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Books > Business & Economics > Economics > Microeconomics > General
This open access book addresses four standard business school subjects: microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance and information systems as they relate to trading, liquidity, and market structure. It provides a detailed examination of the impact of trading costs and other impediments of trading that the authors call "frictions". It also presents an interactive simulation model of equity market trading, TraderEx, that enables students to implement trading decisions in different market scenarios and structures. Addressing these topics shines a bright light on how a real-world financial market operates, and the simulation provides students with an experiential learning opportunity that is informative and fun. Each of the chapters is designed so that it can be used as a stand-alone module in an existing economics, finance, or information science course. Instructor resources such as discussion questions, Powerpoint slides and TraderEx exercises are available online.
Written in a conversational tone, this classroom-tested text introduces the fundamentals of linear programming and game theory, showing readers how to apply serious mathematics to practical real-life questions by modelling linear optimization problems and strategic games. The treatment of linear programming includes two distinct graphical methods. The game theory chapters include a novel proof of the minimax theorem for 2x2 zero-sum games. In addition to zero-sum games, the text presents variable-sum games, ordinal games, and n-player games as the natural result of relaxing or modifying the assumptions of zero-sum games. All concepts and techniques are derived from motivating examples, building in complexity, which encourages students to think creatively and leads them to understand how the mathematics is applied. With no prerequisite besides high school algebra, the text will be useful to motivated high school students and undergraduates studying business, economics, mathematics, and the social sciences.
Written in a conversational tone, this classroom-tested text introduces the fundamentals of linear programming and game theory, showing readers how to apply serious mathematics to practical real-life questions by modelling linear optimization problems and strategic games. The treatment of linear programming includes two distinct graphical methods. The game theory chapters include a novel proof of the minimax theorem for 2x2 zero-sum games. In addition to zero-sum games, the text presents variable-sum games, ordinal games, and n-player games as the natural result of relaxing or modifying the assumptions of zero-sum games. All concepts and techniques are derived from motivating examples, building in complexity, which encourages students to think creatively and leads them to understand how the mathematics is applied. With no prerequisite besides high school algebra, the text will be useful to motivated high school students and undergraduates studying business, economics, mathematics, and the social sciences.
This book develops a general economic theory that integrates various economic theories and ideas and establishes important relationships between economic variables that are not formally recognized in the economic literature. The author demonstrates how the basic model is integrated with neoclassical growth theory, Walrasian general equilibrium theory, and Ricardian distribution theory, and how these theories can be incorporated through a single set of equations with a microeconomic basis. The book offers new insights into income and wealth distribution between heterogeneous households, racial and national differences in growth and development, interdependence between different stock variables with portfolio choices among different markets. It will appeal to scholars of economists interested in an integrative theoretical approach to this discipline.
The fourteen papers presented in this volume are thought-provoking studies of the economic adjustment of Latin America to the difficult external environment of the 1980s. The anthology evolved out of a group of papers presented at the Third Dominican Republic Conference on International Debt and Adjustment in 1986. A number of the papers were updated and are presented here along with new ones written especially for this collection. The debt problems of Latin America form the background for the analyses undertaken by the articles in the book. The articles go beyond description of the debt problems to offer insights on the more fundamental long-range problems facing policy makers in the region. Positive analyses into the nature of the adjustment process and insights into future institutional changes that could improve the functioning of the Latin American economies highlight the book. The papers are divided into major topics of concern. The transmission of external shocks to the region and instability to the financial markets are covered. Fiscal constraints, labor market adjustment, exchange rates, and the political economy of adjustment as each relates to the external shocks of the 1980s are investigated. A major essay by Montague Lord shows Latin American potential to reap substantial gains by pursuing policies to encourage expansion of its resource-based comparative-advantage activities. The essays in "Latin American Debt and Adjustment" provide a starting point for the consideration of some of the deeper problems that need to be addressed by any meaningful attempt to improve the market-oriented economies of the region.
This work presents twelve case studies of foreign direct investment in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia. The studies include major firms such as Skoda and Danone, as well as smaller ventures, and cover the same sectors for each country, thereby permitting useful comparisons and assessments of: the role of country, sector, technology, and firm-specific characteristics in determining the pattern and nature of foreign direct investment; the potential implications of FDI for the competitiveness of the investing firms; the impact of infusions of capital investments, technology, and managerial resources for the host economies; and the policy implications for host countries and relevant international institutions.
