This third book from editors Rick Best and Jim Meikle brings together and presents insights into a number of key concepts in the study of construction firms, projects and the group of activities that loosely define the construction industry. The value for readers comes from the collection of a variety of topics in a single volume, which provide a basic understanding of the complexities of construction as more than a set of practical concerns such as labour management and materials handling. Instead, the focus is on analysis of the industry and its component parts from the viewpoints of construction economists and others seeking to understand the drivers and challenges that shape an area of economic activity that is a major contributor in all economies. The aim of this book is to provide an overview and discussion of several aspects of what makes construction tick. It is unlike other industry sectors in many ways, being project-based with often intense competition for work. Where the first book, Measuring Construction, focused on particular areas associated with quantifying various aspects of construction activity and the second, Accounting for Construction, looked more at how we record and report on construction activity, Describing Construction gives readers the views of experts in the field of how the construction industry is described, what its make-up is, it even asks the question: is construction a single industry? This book will change the way most readers understand the 'construction industry', whatever that may be, not from the point of view of visible on-site activities, but through a scientific approach to analysis and understanding of how projects, firms and various sectors of the industry work and how things are changing and may continue to change in future. It is essential reading for students and researchers in construction management, quantity surveying, architecture and engineering.

Whilst financial rights have appeared as a successful ingredient in North-American power markets, they have their shortcomings both theoretically and in practice. Financial Transmission Rights: Analysis, Experiences and Prospects present a systematic and comprehensive overview of financial transmission rights (FTRS). Following a general introduction to FTRs, including chapters to explain transmission pricing and the general properties of FTRS, experts in the field provide discussions on wide scope of topics. These include: Varying perspectives on FTRS: from electrical engineers to economists, Different mathematical formulations of FTRS Financial Hedging using FTRS, and Alternative solutions to FTRs The detail, expertise and range of content makes Financial Transmission Rights: Analysis, Experiences and Prospect an essential resource for electricity market specialists both at academic and professional levels. "This is THE BOOK we were all expecting to address all key 'Financial Transmission Rights' issues. It is comprehensive and reader friendly. You can pick at will in its menu: more or less theory, a bit of maths or none, empirical review of real cases or numerical simulations of many feasible options. Big names rally there to delight you like: Hogan , Oren, Perez-Arriaga, Smeers, Hobbs and... Rosellon. More than a must read: a light house, a map and a survival kit." Jean - Michel Glachant, Director Florence School, Holder Loyola de Palacio Chair, Chief-editor Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy. "In the last two decades, economists have developed a better understanding of the impact of financial rights on risk management, market power and network expansion in electricity markets, while power systems have experimented with such rights. Striking a good balance between academics and practitioners, always at the frontier of the field, written by the best experts, this volume is essential reading for all those- power systems' managers and users, regulators, students and researchers- who want to understand the new electricity environment and predict its evolution." Jean Tirole, Toulouse School of Economics and Institute for Industrial Economics (IDEI) Further comments inside.

This textbook takes on a systematic approach to elaborating on the different subjects within corporate finance. The chapters bring together existing concepts with examples and stories that allow students to easily understand and apply financial tools. In doing so, the book strives to clarify misconceptions in the literature on topics related to firm’s ownership and control, problems of the Modigliani-Miller first and second propositions, relationship between options and corporate finance, behavioral finance versus corporate finance, etc.   The book takes into consideration the growing importance of the Asian economy and financial markets in recent years, and constructs the P-index to measure and compare the risk structures of US and China’s stocks and stock indexes.   This book is a primary text written for the introductory courses in corporate finance at the M.B.A. level and for the intermediate courses in undergraduate programs, but can also be of great use to Ph.D. students as well as professionals.

This book presents a detailed background to the circular economy in China, explores government measures to promote it in China's market economy, and introduces the supporting laws and policies. The book goes on to describe, from a technology perspective, successful circular economy practices in sectors such as agriculture, iron and steel, cement, coal-fired power, chemistry, paper manufacturing and city mineral. This book sheds some light on what China has done and achieved to change the mode of economic development in order to minimize its negative impacts on resources and the environment. Readers will learn from and be inspired by China's circular economy practices. Industrializing countries can also draw on China's experiences to solve their own problems, enabling them to make their economic development resource-saving and more environmentally friendly. If this is achieved, this book can be considered a modest contribution to the sustainability of human society.

