Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Commerce
Languages : en
Pages : 828
Book Description
The Economist
Author: The Economist
Author: The Economist Guide to Commodities
Author: Caroline BainPublisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847658431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
The price volatility of so many commodities over the past decade has underlined their economic importance and how dependent we are on them. The price of gold has soared to new peaks as currencies have endured a crisis of confidence; demand from China has pushed metal prices up; instability in the Middle East and North Africa has had its effect on the oil price; and food prices have been increasing in parallel with worries about whether there is enough to feed the world. Among the commodities it covers in details are: ·Aluminium, lead, nickel, tin, zinc, steel, iron ore, gold, silver and platinum; ·Oil, gas and coal; ·Wheat, maize (corn), sugar, soybeans, coffee, cotton, cocoa, tea, rice, wool and rubber. The guide looks at trends in the consumption and production of, and markets for, these goods. It looks at how prices have changed over the years and how they are likely to change in future. It analyses where the power lies in terms of producers (resource rich countries and mining firms) and market players (commodity exchanges and trading firms like Glencore). It highlights the vulnerabilities of different societies and industries to the vagaries of commodity markets. For anyone who wants a concise guide and comprehensive overview of the commodities business and its impact on the world, it is invaluable.
The Economist Guide to Decision-Making
Author: Helga DrummondPublisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847656617
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 373
Book Description
We make decisions, and these decisions make us and our organisations. And in theory, decision-making should be easy: a problem is identified, the decision-makers generate solutions, and choose the optimal one - and powerful mathematical tools are available to facilitate the task. Yet if it is all so simple why do organisations, both private and public sector, keep making mistakes - the results of which are borne by shareholders, employees, taxpayers and ultimately society at large? This guide to decision making. by leading decision science academic Helga Drummond, aims to improve decision-making in organisations. It explores how and why decisions go awry in the first place - and offers practical advice on what decision-makers can do to counter the psychological, social and other forces that can undermine individual judgment and pull organisations off course. Full of examples of good and bad decision-making from around the world, it will make readers think more clearly about decisions big and small.
An Economist in the Real World
Author: Kaushik BasuPublisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262331683
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
An economist's perspective on the nuts and bolts of economic policymaking, based on his experience as the Chief Economic Adviser in India. In December 2009, the economist Kaushik Basu left the rarefied world of academic research for the nuts and bolts of policymaking. Appointed by the then Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, to be chief economic adviser (CEA) to the Government of India, Basu—a theorist, with special interest in development economics, and a professor of economics at Cornell University—discovered the complexity of applying economic models to the real world. Effective policymaking, Basu learned, integrates technical knowledge with political awareness. In this book, Basu describes the art of economic policymaking, viewed through the lens of his two and a half years as CEA. Basu writes from a unique perspective—neither that of the career bureaucrat nor that of the traditional researcher. Plunged into the deal-making, non-hypothetical world of policymaking, Basu suffers from a kind of culture shock and views himself at first as an anthropologist or scientist, gathering observations of unfamiliar phenomena. He addresses topics that range from the macroeconomic—fiscal and monetary policies—to the granular—designing grain auctions and policies to assure everyone has access to basic food. Basu writes about globalization and India's period of unprecedented growth, and he reports that at a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Obama joked to him, “You should give this guy some tips”—“this guy” being Timothy Geithner. Basu describes the mixed success of India's anti-poverty programs and the problems of corruption, and considers the social norms and institutions necessary for economic development. India is, Basu argues, at an economics crossroad. As CEA from 2009 to 2012, he was present at the creation of a potential economic powerhouse.
The Economics of Managing Chlorofluorocarbons
Author: John H. CumberlandPublisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317333977
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Book Description
Chlorofluorocarbons are known to be effective spray can propellants, solvents and refrigerators and were often used in deodorants, refrigerators and other goods. However, it was not known at the beginning of their use, the complex reaction that CFCs have on the earth’s climate. Originally published in 1982, this report explores early research into the effect that CFCs have on the environment and provides guidance on how this emerging issue should be dealt with. This title will be of interest to students of Environmental Studies.