Real Business Cycle theory combines the remains of monetarism with
the new classical macroeconomics, and has become one of the
dominant approaches within contemporary macroeconomics today. This
volume presents:
Deftly attacking by logic and statistics the dominant pessimism concerning future US economic and military power, Ross instead sees greater progress over the next two or three decades than during the last--a fifth rising phase of a Kondratiev cycle. The central force will consist of a surging rate of technological advance resulting from such innovations as the electronic computer in combination with solid state application; energy-related superconductivity and fusion; biotechnology and space; etc. . . .An excellent, sprightly, and scholarly reply to recent doomsayers. "Choice" This groundbreaking work challenges pessimistic views of the U.S. economy, arguing instead that the U.S. is on the brink of a radical economic and social transformation, primarily caused by technological advance. According to Ross, the American economy, like other market-oriented economies, is subject to long waves, or cycles. In the early 1990s, he asserts, the U.S. economy will experience the beginning of a rising phase of a long wave, with the economy growing for two or three decades. The fundamental underlying cause of the booming economy will be the momentum associated with an unprecedented rate of technological advance; it will be associated with an increase in the standard of living of the average American beyond current expectations. Written in a style accessible to both scholars and educated lay readers, A Gale of Creative Destruction is an important counterweight to the recent spate of books which posit the impending collapse of the U.S. economy. Ross takes a unique approach to the subject by integrating structural change in the American economy with technological advance in an international setting. To build his case, he analyzes the historical long waves the U.S. economy has already seen and examines the technological advances such as superconductivity and biotechnology. He shows that such major innovations have coincided with the rising phase of long waves. He also explores changes in the workforce, the diminution of racial and gender discrimination, the increasing interdependence of the world's economies, and the tremendous strides being made toward more democratization and more vibrant market-driven economies, arguing that each of these factors will act to help fuel economic growth in the 1990s and beyond. Based on his analysis, Ross concludes that optimism about the economic future is more than warranted and that today's children will be significantly better off than their parents.
This collection of thirteen essays on social ethics and normative economics honouring Serge-Christophe Kolm's seminal contributions to this field addresses the following questions: How should the public sector price its production and services? What are the normative foundations of criteria for comparing distributions of riches and advantages? How should intergenerational social immobility and inequality in circumstances be measured? What is a fair way to form partnerships? How vulnerable to manipulation is the Lindahl rule for allocating public goods? What are the properties of Kolm's ELIE tax proposal? Would the addition of EU-level income taxes enhance equity? How should we compare different scenarios for future societies with different population sizes? How can domain conditions in social choice theory be justified using Kolm's epistemic counterfactuals? How can Kolm's distributive liberal contract be implemented? What are the implications of norms of reciprocity for the organization of society? The answers to these questions give major insight into the state-of-the-art of social ethics and normative economics and are thus an indispensable source for researchers in both of these fields.
Health in later life is shaped by behavior and policies over the life course and reflects the differences between the societies in which we are ageing. This multidisciplinary book answers questions from all life course phases and its interconnections from a European perspective based on the most recent SHARE data, such as: How is our health related to personality traits and influenced by our childhood conditions and careers? Which role does our social network play? Which impacts of the different health care and societal regimes can we trace at older ages? Which are the differences and similarities across European countries?
Presenting the dynamic laws of economic quantities, this book tackles one of the core difficulties of current economic theory: that of transforming abstract equations of equilibrium into precise dynamic rules. The theoretical framework of neoclassical micro theory has historically prohibited its development into a quantitative science. Estola identifies the main weaknesses of this framework as follows: 1) Static optimization does not allow for the modelling of time-dependent production and consumption flows; 2) The assumption of optimal behaviours forecloses any understanding of changes in economic quantities, as none will change its optimal behaviour. The author of this title assumes that economic units tend to better their situation where possible. The book demonstrates how this approach leads to an analogous framework in economics to the Newtonian framework in physics. The 'forces' acting upon economic quantities, which either cause adjustment toward an equilibrium state or keep the system in motion with time, are defined such that the neoclassical framework corresponds to a 'zero-force' situation. Introducing a system of measurement units for economic phenomena, Estola applies this throughout, and thereby illuminates a way for microeconomics to meet the minimum requirements of quantitative analysis.
Country risk has been a key notion for economists, financiers, and investors. Norbert Gaillard defines this notion as "any macroeconomic, microeconomic, financial, social, political, institutional, judiciary, climatic, technological, or sanitary risk that affects (or could affect) an investor in a foreign country. Damages may materialize in several ways: financial losses; threat to the safety of the investing company's employees, clients, or consumers; reputational damage; or loss of a market or supply source." Chapter 1 introduces the key concepts. Chapter 2 investigates how country risk has evolved and manifested since the advent of the Pax Britannica in 1816. It describes the international political and economic environment and identifies the main obstacles to foreign investment. Chapter 3 documents the numerous forms that country risk may take and provides illustrations of them. Seven broad components of country risk are scrutinized in turn: international political risks; domestic political and institutional risks; jurisdiction risks; macroeconomic risks; microeconomic risks; sanitary, health, industrial, and environmental risks; and natural and climate risks. Chapter 4 focuses on sovereign risk. It presents the rating methodologies used by four raters; next, it measures and compares their performance (i.e., their ability to forecast sovereign defaults). Chapter 5 studies the risks likely to affect exporters, importers, foreign creditors of corporate entities, foreign shareholders, and foreign direct investors. It presents the rating methodologies used by seven raters and measures their track records in terms of anticipating eight types of shocks that reflect the main components of country risk analyzed in Chapter 3. This book will be most relevant to graduate students in economics as well as professional economists and international investors.