THE BLOG AHEAD One of the Internet pioneers takes a look at the impact-and future-of the Blog Revolution. Ideas are flashing around the world at light speed, and R. SCOTT HALL, an Internet pioneer from the early days at CompuServe and online entrepreneur, explores and brilliantly illuminates the way blogs are transforming the way human beings connect minds. Bloggers, Hall maintains, are at the forefront of the greatest change in the life of the mind since the Gutenberg press. Individuals with no establishment connections or entre can connect with millions worldwide, relying solely on the power of their ideas and their prose to get-and influence-an audience that print journalists and authors could only dream of. Communities of interest, unlimited by time and space, are springing into existence: now they are even exerting force on the traditional levers of power. Hall gives a trenchant, often humorous, analysis of this revolution in the human Zeitgeist, ranging from politics, to media, to the arts. Here's some of the fascinating terrain he covers in his analysis of how blogging is reshaping the world of ideas, affecting global public opinion and mass media:  This new form of horizontal communication is examined and compared to its (feeble) predecessors  Blogging runs smack-dab into the Rear Guard, and both sides end up blinking  The remunerated wordsmiths test the new blogging waters for unmined gold  Businesses from the Drucker Era bow down to the great god Gates  The next generation of leaders master the tools they will use  The dank world of geekery meets the high-wattage expectations of aesthetics  The blogosphere auto-assembles-andbecomes a powerful force for change Finally, Hall assembles a list of "Axioms of Blogosophy": principles for the first true citizens of the world. This survey of the world of blogs is only a sampling of the wonderful, surprising, and occasionally repulsive experiences that await the undaunted armchair explorer of the blogosphere. -R. Scott Hall

The crisis of the so-called Golden Age regime has been paralleled since the late '60s of the twentieth century by and increasing importance of market exchanges as opposed to vertically integrated manufacturing activity, leading to major changes in the size structure of firms. These changes have generally taken the form of an employment shift towards low-scale firms, lower average size and higher number of manufacturing units. This book tries to explain on theoretical grounds the reasons for such important discontinuity.

This book is a continuation of Corporate Law and the Theory of the Firm: Reconstructing Corporations, Shareholders, Directors, Owners, and Investors. The author extends his analysis of contract law, property law, agency law, trust law, and corporate statutory law and applies that analysis to defy conventional concepts and theories in economics, finance, investment, and accounting and expose the artificial boundaries established by decades of research founded on indefensible assumptions and fallacious conclusions. Using the Humpty Dumpty principle, where words mean what the authors want them to mean, economists have created "strange new worlds" where contract law, property law, agency law, and corporate statutory law no longer apply. The author dismantles the theory of the firm by proving the theory of the firm wilfully and intentionally ignores fundamental contract law, property law, agency law, and corporate statutory law. Contrary to the theory of the firm, shareholders do not own corporations, directors are not agents of shareholders, and shareholders are not investors in corporations. The author proves that by property law and corporate law, capital is not privately owned by capitalists but by corporations. Entire economic and social systems have been constructed that have no basis in law. With the advent of publicly traded corporations, the capital is there, but both capitalists and capitalism have been rendered extinct. This book will appeal to researchers and graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in economics, finance, accounting, law, and sociology, as well as legal scholars, attorneys and accountants.

The Political Economy of International Commodity Cartels examines how international commodity cartels in the 1930s were impacted not only by commercial rivalry, but also by international trade political and diplomatic concerns. This work presents the rise and decline of the European Timber Exporters' Convention (ETEC) and analyses how firms navigated through the cartel game under increasing international competition, pressures from the national governments, and the interventionist endeavours of the League of Nations. Cartels are often associated with, in the standard economic interpretation, business collusion. However, in using vast archive sources and historical methodology, the chapters in this book shed light onto how international relations shaped cartels. The rise of British protectionism, the emergence of the Soviet Union as an industrial power, and the economic rapprochement of the League of Nations in the early 1930s created a wave of political and diplomatic challenges in the timber trading countries and affected cartelisation. Timber firms in the biggest producer countries-Finland and Sweden-were uninterested in international cartel collaboration, but under pressure joined the ETEC nevertheless. This book makes a strong contribution to the fields of business history and cartel studies. It is an essential read for economic historians interested in how political pressure shaped international cartels and how cartels became avenues of diplomacy.

