This series, originally published between 1990 and 1994 arose out of the increasing need for the international debate and dissemination of on-going empirical and theoretical research associated with rural areas in advanced societies. Rural areas, then, as now, their residents and agencies, are facing rapid social, economic and political change. Local, national and international political forces have direct influence upon rural areas, not only for those concerned with agriculture but also regarding rural development initiatives, overall economic and social policy and regional and fiscal arrangements. The volumes are designed to appeal to a wide audience associated with international comparative research. They provide reviews of research available at the original time of publication, taking as their focus one major theme per volume.

This fully updated and expanded second edition of Human Resource Management examines the role of human resource management in the hospitality and tourism industry. The subject is approached from four perspectives: * the social psychology of managing people * the economics of labour * the practical techniques * strategy. The author argues that labour costs, labour utilisation, labour market behaviour and pay are inseparable from the skills of managing people. The book contains an important analysis of the labour market for this industry and now, in its second edition includes, among others, chapters on attitude measurement, customer-employee relations, questionnaire design and organizational change. Human Resource Management in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry is written in a clear, user-friendly style and offers a challenging view of the subject and an opportunity to learn an important aspect of management in an applied context. It is appropriate for degree level students and practitioners in the industry.

Psychological and ecological research has eroded the foundation of mainstream economics, and a new approach is needed rather than an adaptation of existing theory. The most promising new approach is doughnut economics (DE), version 2.0 of the discipline of economics for the 21st century that presents economics as an embedded discipline between the social foundation and the ecosystem with a focus on the disciplinary boundaries. The study of neuroeconomics, such as doughnut economics, still holds a gap between ""laboratory"" findings on homo neuroeconomics and the issues in contemporary behavioral economics. To understand a positivist application of doughnut economics within the new economic frameworks of the 21st century, further research must be discussed. Applied Doughnut Economics and Neuroeconomic Psychology for Business and Politics follows the economic history from the Stone Age to that of the modern creative man and then provides a specific focus on doughnut economics and 21st century neuroeconomics. This new type of behavioral economics will be linked to neuroeconomic psychology and behavioral science with a focus in areas such as cognitive training, economic ecology, the new welfare economy, and globalized markets. This book is ideal for health economists, economists, leaders in politics and business, psychologists, economic theorists, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in doughnut economics and the psychology behind it.

Why would an authoritarian regime expand social welfare provision in the absence of democratization? Yet China, the world's largest and most powerful authoritarian state, has expanded its social health insurance system at an unprecedented rate, increasing enrollment from 20 percent of its population in 2000 to 95 percent in 2012. Significantly, people who were uninsured, such as peasants and the urban poor, are now covered, but their insurance is less comprehensive than that of China's elite. With the wellbeing of 1.4 billion people and the stability of the regime at stake, social health insurance is now a major political issue for Chinese leadership and ordinary citizens. In Social Protection under Authoritarianism, Xian Huang analyzes the transformation of China's social health insurance in the first decade of the 2000s, addressing its expansion and how it is distributed. Drawing from government documents, filed interviews, survey data, and government statistics, she reveals that Chinese leaders have a strategy of "stratified expansion," perpetuating a particularly privileged program for the elites while developing an essentially modest health provision for the masses. She contends that this strategy effectively balances between elites and masses to maximize the regime's prospects of stability. In China's multilevel governance, both centralized and decentralized structures are involved in the distribution of social health insurance. When local leaders implement the stratified expansion of social health insurance, they respond to varied local conditions. As a result, China's health insurance policies differ dramatically across subnational regions as well as socioeconomic groups. Providing an in-depth look into China's health insurance system, this book sheds light not only on Chinese politics, but also on how social benefits function in authoritarian regimes and decentralized multilevel governance settings.