This monograph is a formal account of the structure and organization of a large Japanese advertising agency. Based on a year's fieldwork in a Tokyo-based agency, the book presents a case study of an advertising campaign to outline the complex relations that exist between different divisions (Account, Planning, Marketing, Creative) within an advertising agency, and between the agency and the client, on the one hand, and the agency and media, on the other.
The Cobb-Douglas regression, a statistical technique developed to estimate what economists called a 'production function', was introduced in the late 1920s. For several years, only economist Paul Douglas and a few collaborators used the technique, while vigorously defending it against numerous critics. By the 1950s, however, several economists beyond Douglas's circle were using the technique, and by the 1970s, Douglas's regression, and more sophisticated procedures inspired by it, had become standard parts of the empirical economist's toolkit. This volume is the story of the Cobb-Douglas regression from its introduction to its acceptance as general-purpose research tool. The story intersects with the histories of several important empirical research programs in twentieth century economics, and vividly portrays the challenges of empirical economic research during that era. Fundamentally, this work represents a case study of how a controversial, innovative research tool comes to be widely accepted by a community of scholars.
Brazil features regularly in global comparisons of large developing economies. Yet since the 1980s, the country has been caught in a low-level equilibrium, marked by lackluster growth and destructive inequality. One cause is the country's enduring commitment to a set of ideas and institutions labelled developmentalism. This book argues that developmentalism has endured, despite hyperactive reform, because institutional complementarities across economic and political spheres sustain and drive key actors and strategies that are individually advantageous, but collectively suboptimal. Although there has been incremental evolution in some institutions, complementarities across institutions sustain a pattern of 'decadent developmentalism' that swamps systemic change. Breaking new ground, Taylor shows how macroeconomic and microeconomic institutions are tightly interwoven with patterns of executive-legislative relations, bureaucratic autonomy, and oversight. His analysis of institutional complementarities across these five dimensions is relevant not only to Brazil but also to the broader study of comparative political economy.
This volume represents a cornucopia of research studies coming out of an international conference held in Kigali, Rwanda in 2018. The essays comprise contributions on various microeconomic and macroeconomic policy angles that are crucial for a less developed economy to embark on a road to recovery to converge with the desired trajectory. The topics encompass a broad range of issues like the role of savings, capital formation, human capital, innovations, entrepreneurship, profit-shifting by multinational corporations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and firms' strategies for achieving sustained and balanced growth. The chapters are organized under three major themes based on the commonality of areas that they cover: (i) Macroeconomic Constraints: Monetary Policy, Investments, and Population; (ii) Firms' Performance, SMEs, and Role of Entrepreneurship; and (iii) Entrepreneurship and Business Performance: Strategies and Policies. It has a collection of 12 empirical studies that have an overall focus on macroeconomic policies such as savings among the rural poor; sustained investments in and development of capital markets; role of entrepreneurial sustainability; role of innovations for firms' performance; healthcare reforms; the benefits of technology, policy incentives such as tax benefits for promoting growth, and strategic considerations such as marketing or positioning strategies; export strategies; and productivity enhancement via processing and profit sharing. With contributions from 27 authors, the studies bring forth knowledge about the factors that influence well-being via better technologies and innovations favoring productivity, firm performance, and their positive externalities in the food, nutrition, and health sectors. Given the wide-ranging coverage of top-down and bottom-up approaches and strategies for development, the book offers insights for policy interventions necessary for Rwanda's gradual transition from agriculture to an industrial transformation via manufacturing and service-led development without smokestack industries.
In a world of open markets and global trade, development thinking seeks stability and prosperity for the world's poor by expanding access to financial products. This book challenges the development sector's embrace of 'financial inclusion' by exploring how the new risks and instabilities that accompany the pivot towards the global economy undermining the functioning of money itself. Cast against fundamental change in the monetary environment accompanying the globalisation of markets, the book examines the rapid liberalisation of money and markets in Pakistan. It argues that liberalisation has generated substantive problems not only for the central bank as guardian of national currency, but for ordinary households. By pinpointing how globalisation generates new risks for households in the everyday economy, the book reveals jarring contradictions between free markets and financial inclusion whilst challenging money theory by positing substantive and empirically-grounded monetary contestation that demonstrates a burden of risk imposed on ordinary people, that is only exacerbated by financial inclusion.
