Understanding the economists' visions - lucidly and vividly unveiled by Canterbery - allows readers to place economics within a broader community of ideas. Magically, the author links Adam Smith to Isaac Newton's idea of an orderly universe, F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby to Thorstein Veblen, John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath to the Great Depression, and Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities to Reaganomics.Often humorous, Canterbery's easy style will make the student's first foray into economics lively and relevant. Readers will dismiss "dismal" from the science.

This book was prompted by the current, lingering financial crisis, which has its basis in the disorderly financial practices of the United States. These practices have resulted in an accumulated debt which now requires the United States to run financial policies at artificially low interest rates. In principle, these low interest rates should flood the markets with ready money. Since the spread for banks is very thin, however, and they must carefully discriminate between available risks and finance only those propositions with no risk, credit is not abundantly available. With staggering foreign debt and a myriad of other perils looming, this great nation is at peril for sure. In the tradition of the Heilbronn Symposium, the authors look at historical cases as a means of understanding the current situation and informing possible solutions to a problem that continues to affect the global economy. The volume analyzes cases such as Prussia, Greece, Italy, Estonia, and the European Union. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of economic history as well as policy makers who may benefit from an historical understanding of the economic challenges their countries currently face.

This volume addresses important issues in economic theory and international trade with contributions from internationally renowned researchers - including some of Murray C. Kemp's many colleagues and former students.Economic Theory and International Trade begins with an examination of classical trade theory and welfare economics. It goes on to discuss international trade policy, including international trading agreements, taxation, tariffs and quotas. Attention then turns to the role of market structure in joint ventures, innovation, tariff policy and political economy. The final section is devoted to economic dynamics and international economics, with an emphasis on learning mechanisms, sustainable growth and immigration. This book will be indispensable to academics and graduate students in the area of international trade. Economic theorists and international trade specialists such as research units and researchers in government will also find this book of great interest.

`Here is a feast of diagrams, presented by many expert authors in a context of history of thought. It will be very useful for researchers, students and textbook writers.' - Max Corden, University of Melbourne, Australia `Francis Collins oversaw the human genome project. Mark Blaug and Peter Lloyd have done the same for economics, demonstrating that figures and diagrams are the DNA building blocks of the discipline. This book has them all: backward-bending labor supply, cobweb diagram, circular flow, production possibility frontier, Stolper-Samuelson box, IS/LM, the Phillips curve and many more. Each is portrayed, its importance explained, its origin revealed, and the reader often encounters Stigler's Law of Eponymy (No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer).' - Kenneth G. Elzinga, University of Virginia `Both students and professors will welcome this original and unique collection. Analytically tighter and more complete expositions than much existing literature should be very welcome in graduate theory courses. Authors of history of economic thought texts will have to clarify and correct the historical record regarding who said what and when, and both reconfigure the assignment of credit and question use of the term "precursor": early users did more than hint at the full development; often creating tools.' - Warren Samuels, Michigan State University This is a unique account of the role played by 58 figures and diagrams commonly used in economic theory. These cover a large part of mainstream economic analysis, both microeconomics and macroeconomics and also general equilibrium theory. The authoritative contributors have produced a well-considered and definitive selection including some from empirical research such as the Phillips curve, the Kuznets curve and the Lorenz curve. Almost all of them are still found in contemporary textbooks and research. Each entry presents an accurate and concise record of the history of the figure or diagram, including later developments and any controversy that arose in its development. As a whole, the book highlights how the use of geometric methods has played a central part in the development of economic theory and analysis; as a method of discovery, more commonly as a method of exposition and occasionally as a method of proof of propositions in economic theory and analysis. This highly anticipated book will appeal to theorists in microeconomics or macroeconomics, scholars of economic theory and analysis, as well as students in microeconomics, general equilibrium theory or macroeconomics at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level who want a definitive account of some figure or diagram. Historians of economic thought and methodologists will also find this book an invaluable resource. Contributors: S. Ashok, R.E. Backhouse, W.J. Baumol, M. Blaug, R. Boyer, L. Cameron, J.S. Chipman, A.J. Cohen, J.S. Cramer, J. Creedy, A.V. Deardorff, R.W. Dimand, A. Dixit, R. Dixon, B.C. Eaton, J. Eichberger, N. Erkal, R. Fare, L. Gangadharan, N. Giocoli, Y. Giraud, S. Grosskopf, H. Haller, D.W. Hands, G.C. Harcourt, T.M. Humphrey, R.W. Jones, N. Kakwani, M. Kemp, J.E. King, A.O. Krueger, D. Laidler, C. Lee, R.G. Lipsey, P. Lloyd, F. Maclachlan, R. Middleton, M. Nerlove, Y.-K. Ng, A. Panagariya, P. Rodenburg, R. Rothschild, M. Schneider, H.-l. Shi, A. Skinner, B.J. Spencer, H. Thompson, J. Whalley, R. Williams, W.C. Woo, A.D. Woodland, W. Young

This book provides an assessment of the impact that Keynesian economics has had over the past 70 years, with contributions by many of Keynes's leading proponents.

