Download or read book Stateless Commerce written by Barak Richman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-19 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Stateless Commerce, Barak Richman uses the colorful case study of the diamond industry to explore how ethnic trading networks operate and why they persist in the twenty-first century. How, for example, does the 47th Street diamond district in midtown Manhattan—surrounded by skyscrapers and sophisticated financial institutions—continue to thrive as an ethnic marketplace that operates like a traditional bazaar? Conventional models of economic and technological progress suggest that such primitive commercial networks would be displaced by new trading paradigms, yet in the heart of New York City the old world persists. Richman’s explanation is deceptively simple. Far from being an anachronism, 47th Street’s ethnic enclave is an adaptive response to the unique pressures of the diamond industry. Ethnic trading networks survive because they better fulfill many functions usually performed by state institutions. While the modern world rests heavily on lawyers, courts, and state coercion, ethnic merchants regularly sell goods and services by relying solely on familiarity, trust, and community enforcement—what economists call “relational exchange.” These commercial networks insulate themselves from the outside world because the outside world cannot provide those assurances. Extending the framework of transactional cost and organizational economics, Stateless Commerce draws on rare insider interviews to explain why personal exchange succeeds, even as most global trade succumbs to the forces of modernization, and what it reveals about the limitations of the modern state in governing the economy.

Download or read book Seeing Like a State written by James C. Scott and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades.”—John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as “a magisterial critique of top-down social planning” by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail—sometimes catastrophically—in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. “Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp relief the nature of the world we now inhabit.”—New Yorker “A tour de force.”— Charles Tilly, Columbia University

Download or read book Economics for Real People written by Gene Callahan and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 2002 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Global Political Economy of Israel written by Jonathan Nitzan and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 2002-08-20 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate about globalisation and its discontents

Download or read book A Soaring Eagle written by Peter D. Groenewegen and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 914 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich biography of theorist, practitioner, educator, and arguably the father of professional economics, Alfred Marshall. More than just the life of this major economist, it also deals with economics and mathematics education at Cambridge, and contemporary controversies over socialism, imperialism, free trade, eugenics, religious belief, social welfare, and the women's movement. Distributed by Ashgate. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book The Core Theory in Economics written by Lester Telser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An important tenet of game theory, core theory has nonetheless been all but ignored by the mainstream. Its basic premise is that individuals band together in order to promote their interests as much as possible. The return to an individual depends on competition among various coalitions for its membership, and a group of people can obtain a joint maximum by suitable coordinated actions. In this key title, Lester Telser investigates the following issues: Markets Multiproduct Industry Total Cost Functions with Avoidable Costs Critical Analyses of Noncooperative Equilibria. Through these distinct sections, Telser skilfully brings the ideas of core theory to bear on a range of issues within economics – with particular emphasis on supply and demand and the way markets function.

Download or read book Economic Success of Chinese Merchants in Southeast Asia written by Janet Tai Landa and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an original analysis of the economic success of Overseas Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia: The ethnically homogeneous group of Chinese middlemen is an informal, low-cost organization for the provision of club goods, e.g. contract enforcement, that are essential to merchants’ success. The author’s theory - and various extensions, with emphasis on kinship and other trust relationships - draws on economics and the other social sciences, and beyond to evolutionary biology. Empirical material from her fieldwork forms the basis for developing her unique, integrative and transdisciplinary theoretical framework, with important policy implications for understanding ethnic conflict in multiethnic societies where minority groups dominate merchant roles.

Download or read book Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2005 written by François Bourguignon and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Presents selected papers from the 16th Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, held in May 2004. It reviews the lessons of 60 years of development experience, addressing topics such as infrastructure, behavioural economics, trade, poverty, and globalization.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Predation written by Mehrdad Vahabi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses conflict theory through one type of conflict in particular: manhunting, or predation.

Download or read book Justice and Its Surroundings written by Anthony De Jasay and published by Amagi Books. This book was released on 2002 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Libertarian (in the right-wing sense) political philosopher de Jasay presents 17 essays on his conception of justice and issues that he sees as surrounding the concept of justice: the state, the redistribution of income and wealth, the benefits and burdens between those who make collective choices and those who submit to them, the shaping of economic and social institutions so as to make them fit a unified ideology, and the problem of individual liberty. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Download or read book Managed by the Markets written by Gerald F. Davis and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The current economic crisis reveals just how central finance has become to American life. Problems with obscure securities created on Wall Street radiated outward to threaten the retirement security of pensioners in Florida and Arizona, the homes and college savings of families in Detroit and Southern California, and ultimately the global economy itself. The American government took on vast new debt to bail out the financial system, while the government-owned investment funds of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, and China bought up much of what was left of Wall Street. How did we get into this mess, and what does it all mean? Managed by the Markets explains how finance replaced manufacturing at the center of the American economy and how its influence has seeped into daily life. From corporations operated to create shareholder value, to banks that became portals to financial markets, to governments seeking to regulate or profit from footloose capital, to households with savings, pensions, and mortgages that rise and fall with the market, life in post-industrial America is tied to finance to an unprecedented degree. Managed by the Markets provides a guide to how we got here and unpacks the consequences of linking the well-being of society too closely to financial markets.

