Download or read book Virtual Economies written by Vili Lehdonvirta and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-05-09 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the basic concepts of economics—including markets, institutions, and money—can be used to create and analyze economies based on virtual goods. In the twenty-first-century digital world, virtual goods are sold for real money. Digital game players happily pay for avatars, power-ups, and other game items. But behind every virtual sale, there is a virtual economy, simple or complex. In this book, Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova introduce the basic concepts of economics into the game developer's and game designer's toolkits. Lehdonvirta and Castronova explain how the fundamentals of economics—markets, institutions, and money—can be used to create or analyze economies based on artificially scarce virtual goods. They focus on virtual economies in digital games, but also touch on serious digital currencies such as Bitcoin as well as virtual economies that emerge in social media around points, likes, and followers. The theoretical emphasis is on elementary microeconomic theory, with some discussion of behavioral economics, macroeconomics, sociology of consumption, and other social science theories relevant to economic behavior. Topics include the rational choice model of economic decision making; information goods versus virtual goods; supply, demand, and market equilibrium; monopoly power; setting prices; and externalities. The book will enable developers and designers to create and maintain successful virtual economies, introduce social scientists and policy makers to the power of virtual economies, and provide a useful guide to economic fundamentals for students in other disciplines.

Download or read book Beloved Economies written by Jess Rimington and published by Page Two. This book was released on 2022-08-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if changing how we work could make our economies work for us? For many of us today, work feels like a fever dream. We battle our way through overwhelm, stress, and an impossible to-do list--and remain financially strapped. All the content we consume seems to be telling us: we are the problem. If we just used the right time-blocking app, or managed our finances better, or learned to meditate, or... But what if work feels this way because it's a direct result of how our current economy is designed, going back to the very roots of our current society itself? And what if work could be profoundly different? What if we told you that there are teams, businesses, organizations, and individuals who are transforming their work to co-create life-affirming innovation and success? What if we told you those involved in these breakout cases describe their work with words like lightness, liberation, momentum, self-knowledge, calm, meaningful, community, and even joy - all while outperforming their mainstream counterparts? Based on seven years of research and co-learning with dozens of these breakout individuals, teams, and organizations, Beloved Economies: Transforming How We Work offers readers an imagination-expanding vision of what work can be. The book outlines seven practices that any individual, team, or enterprise can embark on now, to transform how we work and build economies that are healing, just, and wise. Beloved Economies reveals that it is not what we do, but how we do it that can be our most powerful lever for building economies that we can all love.

Download or read book Endangered Economies written by Geoffrey Heal and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the decades since Geoffrey Heal began his field-defining work in environmental economics, one central question has animated his research: "Can we save our environment and grow our economy?" This issue has become only more urgent in recent years with the threat of climate change, the accelerating loss of ecosystems, and the rapid industrialization of the developing world. Reflecting on a lifetime of experience not only as a leading voice in the field, but as a green entrepreneur, activist, and advisor to governments and global organizations, Heal clearly and passionately demonstrates that the only way to achieve long-term economic growth is to protect our environment. Writing both to those conversant in economics and to those encountering these ideas for the first time, Heal begins with familiar concepts, like the tragedy of the commons and unregulated pollution, to demonstrate the underlying tensions that have compromised our planet, damaging and in many cases devastating our natural world. Such destruction has dire consequences not only for us and the environment but also for businesses, which often vastly underestimate their reliance on unpriced natural benefits like pollination, the water cycle, marine and forest ecosystems, and more. After painting a stark and unsettling picture of our current quandary, Heal outlines simple solutions that have already proven effective in conserving nature and boosting economic growth. In order to ensure a prosperous future for humanity, we must understand how environment and economy interact and how they can work in harmony—lest we permanently harm both.

Download or read book The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies written by Michael Storper and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-02 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today, the Bay Area is home to the most successful knowledge economy in America, while Los Angeles has fallen progressively further behind its neighbor to the north and a number of other American metropolises. Yet, in 1970, experts would have predicted that L.A. would outpace San Francisco in population, income, economic power, and influence. The usual factors used to explain urban growth—luck, immigration, local economic policies, and the pool of skilled labor—do not account for the contrast between the two cities and their fates. So what does? The Rise and Fall of Urban Economies challenges many of the conventional notions about economic development and sheds new light on its workings. The authors argue that it is essential to understand the interactions of three major components—economic specialization, human capital formation, and institutional factors—to determine how well a regional economy will cope with new opportunities and challenges. Drawing on economics, sociology, political science, and geography, they argue that the economic development of metropolitan regions hinges on previously underexplored capacities for organizational change in firms, networks of people, and networks of leaders. By studying San Francisco and Los Angeles in unprecedented levels of depth, this book extracts lessons for the field of economic development studies and urban regions around the world.