This volume of Research in Economic Anthropology, which presents ten peer-reviewed anthropological papers, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the series by taking a close look at human vulnerability: the ways in which people attempt to cope with it and barriers to successfully overcoming it. The two leading articles both take up the issue of microfinance; Daniel Murphy examines the influences of this in the lives of pastoralists in Mongolia, and Megan Hinrichsen explores related processes among vendors in Quito, Ecuador. Next, Elena Sischarenco looks at ways of dealing with vulnerability in the northern Italian construction industry. Sarah Lyon investigates smallholders' experiences with, and adaptations to, the coffee rust disaster in Oaxaca, Mexico, as well as the functions of fair trade organizations. Rounding out the first half of the volume is Raja Swamy's analysis of post-tsunami reconstruction in Tamil Nadu, India. The second half starts with Janneke Verheijen's investigation of women's survival strategies in rural Malawi, southeast Africa, and Lai Wo's study of intimate relationships and transactions between Western men and Southeast Asian women in Hong Kong. Courtney Lewis explores political and economic sovereignty among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, USA. Finally, the volume turns to the past with Kari Henquinet's examination of the evolution of American faith-based overseas development aid projects in the 20th century, and with Serge Svizzero's and Clement Tisdell's analysis of Early Bronze Age desert kite use for trapping gazelles in parts of Southwest Asia. Ultimately, it is hoped that this and other scholarly investigations into human vulnerability will lead to better preventive and curative measures, for an imperfect world.

In an era of federal deficits and struggling municipalities, states have emerged as the most significant governmental actors. But state governments face the major challenge of fiscal planning in the midst of economic change. Roy Bahl and William Duncombe tackle this challenge head-on. Using New York as a case study, they identify looming dangers for state revenue and expenditure planning. Bahl and Duncombe begin with the premise that one cannot separate an evaluation of fiscal performance from an evaluation of economic performance. Accordingly, they describe and analyze the patterns of population, employment, and personal income growth. Following this is a study of state and local government finances in New York since 1970 and a recounting of the fiscal adjustments that were taken in the face of slower and then faster growth in the economy.

The authors conclude that based on current conditions, the state and its local governments are in for fiscal belt-tightening. They note that the state should take a comprehensive view in planning the development and retrenchment of its government sector. The book is thought-provoking, exhaustively researched, and sensibly written. Its lessons are applicable everywhere and should be read by all those seeking a route through the tangled thicket of government policy for economic growth.

Women's Economic Writing in the Nineteenth Century is the first comprehensive collection of women's economic writing in the long nineteenth century. The four-volume anthology includes writing from women around the world, showcases the wide variety and range of economic writing by women in the period, and establishes a tradition of women's economic writing; selections include didactic tales, fictional illustrations, poetry, economic theory, social theory, reports, letters, novels, speeches, dialogues, and self-help books. The anthology is divided into eight themed sections: political economy, feminist economics, domestic economics, labor, philanthropy and poverty, consumerism, emigration and empire, and self-help. Each section begins with an introduction that tells a story about women writers' relationship to the section theme and then provides an overview of the selections contained therein. Women's Economic Writing in the Nineteenth Century demonstrates just how common it was for women to write about economics in the nineteenth century and establishes important throughlines and trajectories within their body of work.

The marketing of a destination requires effective planning and organization to engage prospective visitors. However, adequately marketing a destination requires not only a knowledge of the marketing channels but also an in-depth understanding of the motives and facilitators of tourism. Strategic Perspectives in Destination Marketing is a collection of innovative research on the methods and applications of branding in the tourism, travel, and hospitality industry sectors. It explores the pedagogical applications of socio-economic, environmental, and technological impacts of tourism through various regional-focused empirical studies and contemporary discussions. While highlighting topics including destination authenticity, consumer behavior, online travel businesses, and tourism promotion, this book is ideally designed for managers, travel agents, tourism professionals, executives, marketing agencies, academicians, researchers, and graduate-level students seeking current research on the applications of branding strategies in the tourism sector.

Goes beyond the boardroom to examine gender impacts in supply chains, in the community and among consumersFocuses on CSR practice as it relates to gender equalityContributions from practitioners in business, civil society and academia

Based on recent advances in economics, especially those in behavioral economics, this book elucidates theoretically and empirically the mechanism of time-inconsistent decision making that leads to various forms of self-destructive behavior. The topics include over-eating and obesity, over-spending, over-borrowing, under-saving, procrastination, smoking, gambling, over-drinking, and other intemperate behaviors, all of which relate to serious social problems in advanced countries. In this book, the author attempts to construct a bridge between the basic theory of time discounting, especially as of hyperbolic discounting, and empirically observed "irrational (non-classical)" behavior in the various contexts just mentioned. The empirical validity of the theory is discussed using unique micro data as well as public macro data. The book proposes prescriptions for individual decision makers, whether sophisticated or naive, to make better choices in self-control problems, and also provides policy makers with useful advice for influencing people's decision making in the right directions. This work is recommended not only to general readers who seek to learn how to attain better self-regulation under self-control problems. It also helps researchers who seek an overview of positive and normative implications of hyperbolic discounting, and thereby reconstruct economic theory for a better understanding of actual human behavior and the resulting economic dynamics .