Paper and the British Empire examines the evolution of the paper industry within British organisational frameworks and highlights the role of the Empire as a market and business-making area in a world of shrinking commerce and rising trade barriers. Drawing on a valuable range of primary sources, this book covers the period 1861-1960 and examines events from the establishment of free trade backed by the gold standard to Britain's membership of the European Free Trade Association. In the field of the paper industry, the speed and intensity of the industrialisation process around the globe have been shaped by a wide variety of variables, including the surrounding institutional framework; entrepreneurial and organisational strategies; the cost and accessibility of transport; and the availability of capital, knowledge, energy resources, and technology. The supply of papermaking raw materials has also been key and has historically been the most important determinant for geographical location and dominance. The research in this work focuses on the roles played by such variants, on the one hand, and demand characteristics on the other. In particular, it considers developments connected to a quest for Empire-grown raw materials in order to tackle the problem of the lack of indigenous raw materials and the resulting dependence on Scandinavian wood pulp imports. This text is of considerable interest to advanced students and researchers in economic history, business history, and the paper industry, and will also be useful to organisations working within the pulp and paper industries.

Combined experience of well-regarded academic and professional author who has a long and illustrious career in the region Broad market across growing Australian construction sector, over 11000 students in any one year plus professionals starting careers Includes case studies, discussion questions, online support materials

Combined experience of well-regarded academic and professional author who has a long and illustrious career in the region Broad market across growing Australian construction sector, over 11000 students in any one year plus professionals starting careers Includes case studies, discussion questions, online support materials

Worldwide, postal and delivery economics is the subject of considerable interest. The postal industry's business model is in drastic need of change. Notably, the European Commission and member states are still wrestling with the problems of implementing liberalization of entry into postal markets, addressing digital competition, and maintaining the universal service obligation. In the United States, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 has, perhaps, exacerbated some of the problems faced by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Currently, the USPS has serious financial problems because of difficulties it faces in making changes and the failure of the Act to address problems that have been long-standing. Electronic competition is severe and affects post offices (POs) worldwide, which have been slow to address the threat. This book addresses this new reality and includes discussion of how POs may attempt to reinvent themselves. Parcels and packets will play a major role in developing new business models for postal operators. This book is of use not only to students and researchers interested in the field, but also to postal operators, consulting firms, utilities, regulatory commissions, Federal Government Departments and agencies of the European Union and other countries.

A robust and efficient tax administration in a modern tax system requires effective tax policies and legislation. Policy frameworks should cover all aspects of tax administration and include the essential processes of capturing, processing, analyzing, and responding to information provided by taxpayers and others concerning taxpayers' affairs. By far the greatest challenges facing tax administrations in all countries are those posed by the continuing developments in the digital economy. Whereas societies are grappling to come to terms with the transitions from the third industrial or digital revolutions, revenue authorities grapple with the consequences for the sustainability of their tax bases and the efficient administration and collection of taxes. This book presents a critical review of the status of tax systems in Asia and the Pacific in the era of the digital economy. The book suggests how countries can maximize their domestic resource mobilization when confronted by the challenges that digitalization inevitably produces, as well as how they can best harness or take advantage of aspects of digitalization to serve their own needs. The full implications of the COVID-19 crisis are still too uncertain to predict, but it is clear that the crisis will accelerate the trend towards digitalization and also increase pressures on public finances. This, in turn, may shape the preference for, and the nature of, both multilateral and unilateral responses to the tax challenges posed by digitalization and the need to address them. This book will be a timely reference for those researching on taxation in digital economy and for policy makers. The Open Access version of this book, available at www .taylorfrancis .com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book opens a fresh chapter in the debate on local enterprise clusters and their strategies for upgrading in the global economy. The authors employ a novel conceptual framework in their research on industrial clusters in Europe, Latin America and Asia and provide new perspectives and insights for researchers and policymakers alike. The debate on local upgrading capacity is torn between two lines of thinking: those who believe that local relationships between enterprises and institutions are key to upgrading, and those who argue that the spaces for upgrading are defined by the sourcing strategies of global buyers. From this debate a number of important questions arise: how feasible is it to develop local upgrading strategies? Can local policy networks make a difference, or do global forces undermine them? Do global quality and labour standards marginalise developing country producers or do they help them to upgrade? To answer these questions, the book brings together theoretical and empirical research on local and regional clusters, global value chains and global standards, using case studies from developed and developing countries. The authors provide a new understanding of how global and local governance interact, highlighting power and inequality in global chains but also identifying scope for local action. By showing how and why insertion in global value chains can accelerate or inhibit local upgrading, this book represents a significant contribution to the academic and political debate on globalization. It will be essential reading for all students, academics and researchers interested in global political economy, global and local governance structures, economic geography and innovation studies.