Thinking Like an Economist
Author: Elizabeth Popp BermanPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691167389
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
"Economics is the queen of the social sciences, and economists are among the most prominent of experts in Washington. No other discipline has its own office in the White House, is as visible in the New York Times, or as frequently mentioned in the Congressional Record. Yet at the same time, the limits on economists' influence are quite clear. Their advice is often ignored until it is politically convenient, and as the current moment shows, politicians can cut experts out of the loop entirely. The sharp contrast between economists' overwhelming support for pricing carbon emissions and the complete lack of federal climate action provides a particularly keen demonstration of these limits. So how does economics matter to the policy process? In Thinking Like an Economist: How Economics Became the Language of U.S. Public Policy, Popp Berman argues that while economists' policy advice may sometimes have an impact, the spread of an economic style of reasoning - basic microeconomic ideas about efficiency, tradeoffs, incentives, choice and competition, spread through professional schools and institutionalized through organizational and legal change - has had more fundamental effects. Although economists had influence in a handful of policy domains by mid-century, between the 1960s and the 1980s the economic style circulated and was stabilized in a range of new locations. Much of this change was driven by two intellectual communities: a group of systems analysts who came from RAND with new answers to the question "How should government make decisions?", and a network of industrial organization economists, centered first at Harvard and later Chicago, who asked "How should government regulate markets?" These two communities helped spread economics to law and public policy schools, established economic reasoning in a range of organizations in and around government, and in some cases institutionalized legal requirements for use of the economic style. Built upon five years of research, the book makes comparisons across a number of policy domains, including primary case studies of antipoverty, antitrust, and environmental policy, as well as episodes from education, housing, labor, transportation, health, and communications policy. Drawing on historical evidence from nine archives, more than a hundred previously collected oral histories, and thousands of primary and secondary sources, it provides a new answer to the question of why U.S. politics took a lasting rightward turn during the 1970s, and new ideas about what it might take to reverse that change - not the rejection of economics, but an honest grappling with its political effects"--
Can You Outsmart an Economist?
Author: Steven E. LandsburgPublisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 1328489825
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
This entertaining way to learn economics “will delight and inform anyone who enjoys rigorous thinking and the unexpected conclusions it delivers” (Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic). Can you outsmart an economist? Steven Landsburg, acclaimed author of The Armchair Economist and professor of economics, dares you to try. In this whip-smart, entertaining, and entirely unconventional economics primer, he brings together over one hundred puzzles and brain teasers that illustrate the subject’s key concepts and pitfalls. From warm-up exercises to get your brain working, to logic and probability problems, to puzzles covering more complex topics like inferences, strategy, and irrationality, Can You Outsmart an Economist? will show you how to do just that by expanding the way you think about decision making and problem solving. Let the games begin! “Ingenious…enables you to think like an economist without incurring a Keynesian headache or a huge student loan.” —George Gilder, author of Life After Google “Entertaining as well as edifying. Read it, expand your mind, and have fun!” —N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University
The Economist
Author: Economist (London), England : 1843)Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
The Economics of Conservation Programs
Author: Franz WirlPublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461563011
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
Demand side management (DSM) is one of the most topical issues in regulating electric utilities, both in the United States and internationally. What is DSM? It consists of various measures at the level of demand (households, commerce, industry, others), which are at least partially financed by electric utilities and which should either conserve energy or reduce the peak load. The practice of DSM originates from The Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 (PURPA) that provided the political and legal framework to set energy conservation as a national goal, which encouraged regulatory commissions to initiate utility conservation programs; see e.g., Nowell-Tschirhart (1990) and Fox-Penner (1990). Moreover, integrated resource planning, which must account for DSM on a level playing field with supply, is written into the 1992 Energy Policy Act as the U.S. Government's preferred method of electric power planning. Although PURPA set energy conservation as a national priority, its implementation was left to the states with the consequence of considerable differences concerning efforts and rules. By 1993 16 states had already implemented integrated resource planning, 9 were in the process of doing so and further 9 considered implementation, (EPRI 1993b). Due to the Clean Air Act of 1990, 24 states are considering to include external costs in integrated resource planning.