Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories.North argues that economic change depends largely on adaptive efficiency, a society's effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.

    This book presents a unique, integrated perspective on natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquids that is vital to understanding energy prices, product flows, infrastructure, equity values and the global energy economy.Innovative analysis provides energy producers, marketers, end users, financiers, and investors with a framework for understanding the tectonic shift in global supply and demand that will continue to drive energy markets for decades to come. The Domino Effect also delivers high-level insights into exploiting the extraordinary investment, trade and career opportunities that will continue to be opened by the shale revolution.

    This book will change the debate on globalization in this country and make believers of skeptics.

    Reinert suggests that this set of policies in various combinations has driven successful development from Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East. Yet despite its demonstrable sucess, orthodox developemt economists have largely ignored this approach and insisted instead on the importance of free trade. Reinart shows how the history of economics has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand and the free market theories of English and later American economies on the other. Our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism—look at China today—and could only later afford the luxury of free trade. When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of national affluence.

    Porter’s groundbreaking study of international competitiveness has shaped national policy in countries around the world. It has also transformed thinking and action in states, cities, companies, and even entire regions such as Central America.Based on research in ten leading trading nations, The Competitive Advantage of Nations offers the first theory of competitiveness based on the causes of the productivity with which companies compete. Porter shows how traditional comparative advantages such as natural resources and pools of labor have been superseded as sources of prosperity, and how broad macroeconomic accounts of competitiveness are insufficient. The book introduces Porter’s “diamond,” a whole new way to understand the competitive position of a nation (or other locations) in global competition that is now an integral part of international business thinking. Porter's concept of “clusters,” or groups of interconnected firms, suppliers, related industries, and institutions that arise in particular locations, has become a new way for companies and governments to think about economies, assess the competitive advantage of locations, and set public policy. Even before publication of the book, Porter’s theory had guided national reassessments in New Zealand and elsewhere. His ideas and personal involvement have shaped strategy in countries as diverse as the Netherlands, Portugal, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and India, and regions such as Massachusetts, California, and the Basque country. Hundreds of cluster initiatives have flourished throughout the world. In an era of intensifying global competition, this pathbreaking book on the new wealth of nations has become the standard by which all future work must be measured.

    Why can’t we build them? 50 patent owners are blocking a major drug maker from creating a cancer cure. Why won’t they get out of the way? 90% of our broadcast spectrum sits idle while American cell phone service lags far behind Japan’s and Korea’s. Why are we wasting our airwaves? 98% of African American–owned farms have been sold off over the last century. Why can’t we stop the loss? All these problems are really the same problem—one whose solution would jump-start innovation, release trillions in productivity, and help revive our slumping economy.Every so often an idea comes along that transforms our understanding of how the world works. Michael Heller has discovered a market dynamic that no one knew existed. Usually, private ownership creates wealth, but too much ownership has the opposite effect—it creates gridlock. When too many people own pieces of one thing, whether a physical or intellectual resource, cooperation breaks down, wealth disappears, and everybody loses. Heller’s paradox is at the center of The Gridlock Economy. Today’s leading edge of innovation—in high tech, biomedicine, music, film, real estate—requires the assembly of separately owned resources. But gridlock is blocking economic growth all along the wealth creation frontier.A thousand scholars have applied and verified Heller’s paradox. Now he takes readers on a lively tour of gridlock battlegrounds. Heller zips from medieval robber barons to modern-day broadcast spectrum squatters; from Mississippi courts selling African-American family farms to troubling New York City land confiscations; and from Chesapeake Bay oyster pirates to today’s gene patent and music mash-up outlaws. Each tale offers insights into how to spot gridlock in operation and how we can overcome it.The Gridlock Economy is a startling, accessible biography of an idea. Nothing is inevitable about gridlock. It results from choices we make about how to control the resources we value most. We can unlock the grid; this book shows us where to start.