Download or read book Organizing Entrepreneurial Judgment written by Nicolai J. Foss and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entrepreneurship, long neglected by economists and management scholars, has made a dramatic comeback in the last two decades, not only among academic economists and management scholars, but also among policymakers, educators and practitioners. Likewise, the economic theory of the firm, building on Ronald Coase's (1937) seminal analysis, has become an increasingly important field in economics and management. Despite this resurgence, there is still little connection between the entrepreneurship literature and the literature on the firm, both in academia and in management practice. This book fills this gap by proposing and developing an entrepreneurial theory of the firm that focuses on the connections between entrepreneurship and management. Drawing on insights from Austrian economics, it describes entrepreneurship as judgmental decision made under uncertainty, showing how judgment is the driving force of the market economy and the key to understanding firm performance and organization.

Download or read book The Ancient Greek Economy written by Edward M. Harris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Markets, Households and City-States in the Ancient Greek Economy brings together sixteen essays by leading scholars of the ancient Greek economy. The essays investigate the role of market-exchange in the economy of the ancient Greek world in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.

Download or read book For a New Liberty The Libertarian Manifesto written by Murray Newton Rothbard and published by Ludwig von Mises Institute. This book was released on 1978 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fish for Life written by J. Kooiman and published by Amsterdam University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An interdisciplinary survey addressing the problems of overfishing worldwide, and the best way forward toward good ecological practice and global cooperative governance.

Download or read book Law and Economics written by Robert Cooter and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 2000 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides students with a method for applying economic analysis to the study of legal rules and institutions. Four key areas of law are covered: property; contracts; torts; and crime and punishment. Added examples and cases help to clarify economic applications further.