In this work, Balkin examines whether low-income people should be encouraged to engage in self-employment as a route for economic improvement. The author has gathered ideas and material from a diverse literature and experience base to provide practical suggestions for those who operate self-employment programs, fund self-employment programs, consider policy concerning self-employment, and look for alternative strategies to alleviate poverty, create jobs, and improve economic development. Among the questions Balkin explores are the reasons self-employment is a significant and successful alternative in some ethnic groups but has not been in others, why it is successful in those groups, and whether and how it could become a viable option.

Balkin examines the various studies of groups in the U.S. such as the Amish, the Gypsies, and the Koreans, who have tended toward self-employment, using it as a successful mode of economic activity. He explores the cultural backgrounds, forces, and networks that contributed to their success in order to identify the factors most likely to predict the effectiveness of future self-employment efforts and programs. He also analyzes low-income groups where self-employment is relatively rare, suggesting policies and approaches which might be taken to encourage successful self-employment among these groups. Balkin looks at programs in the United States, Europe, and the Third World, which have assisted the self-employed and recommends ways in which policies might be implemented to help U.S. low-income workers undertake successful self-employment. Finally, estimates of the job creation potential for self-employment programs are provided along with a discussion about the importance of evaluation.

This book examines driving factors and the effects of globalisation on economic development through firm and product-level data. The book is organised into four themes, i.e., productivity, innovation, wage and income gap, and within-firm reallocation of resources. The comprehensiveness and richness of firm and product-level data shed light upon the channels through which trade and investment affect firms' competitiveness and unveil factors shaping firms' heterogeneous responses towards globalisation. The book looks at Asian economies as well as Australia and how they have experienced substantial structural change and become more integrated into the global economy and will be a useful reference for those who are interested in learning more about the relationship between globalisation and firm performance. This book will appeal to policy makers and researchers interested in the impact of globalisation on firm performance.

This book analyses the revival of the French economy at the end of the twentieth century and shows how large firms took the lead in that process becoming the drivers of economic adjustment. Hancké provides the reader with a critique of neo-institutionalist perspectives on firms. By demonstrating how large firms in France changed their institutional environment to fit their own needs, he offers an important new perspective on the political economy of industrial and economic change.

Very little has been written on industrialization and deindustrialization in Asia and Africa. This reference work sheds illuminating light upon the industrial development in Asia and Africa. It also provides an in-depth look into China's engagement and migrant labour in Africa. The book also addresses the roles of public-private partnership (PPP) and international development cooperation and how they are fundamental to industrialization in Asia and Africa. Designing Integrated Industrial Policies will be a very useful reference particularly as a how-to guide on industrial promotion and designing integrated industrial policies not only for economic growth and job creation but also for "inclusive" development. It comes with country cases and illustrates useful tools for industrial policy simulation and for evidence-based policy making through these concrete examples.

Drawing on a range of European cases, this edited volume analyses the offshoring and outsourcing of foreign companies, with a focus on territorial embeddedness. The book opens by developing a theoretical framework and then presents a range of international case studies exploring the experiences of the service hub cities of Brno, Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow, and Prague. Attention is also given to internal and external determinants of embeddedness, with chapters on the employee perspective, the Fintech industry, corporate social responsibility, and the role of universities. This volume will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in regional economics, economic geography, innovation studies, industrial economics, European economics, and international business.

This comprehensive reference work gives an overview of the industrial development and current state of industrialization and deindustrialization in Asia, specifically Southeast Asia and China. It introduces typologies of industrial policies and discusses the manufacturing sector and its evolving role in the region. Designing Integrated Industrial Policies examines the integration of SMEs in global value chains and provides macro-econometric and firm-based micro-econometric analyses of (de)industrialization. This book will be a very useful reference particularly as a how-to guide on industrial promotion and designing integrated industrial policies not only for economic growth and job creation but also for "inclusive" development. It presents country cases and illustrates useful tools for industrial policy simulation and for evidence-based policy making through these concrete examples.

