Classical liberalism has typically sought to maintain as much room as possible for the exercise of personal initiative in the face of the encroachment of states. This book explores these questions of coercion and authority in the context of the size and scope of the state and argues that the state and its agents should be held to the same moral rules as are the individuals it rules over. The book considers how a distinct feature of the state is its police or coercive power, about which one may ask how the state acquires it and what if anything would justify its use. It considers the implication that there is nothing inherent about state agents that entitles one to behave in ways that we would not accept from a private actor, and how once that argument is made, the state's claim to authority is weakened. The author also discusses the extent to which democracy has been thought to provide any sort of justification for coercion or authority. This book will be of interest to academics and students of political philosophy, especially classical liberalism, and legal philosophy.

This monograph evaluates public policy responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through a public choice lens. The book compares two prominent, albeit mutually exclusive, theories in social sciences-public interest theory and public choice theory-and explores how their predictions perform within the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters present different pandemic policies alongside empirical data in order to draw conclusions about their efficacy, and, in turn, draw conclusions about the veracity of each theory. By the end of the volume, the reader will be able to draw their own conclusions about whether the pandemic policy responses served the public interest, as public interest theory suggests, or the personal interests of the politicians who implemented them, as public choice theory holds.

This book informs the American Education Stakeholders about the importance of empowering our learners with new knowledge, skills, and ability to help them become more effective and influential in society. The United States ranks 25th on the list of OECD countries in its overall poverty gap between people in poverty and affluent people, and ranks 26th in its poverty gap for children born into poverty and children from affluent families. Considering new educational funding measures at the federal, state, and local levels, the American educational system must focus on implementing programs that equip children with multidimensional human capital that enables them to be upwardly mobile, particularly in an era of intense technological change with the expansion of automation and artificial intelligence. These goals are not new. We believe that now is an important time to articulate and commit to the transmission of human capital for children and identify the practices that best promote it. This book aims to make recommendations to educational programming that should be invested in that has shown potential in mitigating the opportunity gap and increasing human capital. With long aftershocks, the pandemic's dramatically decreased educational opportunities may mean that America's future workforce will be devastated by the declining number of children in our pre-K-12 system, a phenomenon predicted to begin showing its effects in 2025, with a higher number of students projected to be below grade level in skilled areas. Simply increasing funding will have little impact in driving improved outcomes if the funds are not used wisely; indeed, expenditures per student have roughly tripled since 1960. This book recommends a systems-level approach to the American education system. The authors believe that without deeply considering the underlying incentives and governance of educational programming initiatives, more money alone will not solve the skills gap and declining out comes among learners. This handbook will be essential to state and local entities to make systemic recommendations to practitioners, college professors, and researchers.

In 2008, the world was plunged into a financial and economic crash. This book explores the roots of the crash, including the build-up of global economic imbalances, the explosion in the use of novel financial instruments, the mismanagement of risk, and the specific roles played by housing and debt. It reviews the evidence that on the eve of the crash all was not well and that many political and finance industry leaders ignored the dangers. The key events of the crash are described, and the main amplification mechanisms explained. An economics lens is used to dissect the bank rescue, paying particular attention to the hidden ways in which it worked, who will ultimately bear the costs, and to what degree new risks were created. The book evaluates the fiscal and monetary policies used to rescue economies, efforts to tackle unemployment, proposals for dealing with collapsing housing markets, austerity and the battles over long-term sovereign debt, the Eurozone crash, and the risks of future economic instability. It reviews reform-of mortgage markets, monetary policy, and banking-designed to make such disasters less likely in future. Written before, during, and in the years immediately after the crash, it is an engaging chronicle and comprehensive analysis of the events and thinking of these years. The book's arguments take on added authority given that the author had identified, and called attention to, key features of the crash before it happened.