Download or read book Coordinating the Internet written by Fredrik Lindeberg and published by Linköping University Electronic Press. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Många självklarheter i vårt digitala samhälle är beroende av Internet för att fungera. Allt från smarta dörrar för hemtjänster, till självscanningsapparaterna på ICA, till nyare bilar, moderna tillverkningsrobotar, telefoner och affärssystem. Den här licentiatavhandlingen reder ut vad Internet är, hur det styrs och vad det har för praktiska konsekvenser. Tidigare forskning finns bland annat inom telekommunikation där Internet liknas vid andra telekommunikationstjänster, så som kabel-TV eller mobiltelefoni, och inom digitalisering både inom management och informationssystem där Internet i det närmaste tas för givet som teknisk infrastruktur. Här tar jag en ansatts där jag förklarar Internet ur ett kombinerat tekniskt och organisatoriskt perspektiv. Studien är principiellt uppdelad i tre delar. Den första delen fokuserar på att begreppsmässigt hitta ett sätt att diskutera Internet utan att essentiella aspekter faller bort, såsom styrningen eller konsekvenser av den tekniska designen. Jag landar i att Internet är både ett tekniskt och ett organisatoriskt fenomen. Tekniskt i bemärkelsen att det handlar om digital paketbaserad kommunikation (dvs att olika paket kan ta olika väg och att det inte finns ett beroende på en viss specifik väg, eller “krets”), vilket kan särskiljas från exempelvis kretskopplad kommunikation (dvs en specific väg från sändare till mottagare) eller rent analog kommunikation. I denna tekniska dimension är Internet förhållandevis likt klassisk telekommunikation såsom kabel-TV och mobiltelefoni, och förlitar sig på best-effort paketbaserad kommunikation. I den andra dimensionen, styrning och organisation, är Internet ett explicit bottom-up fenomen som styrs med andra principer och ideal än klassisk telekommunikation. Till sin utformning är denna minsta möjliga koordination som krävs för att möjliggöra koordinering av de tekniska unika identifierare som behövs för att Internet ska fungera (dvs idag DNS- och BGP-flororna av protokoll för användning av namn och nummer på Internet). Båda dimensionerna, de organisatoriska och tekniska, följer samma designprinciper, och generellt är det meningsfullt att se Internet som en ekologi av aktörer snarare än en organisation i strikt teoretiska termer (exempelvis finns ingen tydlig övergripande strategi, organisationsnummer eller löneutbetalare). Det är dessa designprinciper, som ligger väl i linje med systemarkitektursprinciper för datorsystem, som är orsaken till Internets lager-design där man (generellt) inte ska bry som om vad som händer på andra lager än sitt eget (beskrivet som “separation of concerns” eller i dubbel negation “high cohesion” i texten) samt att ha en minimalistisk ansatts till koordinering och enbart koordinera eller skapa beroenden mellan enheter (både tekniskt och organisatoriskt) när det verkligen behövs (beskrivet som “minimum coordination” eller “low coupling” i texten). Den andra delen fokuserar på hur Internet kan socialt påverkas eller förändras till något annat, eller till något med en annan funktion sett som en styrd organisation. Jag använder begreppet social robusthet, som motpol till teknisk robusthet som i hur man tekniskt kan förstöra Internet, för att diskutera dessa aspekter. Slutsatserna här mynnar ut i att Internets explicita bottom-up och problemsuppdelnings-design gör det märkbart svårt för någon att medvetet påverka Internet för att ändra dess beskaffenhet, och dessutom visar jag att även om man praktiskt lyckas ta över de formellt beslutande råden (exempelvis ICANNs och IETFs styrelser) så finns det inga formella eller praktiska hinder för att bara ignorera dem (dvs switching costs för just ICANN eller IETF är låga, om än tekniskt omständligt med att konfigurera om rötter och routing-tabeller, och betydligt enklare än att gå från IPv4 till IPv6 då utrustning kan behöva ersättas och därmed en betydligt högre switching cost). Med andra ord, det är enklare att byta ut Internets koordinerare än att byta ut Internet mot något som fungerar annorlunda. Däremot är den rådande politiska världsordningen ett hot mot Internet, eftersom den regelstyrda och koordinerade världsordningen inte längre är lika självklar som den varit tidigare. Den tredje och sista studien fokuserar på nätneutralitet, dvs rätten nätverksoperatörer har att fånga värde i andra dimensioner än trafikmängd, som en praktiskt effekt av hur Internet styrs och fungerar. Det primära praktiska bidraget är att nätneutralitet inte får ses som enbart en reglerings och lagstiftningfråga utan det är mer relevant att prata om i termer av nätneutralitet i praktiken. I den bemärkelsen är lagstiftningens vara eller inte vara mindre intressant än praktisk nätneutralitets vara eller inte vara och en tyngdpunktsförskjutning i den offentliga debatten hade fört diskussionen närmare hur Internet fungerar. Sammanfattningsvis ger Internets designprinciper att marknadskrafter, och ej direkt reglering, ska möjliggöra nätneutralitet. För att förtydliga, tanken är att det ska finnas konkurrens inom de flesta nivåer eller lager, och att det är av vikt att det finns konkurrens rakt igenom så att en kundvilja för paketneutralitet på tjänstenivå även påverkar nätägar- och infrastrukturnivå, så att det är användarnas efterfrågan som leder till nätneutralitet (om den användarviljan finns). Dock kan det mycket väl vara så att man som användare inte är intresserad av nätneutralitet och då ska tjänsteleverantörer, nätägare och infrastrukturoperatörer inte heller tvingas vara neutrala genom lagstiftning då det går stick i stäv med designprinciperna. Inte heller ska en grupps vilja kring nätneutralitet påverka andras möjligheter att välja. Genomgående identifierar jag två kolliderande världsbilder, den distribuerade regelstyrda och koordinerade ordningen i sitt perspektiv med sina förkämpar, och den mer integrerande och suveräna världsordningen med sitt perspektiv och sina förkämpar. Rent praktiskt uppfyller Internet en önskad funktion i den tidigare men ej i den senare, då Internet designmässigt är byggt för att tillåta snarare än kontrollera och bestämma. Exempelvis finns det inte inbyggda (tekniska) mekanismer i Internet för att till exempel möjliggöra statlig övervakning eller kontroll av material som finns tillgängligt, och då ligger det mer i statens intresse att ha kontrollerade telekommunikationstjänster, såsom kabel-TV, mobiltelefoni och liknande lösningar där man inte helt enkelt kan lägga på ett “extra lager” för att uppnå kryptering, anonymitet eller