Luxury, Fashion and the Early Modern Idea of Credit addresses how social and cultural ideas about credit and trust, in the context of fashion and trade, were affected by the growth and development of the bankruptcy institution. Luxury, fashion and social standing are intimately connected to consumption on credit. Drawing on data from the fashion trade, this fascinating edited volume shows how the concepts of credit, trust and bankruptcy changed towards the end of the early modern period (1500 1800) and in the beginning of the modern period. Focusing on Sweden, with comparative material from France and other European countries, this volume draws together emerging and established scholars from across the fields of economic history and fashion. This book is an essential read for scholars in economic history, financial history, social history and European history.

Through two World Wars and the Great Depression, this book explores the turbulent history of colonial Indian industry in the period immediately prior to independence. Focusing on five major industries in Bengal - coal mining, iron-smelting, jute manufacturing, paper making and tea plantation - the book looks at the impact of the war efforts on production, employment and capital: some industries experienced rapid growth due to additional investment, others suffered due to the dislocation of markets. Moreover, by drawing lessons from the war economy (especially the dearth of various essential commodities including war materials), the colonial government took up various measures in the inter-war period to promote India's domestic industries for the first time. Additionally, the book also argues that many of the expatriate firms in India became financially weak because of the Depression which paved the way for the 'Indianisation' of corporate houses. These elements were significant factors in the decline of British industrial hegemony in India and aided the de-colonisation process which followed. This book will be of interest to scholars of Indian economic history as well as those with wider interests in decolonisation, industrial history and the first half of the twentieth century.

Informality and informal employment are wide-spread and growing phenomena in all regions of the world, in particular in low and middle income economies. A large part of economic activity in these countries is not registered or under-declared and many workers enter employment relationships that do not provide any or only partial protection, work with little or no physical capital, receive low wages and work under conditions that can be hazardous to their health. This volume sheds light on the incidence and persistence of informality and the role of institutions and government regulations. The articles offer insights into issues such as how labor and tax regulations determine the incidence of informality, whether reforms on tax and other regulations can reduce informal employment, to what extent informality occurs as a result of job separations, how persistent is informal employment, how informal employment can be detected and whether migration can be a substitute for informal employment.

"Multi-Level Issues in Organizational Behavior and Leadership" is Volume 8 of "Research in Multi-Level Issues", an annual series that provides an outlet for the discussion of multi-level problems and solutions across a variety of fields of study. Similar to Volumes 1 through 7, this volume contains five major essays with commentaries and rebuttals that cover a range of topics, but in the realms of organizational behavior and leadership. In particular, the five 'critical essays' offer extensive literature reviews, new model developments, methodological advancements, and some data for the study of organizational behavior, outstanding leadership, leadership and social relations, leadership simulation, and enviroscapes. While each of the major essays, and its associated commentaries and rebuttals, is unique in orientation, all of the essays share a common bond in raising and addressing multi-level issues or discussing problems and solutions that involve multiple levels of analysis in organizational behavior and leadership.

The Lowdown on the Hottest Trends in Corporate Goverance—A Complete Blueprint for Tomorrow’s Corporate Board Member Regulations, economics, shareholders, court battles—these factors have transformed the corporate board into a powerful, independent force in business. Now boardroom expert Ralph Ward deconstructs the "how and why" of this remarkable phenomenon, and offers a comprehensive, trenchant analysis of the tough issues which the 21st Century Corporate Board will bring to the table. You’ll find in-depth coverage of all of the leading topics in board makeup, pay, training, operations, and organization, including:

• How the "new directors" will change the corporate equation—women, inorities, entrepreneurs, executives below the CEO level, and others
• The move toward increased professionalism, including director certification, accountability, and more
• The hidden minefield of stakeholder concerns, from employees to local communities
• The pros and cons of paying corporate directors in stock—do we really want directors who are major shareholders?
• Future regulations from the SEC, IRS, and major stock exchanges—gearing up for compliance
• The growing power of board committees, and what this means for the board as a whole
• The coming struggle among shareholder groups to set the board agenda
• The new corporate balancing act for directors—independent, but involved; powerful, but responsive; focusing on the short term, but keeping a long-term view