Why are historically Catholic countries and regions generally more corrupt and less competitive than historically Protestant ones? How has institutionalization of religion influenced the prosperity of countries in Europe and the Americas? This open access book addresses these critical questions by elucidating the hegemonic and emancipatory religious factors leading to these dissimilarities between countries. The book features up-to-date mixed methods from interdisciplinary research contributing to existing studies in the sociology of religion field by demonstrating-for the first time-the effect of the mutually reinforcing configuration of multiple prosperity triggers (religion-politics-environment). It demonstrates the differences in the institutionalization of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by applying quantitative and qualitative methods and by performing a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) of 65 countries. The author also provides a comprehensive survey and results of empirical research on different theories of development, focusing on the influence of religion.

This book provides quantitative evidence on the issues in fiscal and monetary policies in Mongolia and presents necessary policy recommendations for policymakers and academic circles. Mongolia belongs to a natural resource-based, transition economy and thus has faced the risk of the so-called resource curse-including the "Dutch Disease" and immaturity in market-based systems, particularly in financial markets. Consequently, reformations of resource allocation and policy governance in fiscal and monetary fields have been required. So far, however, there have been only a very limited number of quantitative studies in the Mongolian economy among the vast literature of Asian studies. This book applies scientific approaches to address fiscal and monetary issues, such as data-oriented and econometric methods (a structural vector auto-regression model, a spatial econometric model, and panel estimation with fixed effects, among others). In this manner, the book enriches empirical evidence in academic literature and also contributes to evidence-based policymaking. All the authors are young leaders of government officials in the Ministry of Finance, Financial Regulatory Commission, and National Statistics Office in Mongolia, who have been trained in academic research methodologies at Saitama University, Japan, on JICA-JDS scholarships. Thus, academic researchers and policymakers will be prominent members of the target audience for this work.

This book examines how macro-fiscal policy can lead to gender-aware human development in an emerging economy like India, with special reference to gender budgeting. Integrating gender lens in macro-fiscal policies has been widely recognized in international and national policy making and budgeting. The book highlights the gender diagnosis-the measurement issues relate to construction of gender outcome variables; the statistical invisibility of unpaid care economy sector and how deficiency in public infrastructure can accentuate the private costs; the analytical link between gender outcome variables and macro-fiscal policy frameworks; the role and impact of fiscal transfers on gender equality outcomes at subnational levels; time series of gender budgets in India across sectors and its fiscal marksmanship; gender disaggregated public expenditure benefit incidence analysis to understand the distributional impacts of public spending on women across income quintiles and suggest policy alternatives. The book uses unique database-time use survey data and the disaggregated demand for grants, expenditure budgets using gender lens. The book employs case study, simple statistical tools for the analysis and econometric methodology.

The book portrays the scope and dimension of different financial inclusion strategies. It looks at the role and potential of banks involved in financial inclusion. This book focuses on the importance of financial inclusion and in measuring its important determinants. It provides an empirical insight into how the different factors influence financial inclusion of a nation, providing a guideline to the banks and the regulators to select an effective structure of bank branch and efficient composition, to ensure best utilization of their devoted resources in the context of a developing economy.

Comparing Fiscal Federalism investigates intergovernmental financial relations and the current de jure and de facto allocation of financial and fiscal powers in compound states from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. The volume combines theoretical approaches with case studies and involves scholars from various disciplines, in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of different approaches, developments and trends. This includes outlining fiscal federalism's basic principles and overall frameworks, investigating current constitutional/legislative settings and how financial systems function, as well as zooming in on a selection of emerging issues in financial and fiscal relations. The single chapters are based on comparative investigations under the umbrella of a broad definition of fiscal federalism that includes all varieties of federal systems.

Economic growth and development critically depends on the quality of infrastructure. Each aspect of the economy and its infrastructure are linked systemically. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly being promoted as the solution to the shortfall in financing needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Public-private partnerships enable the public entity to utilize the expertise and efficiencies of the private sector to deliver services and facilities that traditionally have been delivered by the public sector, either through public sector employees or by traditional procurement methods. To be beneficial to all stakeholders, a PPP project requires careful planning, implementation, and strong governance. This book breaks down the steps involved and the traps to circumvent. Despite its globally growing importance, project finance has been somewhat underrepresented in research. This book analyzes project finance from an interdisciplinary perspective-finance, management, and international business-and includes international laws of arbitrage and perspectives of international financial institutions as never endeavored by any previous research projects. The book also includes case studies assessing the relevance of private-public partnerships by comparing the country expectations and the real outcomes. The gap between expectations and results does not necessarily mean that significant progress has not been made. To the contrary, the book suggests that some of the original targets set may have been unrealistic, and that the requisite financial resources-or the financial sector policies that could have generated those resources-may have been lacking.

