Having been state-owned for decades, the railway reform in China confused many people, particularly in terms of its ownership and property rights arrangements. Western literature always prescribes that the best model for railway reform is privatization. China's leadership has also enunciated the state's determination to re-arrange property rights and rejuvenate corporate governance. But is China's railway reform really a story of convergence and will the Chinese government follow the western model of railway reform? Addressing these questions, this book provides a positive explanation of the reform in China's railway sector between 1978 and the dissolution of the Ministry of Railways. It bridges the socialist reform and transport policy literature, and studies the empirical changes of the property rights arrangements in China's railway system. Refuting the convergence theory, it concludes that the cyclical reform policies of decentralization and re-centralization were actually an exploratory and interactive mechanism of "assets discovery" and "assets recovery". This in-depth study is based on 21 face-to-face interviews with railway cadres as well as field trips to collect first-hand information in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Wuhan. As one of the only empirical studies on the reform of the railway sector in China, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of China studies, Transport studies and Political Economy.

The central concerns of mobilities research - exploring the broader context and human aspects of movement - are fundamental to an understanding of the maritime freight transport sector. Challenges to the environment, attempts at more sustainable practices, changes in the geoeconomic system, political power, labour, economic development and governance issues are all among the topics covered in this book. The aim of this volume is to address issues of maritime transport not only in the simple context of movement but within the mobilities paradigm. The goal is to examine negative system effects caused by blockages and inefficiencies, examine delays and wastage of resources, identify negative externalities, explore power relations and identify the winners and losers in the globalised trade system with a particular focus on the maritime network. Maritime Mobilities therefore aims to build a bridge between "traditional" maritime academic approaches and the mobilities paradigm. This volume is of great importance to those who study industrial economics, shipping industries and transport geography.

This is a comprehensive book on infrastructure development and construction management. It is written keeping in mind the curricula of construction management programmes in India and abroad. It covers infrastructure development, the construction industry in India, financial analysis of the real estate industry in India, economic analysis of projects, tendering and bidding, contracts and contract management, FIDIC conditions of contract, construction disputes and claims, arbitration, conciliation and dispute resolution, international construction project exports and identifying, analysing and managing construction project risk. Thus, this book covers most of the construction management activities that are carried out at different stages of a construction project. This is an essential book for students of construction management, construction professionals, academicians and researchers.

There is wide consensus on the importance of knowledge for economic growth and local development patterns. This book proposes a view of knowledge as a collective, systemic and evolutionary process that enables agents and social systems to overcome the challenges of the limits to growth. It brings together new conceptual and empirical contributions, analysing the relationship between demand and supply factors and the rate and direction of technological change. It also examines the different elements that compose innovation systems. The Economics of Knowledge, Innovation and Systemic Technology Policy provides the background for the development of an integrated framework for the analysis of systemic policy instruments and their mutual interaction the socio-political and economic conditions of the surrounding environment. These aspects have long been neglected in innovation policy, as policymakers, academics and the business community, have mostly emphasized the benefits of supply side strategies. However, a better understanding of innovation policies grafted on a complexity-based approach calls for the appreciation of the mutual interactions between both supply and demand aspects, and it is likely to improve the actual design of policy measures. This book will help readers to understand the foundations and working of demand-driven innovation policies by stressing the importance of compent and smart demand.

The 2008 credit crisis started with the failure of one large bank: Lehman Brothers. Since then the focus of both politicians and regulators has been on stabilising the economy and preventing future financial instability. At this juncture, we are at the last stage of future-proofing the financial sector by raising capital requirements and tightening financial regulation. Now the policy agenda needs to concentrate on transforming the banking sector into an engine for growth. Reviving competition in the banking sector after the state interventions of the past years is a key step in this process. This book introduces and explains a relatively new concept in competition measurement: the performance-conduct-structure (PCS) indicator. The key idea behind this measure is that a firm's efficiency is more highly rewarded in terms of market share and profit, the stronger competitive pressure is. The book begins by explaining the financial market's fundamental obstacles to competition presenting a brief survey of the complex relationship between financial stability and competition. The theoretical contributions of Hay and Liu and Boone provide the theoretical underpinning for the PCS indicator, while its application to banking and insurance illustrates its empirical qualities. Finally, this book presents a systematic comparison between the results of this approach and (all) existing methods as applied to 46 countries, over the same sample period. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the knowns and unknowns of financial sector competition for commercial and central bankers, policy-makers, supervisors and academics alike.