The book discusses, elaborates on and answers questions to the following points: Firstly, what has changed through the information technology represented by software, Internet and big data? How do these changes effect the production relationships, the production mode and the industrial development model? Can China realize a "great-leap-forward" in economic development by promoting such a new Internet economy? Secondly, what is the format shown by the Internet economy? Is the Internet economy a market economy, or a planned economy, or is it an economic complex format which combines the planned economy and the market economy? What is the structure of the future economy? Which entities will compete with each other throughout the industries? What is the format of the future financial investment industry? Why does the Internet economy have a revolutionary impact on the economic base and the superstructure? Thirdly, let us look back on the traditional manufacturing industry. What on earth is the core value of the manufacturing industry? How is the core technology and core value of manufacturing realized? Why can it be that the industrial Internet will become a rare historical opportunity for China's manufacturing industry and economy to achieve a "great-leap-forward" development? Finally, in the big economic tide of Internet and big data, what are the future variables of China's economy? What is the established economic policy of the United States for the global economy and industries? How should the economic variables of the United States be best dealt with, those that are determined as "US priority" and "the return of manufacturing industry" strongly promoted by the U.S. President Trump?
The market town has been dismissed as an incompletely formed urban community; in fact it was the primary urban unit in pre-industrial England. This study places the market town at the centre of the transformation of early-modern England, both catalysing changes in agriculture and experiencing, in a distinctive fashion, the urbanisation that was to occur a century or more later in the great industrial and commercial centres of Europe. In the two centuries after 1500 the rural economy changed from a pattern of subsistence to 'improved' farming. The first great enclosures took place during this time, but the economic base for this revolution was the growth of local trading, centred on markets and local communications networks. This redistribution of produce, provisions and information was the motor of specialisation and hence modernisation. The strength of this study is in its detailed research into this process in one representative locality, and the sensitive extrapolation of local experiences on to the national and European scale. By integrating in one book the themes of rural transformation and early urbanisation this account of one typical midland market town demonstrates the continuing vigour of the discipline of local history.
Can private health insurance fill gaps in publicly financed coverage? Does it enhance access to health care or improve efficiency in health service delivery? Will it provide fiscal relief for governments struggling to raise public revenue for health? This book examines the successes, failures and challenges of private health insurance globally through country case studies written by leading national experts. Each case study considers the role of history and politics in shaping private health insurance and determining its impact on health system performance. Despite great diversity in the size and functioning of markets for private health insurance, the book identifies clear patterns across countries, drawing out valuable lessons for policymakers while showing how history and politics have proved a persistent barrier to effective public policy. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Gary Madden was a renaissance man with respect to the nexus between information and communications technology (ICT) and economics. He contributed to a variety of fields in ICT: applied econometrics, forecasting, internet governance and policy. This series of essays, two of which were co-authored by Professor Madden prior to his untimely death, cover the range of his research interests. While the essays focus on a number of ICT issues, they are on the frontier of research in the sector. Gerard Faulhaber provides a broad overview of how we have reached the digital age and its implications. The applied econometric section brings the latest research in the area, for example Lester Taylor illustrates how own-price, cross-price and income elasticities can be calculated from survey data and translated into real income effects. The forecasting section ranges from forecasting online political participation to broadband's impact on economic growth. The final section covers aspects of governance and regulation of the ICT sector.
This book critically examines the progress made on macroeconomic stabilization and financial sector reform in the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe. It relates microeconomic experiences to the broader macroeconomic context of reform, and emphasises that macro reform is underpinned by micro and institutional reform, especially in the financial sphere.Key features include: bank and enterprise restructuring and the progress towards the resolution of banking and bad debt problems implications of bank and enterprise restructuring for corporate governance and company performance an evaluation of bank-enterprise relationships exchange rates and capital flows, with an analysis of the capital inflow problem and the performance of fixed exchange rate regimes in the post-stabilization phase of the transition detailed surveys of individual firm and bank behaviour and performance during the reform process. The book will be welcomed by scholars and practitioners interested in monetary and financial economics, the economics of transition and comparative economic systems.
This volume showcases the impact of the work of Douglass C. North, winner of the Nobel Prize and father of the field of new institutional economics. Leading scholars contribute to a substantive discussion that best illustrates the broad reach and depth of Professor North's work. The volume speaks concisely about his legacy across multiple social sciences disciplines, specifically on scholarship pertaining to the understanding of property rights, the institutions that support the system of property rights, and economic growth.
This book presents the theory and practice of product lifecycle management, chiefly focusing on modern approaches suitable for digitalized enterprises. In addition to describing adaptive methods for advanced product creation using big data analytics, it presents economic and mathematical models for managing product lifecycles based on the application of recent methods (e.g. digital design and automated intelligent systems) to control pre-production and production processes. Given its scope, the book appeals to researchers, economic analysts and entrepreneurs alike. |
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