This non-technical volume analyses topical problems of public finance in a changing world characterized by growing mobility of production factors, liberalized economic policy regimes, and the formation of new nations. It discusses alternative views of government and the way we measure its activities; the modern welfare state and its impact on entrepreneurship and employment; issues of fiscal coordination and income redistribution in a world with many jurisdictions; and the problems of raising government revenue and of allocating property rights in transition economies.

This unique book gives a measure of the direct financial costs and benefits to a city of constructing a sports stadium without injecting biases and values into the situation. The literature on the indirect economic impact of these projects is reviewed and discussed. Private and public stadium projects are compared with respect to construction costs, use, and amenities. The work has an introduction that deals with the justification of subsidies, a comparison of ownership plans of the facilities, and a review of the literature. Following this are 15 chapters dealing with individual stadium projects. A summary and analysis of financial and non-financial data are followed by a conclusion.

This book covers several areas of economic theory and political philosophy from the perspective of Austrian Economics and libertarianism. As such, it deals with Epistemology and Methodology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, International Economics, Political Philosophy, Law and Public Policy, all from the Austro-libertarian perspective. Hence, this book offers an integrated view of libertarianism and Austrian economics in the light of recent debates in the areas of economic science and political philosophy. Moreover, it builds from the foundations of the Austrian approach (epistemology and methodology), while the latter material deals with its application to the individual from the microeconomic perspective, which in turn allows an exploration of subjects in macroeconomics. Additionally, this work applies Austro-libertarianism to law, politics, and public policy. Thus, it offers a unified view of the entire approach, in a logical progression, allowing the readers to judge this perspective in full. Futerman and Block say that their book is not a manual, which I suppose it is not. But it is a collection of highly pertinent essays, from which you can understand what is mistaken in the orthodoxy of economics, law, and politics. The central term of art in Austrian economics is that phrase "human action." It is the exercise of human will, not the blind bumping of one molecule against another or one organism against another, as in the physical sciences... Futerman and Block distinguish Austrian economics as a scientific enterprise based on liberty of the will from "libertarianism" as an advocacy based on policies implied by such liberty. "Although Austrian economics is positive and libertarianism is normative," they write, "this book shows how both are related; how each can support the other." Indeed they do. Deirdre N. McCloskey, PhD UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics and of History Emerita, Professor of English Emerita, Professor of Communication Emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago

This book presents a scientific view of fighting climate change in the economy of the future, the foundations of which are being set around the world. The authors substantiate the potential of Industry 4.0 in stimulating sustainable development in environmental protection and preservation of natural resources. This book considers the modern experience of fighting climate change based on possibilities of Industry 4.0 at the national scale in view of developed and developing countries with a special focus on Russia and at the corporate scale by the example of transnational corporations. It determines the future contribution of Industry 4.0 into development of responsible production and consumption, and compiles the "outlines" of "green" economy in Industry 4.0. It offers recommendations for control of climate change in Industry 4.0, and presents the authors' vision of ecological responsibility in Industry 4.0 for implementing the sustainable development goals. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners interested in climate change and development of Industry 4.0, as well contributing to a national economic policy for fighting climate change and corporate strategies of sustainable development in Industry 4.0.