In recent decades, network industries around the world have gone through periods of de- and re-regulation. With vast amounts of sometimes conflicting research carried out into specific network industries, the time has come for a critical over-arching assessment of this entire industry in order to provide a platform of understanding to aid future research and practice. This comprehensive resource provides an orientation for academics, policy makers and managers as to the main economic, regulatory and commercial challenges in the network industries. The book is split into sections covering market, policy, regulation, management perspectives, whilst all of the key network industries are covered, including energy, transport, water and telecommunications. Overseen by world-class Editors and experts in the field, this inter-disciplinary resource is essential reading for students and researchers in international business, industrial economics and the industries.

This study analyses enterprise development and entrepreneurship and their relationship with the state and market building in Russia. It focuses on continuities and changes in the factory regime, drawing on existing literature and the author's own research and evaluation.

Since the mid-1990s risk management has undergone a dramatic expansion in its reach and significance, being transformed from an aspect of management control to become a benchmark of good governance for banks, hospitals, schools, charities and many other organizations. Numerous standards for risk management practice have been produced by a variety of transnational organizations. While these many designs and blueprints are accompanied by ideals of enterprise, value production, and good governance, it is argued that the rise of risk management has also coincided with an intensification of auditing and control processes. The legalization and bureacratization of organizational life has increased because risk management has created new demands for proof and evidence of action. In turn, these demands have generated new risks to reputation.
In short, this important book traces the rise of the managerial concept of risk and the different logics and values which underpin it, showing that it has much less to do with real dangers and opportunities than might be thought, and more to do with organizational accountability and legitimacy.

Written by two of the field's most respected researchers, Modern Industrial Organization goes beyond the traditional structure-conduct-performance framework by using the latest advances in microeconomic theory, including transaction cost analysis, game theory, contestability, and information economics. Updated to reflect new trends and topics, the 4th Edition focuses on providing students with a clear, unified structure for analysing theories and empirical evidence about the organisation of firms and industries.

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.

From the author of The Little Black Book of Innovation, a new guide for using the power of habit to build a culture of innovation Leaders have experimented with open innovation programs, corporate accelerators, venture capital arms, skunkworks, and innovation contests. They've trekked to Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, and Tel Aviv to learn from today's hottest, most successful tech companies. Yet most would admit they've failed to create truly innovative cultures. There's a better way. And it all starts with the power of habit. In Eat, Sleep, Innovate, innovation expert Scott Anthony and his impressive team of coauthors use groundbreaking research in behavioral science to provide a first-of-its-kind playbook for empowering individuals and teams to be their most curious and creative&#8212every single day. Throughout the book, the authors reveal a collection of BEANs&#8212behavior enablers, artifacts, and nudges&#8212they've collected from workplaces across the globe that will unleash the natural innovator inside everyone. In addition to case studies of "normal organizations doing extraordinary things," they provide readers with the tools to create their own hacks and habits, which they can then use to build and sustain their own models of a culture of innovation. Fun, lively, and utterly unique, Eat, Sleep, Innovate is the book you need to make innovation a natural and habitual act within your team or organization.