In microeconomics, the decisions and functioning of individual consumers and households (what to do, what to buy, etc.), and firms or other organisations (what goods to produce, how to produce them, what prices to charge, etc.) are considered. It includes the study of the demand, supply and prices of individual goods and services such as petrol, maize, haircuts and medical services.

Understanding microeconomics is a comprehensive introduction to microeconomics in general, set against a contemporary South African background. The easy style and many practical examples make the content extremely accessible. The book covers all the material usually prescribed for introductory courses, and it lays a solid foundation for intermediate and advanced studies in economics.

This second edition is a thoroughly revised and slightly expanded version of the original one. Examples have been adjusted (where necessary), a few new topics are introduced and review questions are provided at the end of each chapter.

Adam Smith revolutionized economic theory with his 1776 work An Inquiry to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He proposed rules governing labor, supply, and demand; and describes division of labor, stockpiling of wealth, lending, and interest. Smith also discusses how economies lead to opulence. Wealth of Nations also offers a defense for free-market capitalism. This edition of Wealth of Nations is an abridged version edited by Harvard economics professor CHARLES JESSE BULLOCK (1869-1941) and published in 1901 by Harvard Classics, a series that offered the essential readings for anyone who wanted the functional equivalent of a liberal arts education. Any student of economics should be familiar with the concepts and laws that Smith developed, as much of economic theory is still based upon his work. Scottish economist and philosopher ADAM SMITH (1723-1790) helped set standards in the fields of political economics and moral philosophy, playing a key role in the early development of the scholarship of economics. His other writings include Essays on Philosophical Subjects.

This book is a critical and carefully documented study of the influence of the teachings of economist Milton Friedman on the current administration. Claiming that Friedman's popular writings have exerted a powerful influence on the policies, ideology, and rhetoric of the Reagan administration, the author examines some 300 columns Friedman has written for "Newsweek" along with his best-selling books, "Capitalism and Freedom" and "Free to Choose." While conceding that President Reagan has sometimes opposed Friedman's recommendations, the author argues that by examining which Reagan proposals deviated from Friedman's laissez-faire line we can gain insight into the Presidet's real objectives as distinguished from the goals contained in his free-market rhetoric.

The historical record concerning industrialization since 1770 is consistent with the classical view of economic growth, but not with the currently accepted neo-classical growth theory. Flaws in the logic and empirical short-comings of the neo-classical theory suggest that it should be rejected. Specifically, ideas that originate in static concepts cannot be applied to growth, a dynamic process. Nineteenth-century industrialization, the world wars and the Depression, the post-war boom, and the more recent slowdown in growth are discussed.

What is the role of human agency in Friedrich Hayek's thought? This volume situates Hayek's writing as it relates to economic organization and activity, particularly to assess what role Hayek assigns to leaders in determining economic progress. Peart and Levy explore the scope for policy makers leading the economy through crisis, how much agency policy makers should assume, and the leadership role that economists should legitimately play in the development and implementation of new economic policy.Hayek held that economists should take center stage in terms of advocating economic policy but his was a quite different sort of advocacy. He disagreed with some of his contemporaries on what economic policies were best suited to promote economic expansion and stability, seeing economic aggregation as fraught with methodological difficulties and, therefore, that no scientist or policy maker had the wherewithal to direct market transactions. The volume examines the nature of these disagreements along with a number of other themes that characterize Hayek's lifelong work.

This book consists of five acts and two interludes, which are all written as dialogues between three main characters and other supporting characters. Each act discusses the epistemological, institutional and methodological foundations of game theory and economics, while using various stories and examples. A featured aspect of those discussions is that many forms of mutual misunderstanding are involved in social situations as well as in those fields themselves. One Japanese traditional comic story called the Konnyaku Mondo is representative and gives hints of how our thought is constrained by incorrect beliefs. Each dialogue critically examines extant theories and common misunderstanding in game theory and economics in order to find possible future developments of those fields.

This book is a collection of specially-commissioned chapters from philosophers, economists, political and behavioral economists, cognitive and organizational psychologists, computer scientists, sociologists and permutations thereof as befits the polymathic subject of this book: Herbert Simon. The tripartite of the title, Minds, Models and Milieux, connotes the three inextricably linked areas to which Herbert Simon made the most distinguished of contributions. 'Minds' connotes Simon's abiding interest in theorizing human behavior, rationality, and decision-making; 'Models' connotes his extensive computer simulation work in the service of his interest in understanding minds, but also in the service of minds that are situated in a complex social 'Milieux'. This collection while intended to commemorate the centenary of Simon's birth simultaneously offers a timely reassessment of some of his central insights and illustrates the exponentially growing interest in Simon's work from beyond the usual disciplines and constituencies.