This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states. The euro induced huge capital flows from the northern to the southern countries of the Eurozone that triggered an inflationary credit bubble in the latter, deprived them of their competitiveness, and made them vulnerable to the financial crisis that spilled over from the US in 2007 and 2008. As private capital shied away from the southern countries, the ECB helped out by providing credit from the local money-printing presses. The ECB became heavily exposed to investment risks in the process, and subsequently had to be bailed out by intergovernmental rescue operations that provided replacement credit for the ECB credit, which itself had replaced the dwindling private credit. The interventions stretched the legal structures stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty which, in the absence of a European federal state, had granted the ECB a very limited mandate. These interventions created a path dependency that effectively made parliaments vicarious agents of the ECB's Governing Council. This book describes what the author considers to be a dangerous political process that undermines both the market economy and democracy, without solving southern Europe's competitiveness problem. It argues that the Eurozone has to rethink its rules of conduct by limiting the role of the ECB, exiting the regime of soft budget constraints and writing off public and bank debt to help the crisis countries breathe again. At the same time, the Eurosystem should become more flexible by offering its members the option of exiting and re-entering the euro - something between the dollar and the Bretton Woods system - until it eventually turns into a federation with a strong political power centre and a uniform currency like the dollar.

This book deals with the Neglected Links in economics and society. These neglected links are the inner bonds and lines which keep the society and economy together and are almost interconnected although they are very often treated and discussed separately in different discourses. Contemporary discussion has forgotten to think universally and to integrate items into one common field of observation. Instead, too often particular items are studied and discussed as being independent of each other without acknowledging a broader context. The book gives an exemplary instruction on how to treat reciprocal links and how to work in an interdisciplinary way, which tackles history, sociology and economics at least. By so doing, the book as also serves as an educational instruction for integrative and interdisciplinary science instead of recapitulating mono-disciplinary approaches. Discussion includes topics such as social and economic inequality research, limits of rationality, and orthodoxies and heterodoxies of economic research, as well as a discussion of the heroes of interdisciplinary thought.

This volumes examines the interaction of labour market conditions and retirement decisions. Based on French and US data, it provides empirical evidence and quantitative analysis of retirement and labor market flows. It studies the horizon effect and uses French individual data and probit models to show that the horizon effect does matter for the probability of being employed before the early retirement age. It analyses the influence of the retirement age on labour-market equilibrium, as well as the impact of labour market conditions, especially the importance of unemployment risk, on retirement decisions.

Critics of qualitative educational evaluation frequently assume this approach is a monolithic entity rather than a multitude of varied approaches. This collection dispels this myth by comparing, contrasting, and clarifying various qualitative approaches. It represents a wealth of practical alternatives designed to add to the evaluator's arsenal. The editor has combined classic papers with newer writings to present a comprehensive coverage of varied approaches in the field--including ethnography, naturalistic inquiry, generic pragmatic (sociological) qualitative inquiry, connoisseurship and criticism, and a few completely new qualitative approaches--which are presented in this work by their founders or major proponents.

This book provides innovative solutions to fundamental problems in finance, such as the valuation of bond and equity, the pricing of debt, equity and total asset, the determination of optimal capital structure, etc., which are unsolved or poor-solved so far. The solutions in this book all have the following features: Based on essential assumptions in line with reality, the final solutions are analytical solutions with closed-form models, the forms and variables of the models are determined by strict and objective logic processes rather than chosen or presumed subjectively, such as the new growth model for stock valuation, the new CAPM accounting for total risk rather than only systematic risk, the real solution to optimal capital structure based on the trade-off between tax shield and bankruptcy cost. In addition, these basic solutions or models are adjusted easily to various application scenarios.

This book presents a multidimensional perspective on the interlinkage between human development, community characteristics and public service delivery with special reference to India. The chapters in the book analyze the influence of public service delivery on human development from neo-classical as well as Marxian point of view. Thus, the expositions in the book provides a balanced mix of macro and micro approaches in the study of development. The analytical discussions are supplemented by case studies and empirical estimates so as to demonstrate the applicability of the theory and the theoretical discourse about human development, community network and the success and failures of critical public services in the Indian context. The methodology followed in the chapters involves critical survey of existing literature, case studies, field survey and use of econometric techniques as well as statistical tools of index construction. While contributors are primarily scholars from neo-classical economics discipline, some are intellectuals from the field of political economy and development studies. Given the wide array of development perspectives, this book is of interest not only to students and researcher of development economics, social science and management, but also a valuable reading for development practitioners and policy makers, who would be interested in understanding how community and public institutions interact to determine access to health, education and social security services that shapes the wellbeing of disadvantaged populations. The lessons and implications are extremely pertinent to other emerging economies, in particular those in South Asia.