The political economy of research and innovation (R&I) is one of the central issues of the early twenty-first century. 'Science' and 'innovation' are increasingly tasked with driving and reshaping a troubled global economy while also tackling multiple, overlapping global challenges, such as climate change or food security, global pandemics or energy security. But responding to these demands is made more complicated because R&I themselves are changing. Today, new global patterns of R&I are transforming the very structures, institutions and processes of science and innovation, and with it their claims about desirable futures. Our understanding of R&I needs to change accordingly. Responding to this new urgency and uncertainty, this handbook presents a pioneering selection of the growing body of literature that has emerged in recent years at the intersection of science and technology studies and political economy. The central task for this research has been to expose important but consequential misconceptions about the political economy of R&I and to build more insightful approaches. This volume therefore explores the complex interrelations between R&I (both in general and in specific fields) and political economies across a number of key dimensions from health to environment, and universities to the military. The Routledge Handbook of the Political Economy of Science offers a unique collection of texts across a range of issues in this burgeoning and important field from a global selection of top scholars. The handbook is essential reading for students interested in the political economy of science, technology and innovation. It also presents succinct and insightful summaries of the state of the art for more advanced scholars.

Appropriate laws and regulations are an essential tool to direct the action of procurers toward the public good and avoid corruption and misallocation of resources. Common laws and regulations across regions, nations and continents potentially allow for the further opening of markets and ventures to newcomers and new ideas to satisfy public demand. This book collects original contributions, from both economists and lawyers, related to the new European Union Directives just approved in 2014 by the EU Parliament. Uniquely, this book combines juridical and technical expertise so as to find a common terrain and language to debate the specific issues that a Public Administration in need of advancing and modernizing has to face. This format features, for each section, an introductory exchange between two experts of different disciplines, made of a series of sequential interactions between an economist and a lawyer that write and follow-up on one another. This is to enrich the liveliness of the debate and improve the mutual understanding between the two professions. There are four sections characterized in this book: supporting social considerations via public procurement; green public procurement; innovation through innovative partnerships; and Lots - the Economic and Legal Challenges of Centralized Procurement. This book will be of interest to policy-makers, practitioners working in the field of EU public procurement as well as academics.

Originally published in 1995 this volume examines and analyzes the factors that have made the township-village enterprise (TVE) such a driver of growth in the Chinese economy in recent years. The book analyzes the background of the TVE and discusses regional differences in TVE efficiency as well as examining the apparent contradiction of the success of the TVE despite the lack of well-defined property rights. Issues of rural-rural and rural-urban migration phenomena are discussed and the differences discussed between the Chinese economy and those of other developing nations.

Originally published in 1994 this book undertakes a comprehensive study dealing with the effects of machine flexibility, tool magazine capacity, varying production demands and different oeprating policies on the production planning problems. Performance measures such as FMS flexibility, makespan and inventory are used in evaluating the effects. Three measures of FMS flexibility - actual routing flexibility, potential routing flexibility and capacity flexibility are defined and operationalized.

Originally published in 1994 this volume investigates the relationship between a firm's decision to integrate vertically and its research and development (R & D) strategy. Literature on vertical integration is reviewed and a framework presented to analyze the costs and benefits of vertical integration. The theoretical basis for the proposed hypostheses is investigated and the hypotheses tested empirically.

Originally published in 1995, this book explores a number of subjects of significance for labor and economic policy, especially the role of U. S. tax policy in the relocation of jobs from the contintental USA to Puerto Rico. The book demonstrates the problems for the USA because of inadequate adjustment policies to protect the interests of communities and workers when plants close and production is relocated. It disproves the myth that markets will take fcare of workers and communities, showing that basic economics is concerned with market forces and not with equity, environmental and worker protections. The Whitehall plant closing case is documented and the economic and political context analyzed which caused that case to be instructive for broader economic and labor policy purposes. In a new age of American Protectionism, this book has enduring relevance.

