The subject of this book is the history of economic thought, including the less-commonly discussed schools of binary and socio-economics. The intended audience is students, business people, regulators, legislators, and scholars who are relatively unfamiliar with the primary competing economic theories of our day. Readers will benefit by coming away from the book with a better understanding of the context within which economic arguments are made. They will be better able to think critically about the assumptions underlying various economic proposals, and the history behind those assumptions.

The subject of this book is the history of economic thought, including the less-commonly discussed schools of binary and socio-economics. The intended audience is students, business people, regulators, legislators, and scholars who are relatively unfamiliar with the primary competing economic theories of our day. Readers will benefit by coming away from the book with a better understanding of the context within which economic arguments are made. They will be better able to think critically about the assumptions underlying various economic proposals, and the history behind those assumptions.

Recent years have seen a huge growth in European cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and considerable attention has been given to how such deals arise and are completed. A U.S. investor must understand the basic difference in the principle of individual labor law in the U.S. and how it compares with the laws of the target country in an M&A. In the U.S., under the employment at-will doctrine, the U.S. private sector employers can dismiss their non-unionized employees at any time for any reason or even no reason at all. In most European Union (EU) countries and Germany and Italy specifically, employees are presumed to have a basic right to keep their jobs indefinitely. One of the greatest labor cost disparity with the U.S. is not wages. It is the amount of paid time-off and other benefits. Employers in Germany and Italy will find it difficult to discharge employees without incurring substantial liability. For high-level, long-term employees, these severance payments can run into six or even seven figures.