tillgång till andra tjänster. I texten använder jag perspektiven tillsammans med teknologi, marknader och byråkrati för att fånga upp dynamiken och strömningarna i Internet-ekologin och jämför med tekniska samhällsförändringar, som exempelvis järnvägsnät, postverk och finansiella marknader. Jag konstaterar att Internet har varit styrt av teknologiskt baserade värderingar, till skillnad från de andra exemplen som i huvudsak har utformats av dynamiken mellan byråkrati och marknad. I denna mån förelår jag att teknologi kan användas som strömning och motperspektiv till den klassiska uppställningen med byråkrati och marknad för att beskriva fenomen i digitaliseringens tidsålder. Avhandlingen sätter även pågående trender i ett bredare perspektiv mot både organisation och teknik, och trycker på vikten av att förstå delarna var för sig och tillsammans för att på ett rikare sätt måla upp helheten. The modern society is to a large extent Internet-dependent. Today we rely on the Internet to handle communication for smart doors, self-scanning convenience stores, connected cars, production robots, telephones and ERP-systems. The purpose of this thesis is to unbundle the Internet, its technology, its coordination, and practical and theoretical consequences. Earlier research has, in telecommunications, focused on the Internet as one of many potential telecommunications services, such as cellphones or cable-TV, and the management and information systems field has by and large treated the Internet as black-boxable infrastructure. This thesis explains the Internet from the combined perspectives of technology and coordination. This text contains three empirical studies. The first is focused on conceptualizing and discussing the Internet in a meaningful way using both technology and coordination frameworks. I unceremoniously conclude that the Internet is both a technological and a coordination phenomenon and neither of these aspects can be ignored. The Internet is technological in that it concerns digital packet switched digital communication (as opposed to circuit switched) or purely analog communications. The technological dimension of the Internet is similar in its constituency to classical telecommunications networks, and has best-effort mechanisms for packet delivery. In the other dimension, coordination, the Internet is an explicit bottom-up phenomenon minimally coordinated (or governed) by other ideals than classical telecommunications networks and systems. At its core this least necessary coordination concerns technical unique identifiers necessary for inter-network communication (in practice today manifested as naming with the DNS protocol suite, and numbering with the BGP protocol suite). Both dimensions follow similar design characteristics; the design of the technical Internet is similar to the design of the coordination of the Internet. These design principles, which are well aligned with software design principles, is the cause of the Internet’s layered design (“separation of concerns” in practice) and minimal view of coordination (the “least coordinated Internet”). In general terms it is fruitful to view the Internet and involved actors as an ecology, rather than one organization or entity in need of governance or control. The second study looks at the social resilience of the Internet. That is, is it possible through social means to change what the Internet is or can be viewed as. I use social resilience as a counterpart to technical resilience, i.e. resilience to technical interference. In essence, the bottom-up and separations of concerns design of the coordination aspect of the Internet minimizes possible influence of actors intent on mission disruption. I also practically show that even a take-over of the central councils have little effect the constituency of the Internet, since these councils are not invested with formal powers of enforcement. This thesis suggests that the cost of switching from ICANN and IETF to another set of organizations is quite low due to the nature of the coordination of the Internet, compared to for example, switching all equipment to IPv6 capable equipment. However, the current political situation is a threat to the current Internet regime, since an international and rule-based world order is no longer on all states’ agendas. The final empirical study focus on the practical and theoretical implications of the Internet on the case of net neutrality. The primary contribution is that de facto and de jure net neutrality differ in practice, and as such de facto net neutrality deserves more attention. Also, I suggest that any regulation, either for or against net neutrality, is problematic, since such regulation would interfere with the inherent coordination mechanisms of the Internet. As such regulation should focus on providing the necessary markets for Internet function given the coordination and design of the Internet. As a net neutrality example, net neutral Internet access options should exist as part of a natural service offering if wanted by customers, not due to direct regulation. Throughout the thesis I identify two colliding world orders, both in terms of digital communication networks and terms of organizing society in general: the rule-based and coordinating order with its champions, and the integrated or sovereign order with its champions. In practical terms, the Internet can be considered a want in the former (the distributed perspective), but not the later (the integrative perspective), since the Internet lacks inherent (technical) controls for surveillance and content control which are necessary in a world order where borders are important. Regardless of if that importance stems from state oversight or intellectual property rights legislation. I use these perspectives together with technology, markets and bureaucracy to catch the dynamics of the Internet ecology. I then compare these dynamics with other technological and societal phenomena, such as railway networks, postal services and financial markets. And conclude that the Internet (as conceptualized in this thesis) can best be explained by technological values, in opposite to the other examples which can best by explained by the dynamics of markets and bureaucracies without any real influence of the values of technology. As such, I suggest that the classical frame of markets and bureaucracy can fruitfully be expanded with technology to better explain the Internet and similar digitization phenomena. This thesis puts current trends in a broader perspective based on technology and organization, where the two perspectives together better can draw the full picture in a rich fashion.