    Planners make rapid decisions that have an immediate impact on the ground--the width of streets, the minimum size of land parcels, the heights of buildings. The language they use to describe their objectives is qualitative--"sustainable," "livable," "resilient"--often with no link to measurable outcomes. Urban economics, on the other hand, is a quantitative science, based on theories, models, and empirical evidence largely developed in academic settings. In this book, the eminent urban planner Alain Bertaud argues that applying the theories of urban economics to the practice of urban planning would greatly improve both the productivity of cities and the welfare of urban citizens.Bertaud explains that markets provide the indispensable mechanism for cities' development. He cites the experience of cities without markets for land or labor in pre-reform China and Russia; this "urban planners' dream" created inefficiencies and waste. Drawing on five decades of urban planning experience in forty cities around the world, Bertaud links cities' productivity to the size of their labor markets; argues that the design of infrastructure and markets can complement each other; examines the spatial distribution of land prices and densities; stresses the importance of mobility and affordability; and critiques the land use regulations in a number of cities that aim at redesigning existing cities instead of just trying to alleviate clear negative externalities. Bertaud concludes by describing the new role that joint teams of urban planners and economists could play to improve the way cities are managed.

    Using Chinese military genius Sun Tzu’s strategies as a guide, Brown examines why some companies triumph while others crumble.Business is a fight for survival. In business as in war, leaders match their wills in pursuit of opposing outcomes, they devise strategies, and marshal resources for victory. Success can turn on the smallest of details; a single tactical blunder can topple an empire. Ultimately, one side triumphs—and victory is all that matters.David Brown, host of the hit podcast Business Wars, masterfully frames some of the biggest business rivalries in history using revered Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s insights and pragmatic advice. Each rivalry he examines tells a story of combined wits, strategies, and resources. Brown chronicles the rise of companies as they vanquish rivals, formulate innovative plans, and adapt to keep up with shifting societal needs. The goal? Stay ahead of the competition and emerge victorious as an industry titan.By compiling powerful insights uncovered over hundreds of episodes and more than a year of in-depth research, Brown has developed a formula for business intrigue that uses popular history as a hook to lure readers in. The stories in The Art of Business Wars are fascinating, but the lessons we draw from them—about determination, ingenuity, patience, grit, subtlety, and other traits that contribute to a victorious enterprise—are invaluable, whether you're a software-slinging freelancer or the CEO of a multinational manufacturer.

    The explanations are illustrated with simple diagrams, making the concepts easy to "see". The explanations are targeted to the "non-economist" with a serious interest in the current debate about fiscal policies and National Budgets.

    It will surpass China in population by 2032 and will have more English speakers than the United States by 2050. In In Spite of the Gods, Edward Luce, a journalist who covered India for many years, makes brilliant sense of India and its rise to global power. Already a number-one bestseller in India, his book is sure to be acknowledged for years as the definitive introduction to modern India. In Spite of the Gods illuminates a land of many contradictions. The booming tech sector we read so much about in the West, Luce points out, employs no more than one million of India’s 1.1 billion people. Only 35 million people, in fact, have formal enough jobs to pay taxes, while three-quarters of the country lives in extreme deprivation in India’s 600,000 villages. Yet amid all these extremes exists the world’s largest experiment in representative democracy—and a largely successful one, despite bureaucracies riddled with horrifying corruption. Luce shows that India is an economic rival to the U.S. in an entirely different sense than China is. There is nothing in India like the manufacturing capacity of China, despite the huge potential labor force. An inept system of public education leaves most Indians illiterate and unskilled. Yet at the other extreme, the middle class produces ten times as many engineering students a year as the United States. Notwithstanding its future as a major competitor in a globalized economy, American. leaders have been encouraging India’s rise, even welcoming it into the nuclear energy club, hoping to balance China’s influence in Asia. Above all, In Spite of the Gods is an enlightening study of the forces shaping India as it tries to balance the stubborn traditions of the past with an unevenly modernizing present. Deeply informed by scholarship and history, leavened by humor and rich in anecdote, it shows that India has huge opportunities as well as tremendous challenges that make the future “hers to lose.”

    Attributing achievements to a combination of long hours of practice, strong community support, and just being born at the right time, Gladwell analyzes the small factors which lead to success. If you want to learn everything you want to know about Outliers without reading more than 300 pages, our Quicklet book and eBook is for you - fast, fun, and the best material up front!CHAPTER OUTLINEQuicklet On OutliersIntroductionList Of Important PeopleKey Terms & DefinitionsIntroduction Summary: The Roseto Mystery...and much more

