Book Description

Local capital market development responds to the need to reduce the risk of financial crises that result from an excessive reliance on external borrowing—for example, to avoid foreign exchange risk, reduce contagion, and decrease short-term external borrowing. In fact, as financial crises dwarf the role of financial intermediation, the problems of asymmetric information become even more severe, leading to greater public mistrust of financial institutions.

The contributors in Focus on Capital tackle various aspects of developing Latin American capital markets. Macroeconomic and structural policies, accounting practices and standards, bond market development, market infrastructure, derivatives markets, corporate governance, ethics, human capital, and regional integration all play a role. One of the shortcomings of many strategies for capital market development—more important than getting the sequencing wrong—is failing to understand the links between the various components and the need for an overall strategy as well as plans for each component. Focus on Capital analyzes the status of the markets in Latin America and identifies the technical, political, and financial challenges to building vibrant capital markets and increasing the efficiency benefits of regional economic and financial integration. ... Read more

Book Description

Throughout his many writings, Michael Novak, one of the leading Catholic social theorists of our times, has urged us to adopt a tripartite system of democratic capitalism including a market economy, a democratic polity, and a moral-cultural system that would nourish the values and virtues on which free societies depend. "Three in One" introduces the reader to Novak's portrait of democratic capitalism. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Another triumph
Professor Edward Younkins has selected 29 articles from newspapers and journals, beginning with Novak's first break from social democracy "A Closet Capitalist Confesses" Washington Post (March 1976) and " An Underpraised and Undervalued System" (Worldview August, 1977) up to "Solidarity in a Time of Globalization." He collects these essays under five headings -- the theory of democratic capitalism; free persons and the common good; religion and morality; the responsibilities of the corporation; the global arena - and concludes with the autobiographical essay "Controversial Engagements." Younkins located these articles in well-known journals such as The Public Interest and First Things, in lesser-known journals such as Worldview, Public Opinion, Economic Affairs (London) The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and the Dravo Review and previously unpublished material. He has included substantial essays such as "The Communitarian Individual in America," "The Silent Artillery of Communism," "The Evangelical Basis of a Social Market Economy," "The Future of Civil Society," "The Jewish and Christian Foundation of Human Dignity," "Economics as Humanism," and "The International Vocation of American Business." He also retrieved two unpublished pieces, one of which offers a new definition of social justice to overcome the powerful objections of Friedrich Hayek. Much of the periodical literature in which Novak has developed the idea of democratic capitalism over the years appears in this collection, in addition, Younkins appends a valuable bibliography listing further articles. The collection displays the development of Novak's thought on democratic capitalism from its embryonic beginnings through its later unfolding. ... Read more

Book Description

This book explains the changes in industrial leadership from Britain to the United States earlier in this century and from the United States to Japan more recently, in terms of the changing business investment strategies and organizational structures in these nations.The author criticizes economists for failing to understand these historical changes.The book shows that this intellectual failure is not inherent in the discipline of economics; there are important traditions in economic thought that the mainstream of the economics profession has simply ignored. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Corporate Capitalism as a non-market process
Picking up where he left off in "Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor", Lazonick deepens his critique of capitalism's self-representation in neoclassical economic theory. Combining the insights of Schumpeter, Marshall and Marx, he convincingly argues that the emergence of large corporations actually displace "free market" "mechanisms" of resource allocation, radically changes the manner in which the pricing of commodities occurs, and transforms the balance of power between workers and the owners of enterprises. Central to his analysis is the various ways in which organizational complexity and planning within large firms leads to an undemocratic politics of knowledge creation and diffusion that determines the division of the firm's revenue into wages and profits. In the process of narrating the emergence of corporate capitalism, Lazonick elaborates on how large enterprises become locked into economies of speed that exacerbate "labor-management" tensions that, in turn, sap firm's abilities to innovate in the face of international competition. When societies fall prey to these problems, economic stagnation and class conflict result and those with the power within corporations use that power to grab a larger share of a revenue-pie that is either growing at a much slower rate or shrinking. For Lazonick, capitalism is a non-equilibrium process that is always political, generative of uncertainty and an "inequality [that] has undermined the incentives for those who participate in the business organization's specialized division of labor to make the long-term commitment's of their skills and efforts that the innovation process requires." Like "Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor", this one is a must read; and at a fraction of the cost. ... Read more

Book Description

Well-organized protests turned the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in December 1999 into a widely publicized fiasco. Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy addresses important questions that are being slighted in the controversy over globalization that was sparked by the events in Seattle. The book takes a penetrating look at major challenges to the WTO and the future of trade liberalization. But it also shows how the WTO is moving in a direction at odds with basic democratic principles. No other study addressing these issues takes into account international legal theory and international relations theory along with the more traditional evaluations of international trade policy by political scientists and economists.

Barfield analyzes the structural flaws of the WTO's new dispute resolution system and focuses on the imbalance between the highly efficient judicial arm of the WTO and the inefficient and unwieldy legislative or rule-making capacity. He describes several specific examples of "judicial creativity" on the part of the WTO Appellate Body, details the difficulties presented by particular disputes, and discusses the pressures to introduce "soft" law and customary law as guiding principles to be utilized in WTO dispute settlements.

Barfield caps his trenchant analysis with policy recommendations that set the course for the WTO in the twenty-first century. He argues that the WTO will have to adopt less judicial, more flexible means of resolving disputes, as well as a blocking mechanism for panel decisions that a substantial number of WTO members oppose. He examines and refutes the claims of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and some multinational corporations that they have a presumptive right to participate more directly in the WTO decisionmaking and dispute settlement processes. For the WTO to achieve continued democratic legitimacy, the study argues, it must remain a "government-to-government" organization, one in which governments make decisions only after sorting through and resolving the demands of competing interests in the domestic political process. ... Read more

Book Description

This book looks at what is going to happen to U.S. enterprises, markets, and the government sector in the coming decades. The discussion draws on economic factors such as the declining growth rate that will accompany the aging of the population.The author also considers a series of critical social, cultural, and political trends that will affect the way economic activities will be structured.He focuses particular attention on the increasing share of markets that will be held by the largest firms, and the changing roles of government in the economy.This book tells us not only what will happen in the future, but also provides perspective on what is happening to U.S. capitalism today. ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description

This program can help your students become successful in creating and running a small business. Its focus is on selecting a business, preparing a business plan, and managing an ongoing operation.

Seventy percent of high school students say they want to start their own businesses. This completely revised program provides them with the information and skills that lead to success. It also benefits student-employees by giving them an appreciation for the realities of business, and it helps all students understand there role as a consumer. ... Read more