"A Brief History of Economics" illustrates how the ideas of the great economists not only influenced societies but were themselves shaped by their cultural milieu. Understanding the economists' visions - lucidly and vividly unveiled by Canterbery -allows readers to place economics within a broader community of ideas. Magically, the author links Adam Smith to Isaac Newton's idea of an orderly universe, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" to Thornstein Veblen, John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" to the Great Depression, and Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities" to Reaganomics. Often humorous, Canterbery's easy style should make the student's first foray into economics lively and relevant. Readers will no longer dare call it the "dismal science".

An introductory and analytical look into the essence of Marxian economics that begins the process of divorcing Marxian economics from Stalinism.

The ultimate survival of an economic system depends on whether or not the interrelationships between its institutions and its members are consistent with each other. Consistency and Viability of Capitalist Economic Systems develops an original analytical framework to understand the relationship between the economic, political, and ideological structures, the external environment, and the process of reform that give rise to certain economic systems by establishing consistency. Consistency, however, is not enough; a consistent economic system must be flexible and have the internal mechanisms to be able to adapt to changes in social reality, thus making possible its survival over time. In other words, the economic system is viable when it is able to encourage increases in labor productivity and there is popular support. Thus the economic system, in its broad social science context, must be both consistent and viable. Economic systems examined in this text are the capitalist economics systems of Great Britain, Japan, European Union and Sweden.

This edited volume studies the relationship between big business and the Latin American dictatorial regimes during the Cold War. The first section provides a general background about the contemporary history of business corporations and dictatorships in the twentieth century at the international level. The second section comprises chapters that analyze five national cases (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru), as well as a comparative analysis of the banking sector in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay). The third section presents six case studies of large companies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Central America. This book is crucial reading because it provides the first comprehensive analysis of a key yet understudied topic in Cold War history in Latin America.

To derive rational and convincible solutions to practical decision making problems in complex and hierarchical human organizations, the decision making problems are formulated as relevant mathematical programming problems which are solved by developing optimization techniques so as to exploit characteristics or structural features of the formulated problems. In particular, for resolving con?ict in decision making in hierarchical managerial or public organizations, the multi level formula tion of the mathematical programming problems has been often employed together with the solution concept of Stackelberg equilibrium. However, weconceivethatapairoftheconventionalformulationandthesolution concept is not always suf?cient to cope with a large variety of decision making situations in actual hierarchical organizations. The following issues should be taken into consideration in expression and formulation of decision making problems. Informulationofmathematicalprogrammingproblems, itistacitlysupposedthat decisions are made by a single person while game theory deals with economic be havior of multiple decision makers with fully rational judgment. Because two level mathematical programming problems are interpreted as static Stackelberg games, multi level mathematical programming is relevant to noncooperative game theory; in conventional multi level mathematical programming models employing the so lution concept of Stackelberg equilibrium, it is assumed that there is no communi cation among decision makers, or they do not make any binding agreement even if there exists such communication. However, for decision making problems in such as decentralized large ?rms with divisional independence, it is quite natural to sup pose that there exists communication and some cooperative relationship among the decision maker

There can be no rise in the value of labor without a fall of profits. If the corn is to be divided between the farmer and the laborer, the larger the proportion that is given to the latter the less will remain for the former. -from "On Value" Friend to, colleague of, and influence on the likes of James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Thomas Malthus, revolutionary British writer DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823) was one of the foundational thinkers of classical economics, developing theories of rent, wages, profits, value, and labor that continue to dramatically impact economic philosophy today. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, first published in 1817, is his major work. Here, he introduces the concept of comparative advantage, explores the impact of taxes, examines the effects of accumulation of profits and interest, discusses trade, currency, and banks, and much more. ALSO FROM COSIMO: Ricardo's Classics of Economics: The High Price of Bullion and An Essay on Profits British writer DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823) was one of the foundational thinkers of classical economics, developing theories of rent, wages, profits, value, and labor that continue to dramatically impact economic philosophy today.

This book covers a wide spectrum of issues in behavioural game theory (BGT), ranging from players' heterogeneity, social preferences and reciprocity, to learning, information and punishment in public good games. The book opens up the interdisciplinary aspects of BGT, and presents models which are tested through experimental methods.

This is the first book combining research on the Global Environment, Catastrophic Risks and Economic Theory and Policy. Modern economic theory originated in the middle of the twentieth century when industrial expansion coupled with population growth led to a voracious use of natural resources and global environmental concerns. It is uncontested that, for the first time in recorded history, humans dominate the planet, changing the planet's atmosphere, its bodies of water, and the complex web of species that makes life on earth. This radical change in circumstances led to rethinking of the foundations of human organization and, in particular, the industrial economy and the economic theory behind it. This book brings together new approaches on multiple levels: environmental sustainability requires rethinking in terms of economic theory and policy as well as the considerations of catastrophic risk and extremal events. Leading experts address questions of economic governance, risk management, policy decision making and distribution across time and space.