Boost Efficiency, Sales, and Profits by, Unleashing the Power of Web Technology "Forget Web hype, Internet academia, and all the new technology books you’ve read before. This one really delivers. The authors have created a practical and useful set of tools any CEO, manager, or entrepreneur can use to empower their organizations and themselves. I’m sending copies to all of my companies." —Ed Bennett, Chairman Prodigy Ventures "In this well-written and easy-to-read book, McEachern and O’Keefe help the business manager keep pace with technology and ahead of the competition by showing how business innovators have parlayed Internet technology into business advantage. McEachern and O’Keefe provide insight into how business can leverage the Internet as a powerful commercial tool and strategic weapon." —George Tillmann, Vice President Booz • Allen & Hamilton "Re-Wiring Business gives us the opportunity to not repeat our mistakes by focusing on the Internet as a fantastic communications tool that can increase worker productivity, raise service levels, and allow all who need information to have access to it." —Phyllis K. Sokol, Director of Educational Services for the Commerce Enterprise Business Unit, Sterling Commerce "A powerful reference for companies who are competing in the digital age, this book comes at an intriguing time in business and addresses many of the trends and issues facing organizations today." —Cheryl Currid, President, Currid & Company

The air transport industry has high economic impact; it supports more than 60 million jobs worldwide. Since the early years of commercial air travel, passenger numbers have grown tremendously. However, for decades airlines' financial results have been swinging between profits and losses. The airline industry's aggregate net average profit between 1970 and 2010 was close to zero, which implies bankruptcies and layoffs in downturns. The profit cycle's amplitude has been rising over time, which means that problems have become increasingly severe and also shows that the industry may not have learned from the past. More stable financial results could not only facilitate airline management decisions and improve investors' confidence but also preserve employment. This book offers a thorough understanding of the airline profit cycle's causes and drivers, and it presents measures to achieve a higher and more stable profitability level. This is the first in-depth examination of the airline profit cycle. The airline industry is modelled as a complex dynamic system, which is used for quantitative simulations of 'what if' scenarios. These experiments reveal that the general economic environment, such as GDP or fuel price developments, influence the airline industry's profitability pattern as well as certain regulations or aircraft manufactures' policies. Yet despite all circumstances, simulations show that airlines' own management decisions are sufficient to generate higher and more stable profits in the industry. This book is useful for aviation industry decision makers, investors, policy makers, and researchers because it explains why the airline industry earns or loses money. This knowledge will advance forecasting and market intelligence. Furthermore, the book offers practitioners different suggestions to sustainably improve the airline industry's profitability. The book is also recommended as a case study for system analysis as well as industry cyclicality at graduate or postgraduate level for courses such as engineering, economics, or management.

Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is the systematic and analytical process of comparing benefits and costs in evaluating the desirability of a project or programme - often of a social nature. It attempts to answer such questions as whether a proposed project is worthwhile, the optimal scale of a proposed project and the relevant constraints. CBA is fundamental to government decision making and is established as a formal technique for making informed decisions on the use of society's scarce resources. This timely sixth edition of the classic Cost-Benefit Analysis text continues to build on the successful approach of previous editions, with lucid explanation of key ideas, simple but effective expository short chapters and an appendix on various useful statistical and mathematical concepts and derivatives. The book examines important developments in the discipline, with relevant examples and illustrations as well as new and expanded chapters which build upon standard materials on CBA. Highlights include: updated historical background of CBA extended non-market goods valuation methods the impact of uncertainty evaluation of programmes and services behavioural economics decision rules and heuristics CBA and regulatory reforms CBA in developed and developing countries value of household production other topics frequently encountered in CBA, such as costs of diseases and air pollution, and value of statistical life. This book is a valuable source and guide to international funding agencies, governments, interested professional economists and senior undergraduate and graduate students. The text is fully supported by a companion website, which includes discussion questions and PowerPoint slides for each chapter.

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A call to action for the creative class and labour movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media. Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers) - or both. Scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we're in a new era of 'chokepoint capitalism', with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well illustrated by the plight of creative workers. By analysing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio, and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct 'anti-competitive flywheels' designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices. In the book's second half, Giblin and Doctorow explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work. Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that's being heisted away - before it's too late.