    Its the only gold and silver investing book you will ever need because its written by a nationally recognized precious metals investing expert with almost 15 years of buying gold and silver bullion under his belt. He reveals all the tricks of the trade that most people in the gold and silver industry probably don't want you to know. "Stack Silver Get Gold will become "the bible" for both first time and long time precious metal investors. Tons of useful information and very well written. You have a real winner in this book." -Bill Zielinski (editor of goldandsilverblog.com) Stack Silver Get Gold: How to Buy Gold and Silver Bullion without Getting Ripped Off! Congratulations, you know that investing in gold and silver is a good idea and you're ready to buy gold and silver before the general public catches on. You have a wisdom few other people possess. So you want to know how to begin investing in silver and gold without getting ripped off? Do you want to buy silver and gold bullion but don't know where to begin? Do you want to avoid all the silver and gold buying scams on TV and the internet? Do you want to learn how to avoid having your gold and silver confiscated by the government? Do you want to know how and where to store and secure your gold and silver at your home, in the most secure vaults in the United States and secret vault storage options in other countries? You want to know how to start investing in gold and silver for as little as $25 using a strategy called dollar cost averaging? Do you want to buy gold or silver today, within 10 minutes of reading this short book? Read this book and you'll discover the answers to your questions above plus.... *The 7 types of gold and silver bullion to buy now and how to sell if you have t *The 11 types of gold and silver to avoid like the plague *The top 3 most secure places to store your precious metals, including home safes and private highly secure vaults *How to store your gold and silver secretly in another country *How the author is personally investing in gold and silver, his exact strategy *Exactly where to buy your gold and silver (the actual websites and dealers) *How to add gold and silver bullion to your IRA or 401k *How to start gold and silver investing safely and avoid all the tricks of scam artists and precious metals dealers *Tax and reporting requirements and even travel restrictions and how to get around them Stack Silver Get Gold was written by Hunter Riley III. Hunter spent most of his twenties on the futures trading floor of the rough and tumble pits in Chicago Mercantile Exchange and has been investing in silver and gold for more than a decade. He's witnessed all the ways the gold and silver bullion market will try to chew you up and spit you out and hew wrote this book so you can overcome them and be a successful gold and silver investor. His short, no fluff, straight to the point book boils down over a decade's worth of investing do's and don'ts into about 100 pages. You can literally read this book and start investing in gold and silver with total confidence, safety and ease on the same day you buy it. The funny thing is that this is probably the shortest book on gold and silver investing ever written but it's also is the only book you'll ever need to invest in gold and silver. Hunter values his time very much and he's written this book as straight to the point as possible because he knows you value your time as well. Some of those people who share your wise views are Jim Rogers, Michael Maloney, Robert Kiyosaki, Kevin Hogan, James Turk, Richard Duncan, Timothy Ferriss, Warren Buffet, Brendon Burchard, Kyle Bass, Peter Schiff and Marc Faber just to name a few. Go buy this book now. It will SAVE you a ton of money. Buy Stack Silver Get Gold: How to Buy Gold and Silver without Getting Ripped Off!

    It all started back home in Virginia, with the blue sweater, a gift that quickly became her prized possession—until the day she outgrew it and gave it away to Goodwill. Eleven years later in Africa, she spotted a young boy wearing that very sweater, with her name still on the tag inside. That the sweater had made its trek all the way to Rwanda was ample evidence, she thought, of how we are all connected, how our actions—and inaction—touch people every day across the globe, people we may never know or meet.From her first stumbling efforts as a young idealist venturing forth in Africa to the creation of the trailblazing organization she runs today, Novogratz tells gripping stories with unforgettable characters—women dancing in a Nairobi slum, unwed mothers starting a bakery, courageous survivors of the Rwandan genocide, entrepreneurs building services for the poor against impossible odds. She shows, in ways both hilarious and heartbreaking, how traditional charity often fails, but how a new form of philanthropic investing called "patient capital" can help make people self-sufficient and can change millions of lives. More than just an autobiography or a how-to guide to addressing poverty, The Blue Sweater is a call to action that challenges us to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink our engagement with the world.

    Everything you need to begin or continue your journey in real estate investing is here. How to present yourself to other real estate professionals, where to find the deals, how to talk to private lenders, where to find contractors, how to maximize profits on your flips and more. This is your guide to creating your real estate investing future. If you have ever thought about getting into real estate investing, this book will show you how to do it safely and securely.

    This title can help you understand why financial markets exist, how financial institutions serve those markets, and the various services those institutions offer.