This well-illustrated work by a distinguished social historian narrates the epic of the great age of railway history and development. It sets this in the context of the social history and its contemporary impact on society as a whole. It shows authoritatively how the railways revolutionised everything - being the most spectacular change of the Industrial Revolution. This impact continues to shape our life today, as the railways transformed the economic life of whole nations and transformed the quality of life itself. The author shows how railways helped break down class barriers, and established quite new ones which persist today. The railways radically altered the pattern of leisure, too, in upper, middle, and working class life. And they made possible the growth of vast suburban areas, and ushered in the computer age. In so many ways the railways formed the social structures of today's industrial advances, as the author shows. This is a very readable and highly individual social history full of valuable insights.

This book offers a detailed analysis of the key sectors in the Italian economy, with the focus especially on areas in which the economy excels, such as the automatic packaging machinery sector, pharmaceutical production, the food and wine industry, and tourism. The book explains how, contrary to widespread opinion, Italy is one of the world's most competitive countries in foreign trade, as confirmed by a new index compiled by Fondazione Edison that highlights its strengths and top traded products. The main characteristics of the Italian productive system, which is primarily composed of SMEs, are documented, and a map illustrating the importance of the various industrial districts is proposed, identifying their sectors of specialization, historical roots, and development. The principal steps in Italy's industrialization over the past 150 years are then outlined, in particular for the manufacturing system - the main driver of Italian exports. In-depth analyses of the mechanical industry and the machinery sector follow. In combining meticulous analysis of statistical data with a historical perspective, this book will appeal to all with an interest in the Italian economy.

This work uses techniques of optimization and operations research to develop the first comprehensive survey of the entire field of the optimization of resource, production, and distribution systems. Sten Thore proposes an "economic logistics" that is similar to the well-known concept of military logistics, but which is expanded to include such features as the optimal location of plants, inventories and retail outlets, and the management of hierarchical multi-echelon production, inventory, and distribution systems. The study of individual features of this supply process is familiar from operations research, but Thore joins these elements together into larger analytic structures encompassing the production and distribution system in an entire industry. Following an introductory chapter and a review of the saddle-point theory, coauthored with W. W. Cooper, Thore explores the three dimensions of the supply process synthesis: the spatial dimension (as in simple transportation systems), the vertical dimension (extending from resources to finished consumer goods, as in activity analysis), and the time dimension (as in inventory accumulation and investment). The combination of these then leads to models of such diverse subjects as regional warehouse systems, activity analysis and activity networks, multi-stage warehouse systems of intermediate goods, distribution networks, and spatial equilibrium. Each chapter contains its own exercises which are solved numerically and discussed in great detail, and illustrate such optimization techniques as linear and nonlinear programming, goal programming and goal focusing, chance-constrained programming, and infinite games. This work is designed for use ingraduate courses in economics and mathematics modeling, and will also be a useful addition to college and university library collections.

This contributed volume presents the experiences, challenges, trends, and advances in Service Science from Japan's perspective. As the global economy becomes more connected and competitive, many economies depend the service sector on for growth and prosperity. A multi-disciplinary approach to Service Science can potentially transform service industries through research, education, and practice. Offering a forum for best practices in Service Science within Japan, the volume benefits its audience by sharing viewpoints from a wide range of geographical regions and economies. The book is organized as follows: * Foundations of Service Science and the service industry sector * Public/Private sector partnerships, policies, trade in services, future prospects * Contributions from science, social science, management, engineering, design as well as industry sector perspectives * Road-maps, methodology, business development, strategies and innovative models, application of information technology, performance measures, and service system design * Education and workforce development * Case studies from practice, research and educational community * Future Directions in Japan This book includes three Forewords written by key leaders in Service Science:* Takayuki Aso (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology in Japan) * Yasuhiro Maeda (Director, Service Affairs Policy Division METI) * Norihisa Doi (Professor Emeritus, Keio University and Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research (S3FIRE) Program Officer, JST/RISTEX)