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.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) combine economic activities resulting from their position on the market with non-economic functions determined by the state owner. In many of the world's major economies, SOEs play an important role, and in some, such as China, India, Russia and Brazil, they are outright dominant. At the same time, the existence of SOEs is largely ignored by economic theory and the current figures on SOEs on a global scale available in the literature are questionable in terms of their methodological validity and thus they do not allow for a proper cross-country analysis. This book fills this research gap. It focuses on the scope and importance of SOEs in a broad group of the largest economies, primarily on a variety of quantitative estimates. It contains the results of an extensive and unique empirical study of 37 of the world's largest economies over the period from 2009 to 2018. The findings showed that the average share of SOEs - measured by operating revenues and total assets - in the group of the largest 100 enterprises (Top 100) of a given country is nearly 30%, while in the Top 20 group it is even slightly higher. The authors present an econometric analysis showing the relationship between the scope of SOEs and the various economic and non-economic characteristics of the studied set of countries. The book also contains an in-depth discussion of selected key issues, such as the functions of SOEs in various types of economies, the role of SOEs in capital markets and the phenomenon of SOEs with foreign capital. This work is addressed to both academic economists, dealing with macroeconomics and economic policy, as well as researchers and analysts from various international organizations and think-tanks.

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

Agricultural Policy in the United States: Evolution and Economics traces U.S. agricultural policy from its colonial roots to the present, using economic concepts to analyze and interpret political and economic consequences. It also examines the processes by which agricultural policies are developed, and the government structure which supports the implementation of legislation passed by Congress. The book includes arguments for and against common tools of U.S. agricultural policy, without influencing the reader in a particular direction. Each chapter contains questions and exercises to support students' learning, and technical economic material is contained in optional appendices. This second edition examines the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 and sets the scene for future policy developments. Additionally, it looks at trade wars and the impact of Black Swan events like the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural resilience.

Unique contribution to Construction Management and Infrastructure Development literature Highly practical guidance for policy makers looking to use construction to stimulate economic growth

This book presents a systematic approach to the management of physical assets from concept to disposal, building upon the previous editions and brought up-to-date with the new international standards ISO55002 and ISO/TS50010. It introduces the general principles of physical asset management and covers all stages of the asset management process, including initial business appraisal, identification of physical asset needs, capability gap analysis, financial evaluation, logistic support analysis, life cycle costing, strategic asset management planning, maintenance strategy, outsourcing, cost-benefit analysis, disposal and renewal. Features include: providing a textbook for asset management courses to university level; relating closely to the ISO55000 international asset management standard series; providing a basis for the establishment of physical asset management as a professional discipline; and presenting case studies, analytical techniques and numerical examples with solutions. Written for practitioners and students in asset management, this book provides an essential foundation to the topic. It is suitable for an advanced undergraduate or postgraduate course in asset management and also offers an ideal reference text for engineers and managers specializing in asset management, reliability, maintenance, logistics or systems engineering.

Offering a comprehensive overview of the major issues that arise in the enforcement of competition laws, this book takes an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, reviewing the development of Korean competition laws and their enforcement with rigorous economic analysis. Chapters build on the Korean experience, providing guidance to the capacity-building efforts of developing countries that have recently introduced competition laws. In this exciting new book, an international team of experts compares market structures, in both global and Korean contexts, particularly focusing on the impact of foreign competition on market concentration and ways to improve market structure. It thoroughly investigates core competition problems, including international abuses of dominance, mergers and collusion, and vertical restraints. Contributions move beyond explaining the laws and practices of enforcement agencies, offering readers an insight into the trend of ever-increasing interdependence among national economies, complemented by analyses of recent developments in the US and Canada. The exploration of clear trends both in Korea and globally will prove valuable to scholars and students of industrial competition policy, and law and economics. It will also be useful to policy-makers, particularly those in developing countries, looking to better understand the issues surrounding competition law and designing future policies.

Researchers in international development have long argued that the high costs of doing business harms prosperity in developing countries, a claim that invites the question of why governments impose these costs and why societies fail to enact reforms reducing them. This book seeks to answer the question by looking at the case of Brazil, a large and highly unequal economy riddled with state-imposed transaction costs. By delving into the political dynamics underlying a costly business environment, this book provides the reader with novel insights into crony capitalism and inequality. It argues that the root cause of a costly business environment is the collusion between political actors, bureaucrats and business insiders. Politicians and bureaucrats relish their discretion over rules and policies as a power resource, since they can increase or decrease the costs of doing business faced by firms and sectors. Business insiders collude with government agents to access the loopholes that decrease the cost of doing business, thus gaining a competitive edge over outsiders. This gives the insiders weaker preferences for reforms that could decrease the overall cost of doing business. By pursuing their self-interest, these actors create a low-level equilibrium that perpetuates crony capitalism and inequality to the detriment of overall prosperity. The book makes its case with a sophisticated combination of formal modeling, quantitative analyses and in-depth case studies of tax policy and of the pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors in Brazil. Observers have declared the need for reforms that improve the business environment in developing countries for a long time. However, the findings presented in this book suggest they might have underestimated the challenge ahead. Scholars and policy-makers in international development, business politics and political economy will be interested in the innovative perspective of this book.