In this book, leading experts take a long-term view of the trends and policies of most relevance in achieving the structural readjustment required by the current crisis, which for too long has been viewed merely as an economic recession. A wide variety of issues are addressed, including the implications of the massive movement of wealth from advanced countries to emerging ones and the increasing income inequality evident within many countries. Prospects for growth toward the mid-century and beyond are discussed, with consideration of lessons from the past and the impact of various constraints, including corruption. The policies and reforms required to restore economic dynamism within the EU and more generally, to foster the "Good Economy" are discussed, recognizing the need for measures to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, well-being and high levels of environmental performance. The book comprises a selection of contributions presented at the XXV Villa Mondragone International Economic Seminar. For the past quarter of a century, this seminar has brought together leading experts to engage in debates on pressing economic questions. This book, based on the most recent gathering, will be of interest to all who are concerned about the challenges to growth, well-being and social inclusion that will have to be confronted in the coming decades.

This book addresses the gaps in the present institutional structure of inclusive finance framework in India. It provides a comprehensive review of the role of banks in financial inclusion policy and micro-finance landscape in India at present. It identifies the key issues within the banking system which prove to be obstacles in the way of achieving financial inclusion and sustainable growth. The book conceptualizes inclusive banking, delves into the theoretical foundations thereof and suggests an institutional framework to avoid overlapping of their functions in order to ensure profitability. It reviews the existing market structure and competition in the inclusive finance arena while considering the role of banks, micro-finance institutions and SHGs in financing the poor. The book proposes a distinct change to the existing business model, examines the bank business model for inclusion and how the banks can and should treat the micro lending clientele as their core client base to counter the issues of profitability and competition in today's banking sector. It also discusses some of the latest initiatives in inclusive finance and the importance of entrepreneurship development experiments in India and their efficacy in comparison with the micro-lending model.

For four decades Professional Investor and its predecessor, Investment Analyst, the journal of The Institute of Investment Management and Research, has been publishing sound investment advice on topical issues from leading experts in the field.
The articles in this collection cover financial subjects ranging from the first introduction computers to mathematical techniques into finance, through the oil crisis years, to the valuation of brands, intellectual property and goodwill. Each article provides a fascinating insight both into the subject concerned and into contemporary thinking at the time of writing. All the articles have been selected for their significance to the financial world today. These fascinating articles are as relevant today as when first written.
The Institute of Investment management and Research (IIMR) is the professional Examining body for investment analysts and fund managers in the UK. It provides the 'Threshold Competence' examination for fund managers and analysts, in addition to a six paper Associate examination.
The Institute was founded in 1955 as the Society of Investment Analysts and changed its name in 1992. It was a founding member of EFFAS and has close links with AIMR in the US.
Professional Investor is the journal of the IIMR and is published ten times a year.

The first edition of Richard Wolf's volume was written during the infancy of the field of evaluation. Fifteen years later, educational evaluation is now an established field which has gone through considerable changes. Enduring the test of time, the value of Wolf's ideas remains constant. This third edition is an extension and refinement of his ideas. He continues to avoid the entanglement of unwarranted ideological positions. Instead he identifies basic questions addressed in a study and the classes of information needed to answer those questions. New material, including a new chapter, act as additional layers on the same structure. Throughout, Wolf advocates an eclectic approach--using both quantitative and qualitative techniques. He has structured this volume as a text for graduate students and a handbook for professionals.

Richard Wolf's book presents a comprehensive view of educational evaluation. It covers the history of evaluation, planning and conduct of evaluation studies, analysis and interpretation of results, report preparation, and decision making. A new chapter surveys the contemporary scene in educational evaluation: the development of evaluation; the convergence and divergence in views; qualitative versus quantitative approaches; and the role of teachers in evaluation. Each chapter concludes with updated, comprehensive references and additional readings. Wolf's text "Evaluation in Education" is a classic in the field. The eclecticism of its approach is its serviceability.