This volume investigates the impact of energy technology innovations on economic development and presents new areas of research into the financial economics of energy as well as new studies into valuation, electricity pricing and the economic, regulatory and environmental costs of alternative energy sources. Academics and practitioners take a global perspective and present cases from several countries. The book concentrates on three issues: 1) innovation and shocks in energy markets; 2) environment and renewables and 3) fossil fuel regulation. The book will provide a useful resource for anyone with an academic or business interest in energy and value issues. This is the fourth volume in a series on energy organized by the Center for Energy and Value Issues (CEVI). The previous volumes in the series include Financial Aspects in Energy (2011), Energy Economics and Financial Markets (2012) and Perspectives on Energy Risk (2014).

What changes are occurring at the macro and the sectoral levels, how the labour market changes are taking place and what impactis felt on the low income households are some of the questions that the present volume focuses on. It begins by examining the sectoral composition of growth, revisiting the issues related to industry-services balance, and also brings out the spatial dimension of growth. On the one hand the industry does not seem to have played a major role in the context of employment generation as imported technology is by and large capital intensive in nature. On the other hand, the services-led growth is seen to have reduced the pace of poverty reduction. Given the services-led growth the possible impact of trade in services on employment both in the formal and informal sectors have been worked out, indicating limited positive spill-over effects. The labour market outcomes are brought out with great details suggesting that rapid economic growth in India could not result in productive employment generation on a large scale. The gender dimensions of employment are brought out to verify if reduction in labour market inequality can result in improving the position of women in other spheres encompassing the decision making process both within the household and outside the household. Issues relating to urbanisation and rural-urban migration are also covered to understand the dynamics of urban poverty and to bring out the challenges of population transfer given the spatial concentration of growth. The job search practices pursued by the low income households are often pursued in terms of informal networks. What problems are associated with such mechanisms in experiencing improvements in wellbeing levels are covered in the present volume. On the whole, the volume offers an explanation of limited poverty reduction in a situation of rapid economic growth on the basis of an inter-disciplinary framework though efforts are being made to keep the methodology quantitatively rigorous. "

Originally published in 1972, The University and British Industry examines the lively and controversial relationship between British industry and the university. The book looks at the impact of industry on the development of British universities from the 1850s to the 1970s, and with contribution from the universities to industry through scientific research and the supply of graduate skills. The book argues that the close involvement of the universities and industry has been one of the chief beneficial forces shaping the British universities movement in the last hundred years. It gives an account of the changes which took place within the universities to make them more suitable for industries purposes, describing for example the early rise of the English civic universities, strongly financed by, and closely supporting industry. The book also considers how, during the two world wars, industry became highly reliant on the universities for the war technology, and how, despite the depression between the wars, university research and graduate employment embraced the widening opportunities of the new industries. The book also discusses the expansion of the university in the sixties and points out that industrial motives have merged with those of social justice, posing dilemmas for present and future relations between universities and industry.

The economics literature on industry dynamics contains a wide array of empirical works identifying a set of stylized facts. There have been several attempts at constructing analytical models to explain some of these regularities. These attempts are highly stylized and limited in scope to keep the analyses tractable. A general model of industry evolution capable of generating firm and industry behaviour that can match the data is needed. This book endeavours to explain many well-documented aspects of the evolution of industries over time. It uses an agent-based computational model in which artificial industries are created and grown to maturity in silico. While the firms in the model are assumed to have bounded rationality, they are nevertheless adaptive in the sense that their experience-based R&D efforts allow them to search for improved technologies. Given a technological environment subject to persistent and unexpected external shocks, the computationally generated industry remains in a perennial state of flux. The main objective of this study is to identify patterns that exist in the movements of firms as the industry evolves over time along the steady state in which the measured behaviour of the firms and the industry stochastically fluctuate around steady means. The computational model developed in this book is able to replicate many of the stylized facts from the empirical industrial organization literature, particularly as the facts pertain to the dynamics of firm entry and exit. Furthermore, the model allows examination of cross-industry variations in entry and exit patterns by systematically varying the characteristics of the market and the technological environment within which the computationally generated industry evolves. The model demonstrates that the computational approach based on boundedly rational agents in a dynamic setting can be useful and effective in carrying out both positive and normative economic analysis.