Download or read book Transition Economies written by Aleksandr V. Gevorkyan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary study offers a comprehensive analysis of the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Providing full historical context and drawing on a wide range of literature, this book explores the continuous economic and social transformation of the post-socialist world. While the future is yet to be determined, understanding the present phase of transformation is critical. The book’s core exploration evolves along three pivots of competitive economic structure, institutional change, and social welfare. The main elements include analysis of the emergence of the socialist economic model; its adaptations through the twentieth century; discussion of the 1990s market transition reforms; post-2008 crisis development; and the social and economic diversity in the region today. With an appreciation for country specifics, the book also considers the urgent problems of social policy, poverty, income inequality, and labor migration. Transition Economies will aid students, researchers and policy makers working on the problems of comparative economics, economic development, economic history, economic systems transition, international political economy, as well as specialists in post-Soviet and Central and Eastern European regional studies.

Download or read book Economies in Transition written by Wing Thye Woo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1994, the Asia Foundation's Center for Asian Pacific Affairs began a two-year project to compare the transitions of selected East European and Asian economies from centrally-planned communist systems to market economies. The goal was to shed light on the transition process through an understanding of the underlying economic and institutional dynamics. This volume is the culmination of that project.The volume is divided into three parts. In the first part, an overview, the editors review the authors' findings and highlight major themes. The second part looks closely at the transition process in seven Asian and East European economies: China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Russia, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The third part contains six comparative studies that explore key elements of the transition process. The papers incorporate feedback obtained from meetings with cabinet members and high government officials, conferences, and seminars in Prague, Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Beijing, Ulan Bator, and Washington, D.C. Contributors Leszek Balcerowicz, Barbara Blaszczyk, Peter Boone, Yuan Zheng Cao, Bruce Comer, Marek Dabrowski, Georges de Menil, Daniel C. Esty, Gang Fan, Boris Federov, Roman Frydman, Carol Graham, Stephen Parker, Andrzej Rapaczynski, James Riedel, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Baavaa Tarvaa, Vinod Thomas, Gavin Tritt, Adiya Tsend, Enkhbold Tsendjav, Joel Turkewitz, Narantsetseg Unenburen, Yan Wang, Wing Thye Woo

Download or read book Extreme Economies written by Richard Davies and published by . This book was released on 2020-07-20 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To predict our future, we must look to the extremes. So argues the economist Richard Davies, who takes readers to the margins of the modern economy and beyond. These extreme economies illustrate the forces that test human resilience, drive societies to failure, and promise to shape our collective future. Reviving a foundational idea from the medical sciences, Extreme Economies turns the logic of modern economics on its head by arguing that these outlier societies can teach us more about our own than we might imagine. By adapting to circumstances unimaginable to most of us, the people in these societies are pioneering the economic infrastructure of the future.

Download or read book The Little Book of Economics written by Greg Ip and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-01-14 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible, thoroughly engaging look at how the economy really works and its role in your everyday life Not surprisingly, regular people suddenly are paying a lot closer attention to the economy than ever before. But economics, with its weird technical jargon and knotty concepts and formulas can be a very difficult subject to get to grips with on your own. Enter Greg Ip and his Little Book of Economics. Like a patient, good-natured tutor, Greg, one of today's most respected economics journalists, walks you through everything you need to know about how the economy works. Short on technical jargon and long on clear, concise, plain-English explanations of important terms, concepts, events, historical figures and major players, this revised and updated edition of Greg's bestselling guide clues you in on what's really going on, what it means to you and what we should be demanding our policymakers do about the economy going forward. From inflation to the Federal Reserve, taxes to the budget deficit, you get indispensible insights into everything that really matters about economics and its impact on everyday life Special sections featuring additional resources of every subject discussed and where to find additional information to help you learn more about an issue and keep track of ongoing developments Offers priceless insights into the roots of America's economic crisis and its aftermath, especially the role played by excessive greed and risk-taking, and what can be done to avoid another economic cataclysm Digs into globalization, the roots of the Euro crisis, the sources of China's spectacular growth, and why the gap between the economy's winners and losers keeps widening

Download or read book The Orange Economy written by Inter American Development Bank and published by Inter-American Development Bank. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This manual has been designed and written with the purpose of introducing key concepts and areas of debate around the "creative economy", a valuable development opportunity that Latin America, the Caribbean and the world at large cannot afford to miss. The creative economy, which we call the "Orange Economy" in this book (you'll see why), encompasses the immense wealth of talent, intellectual property, interconnectedness, and, of course, cultural heritage of the Latin American and Caribbean region (and indeed, every region). At the end of this manual, you will have the knowledge base necessary to understand and explain what the Orange Economy is and why it is so important. You will also acquire the analytical tools needed to take better advantage of opportunities across the arts, heritage, media, and creative services.

Download or read book Dangerous Economies written by Serena R. Zabin and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before the American Revolution, the people who lived in British North America were not just colonists; they were also imperial subjects. To think of eighteenth-century New Yorkers as Britons rather than incipient Americans allows us fresh investigations into their world. How was the British Empire experienced by those who lived at its margins? How did the mundane affairs of ordinary New Yorkers affect the culture at the center of an enormous commercial empire? Dangerous Economies is a history of New York culture and commerce in the first two thirds of the eighteenth century, when Britain was just beginning to catch up with its imperial rivals, France and Spain. In that sparsely populated city on the fringe of an empire, enslaved Africans rubbed elbows with white indentured servants while the elite strove to maintain ties with European genteel culture. The transience of the city's people, goods, and fortunes created a notably fluid society in which establishing one's own status or verifying another's was a challenge. New York's shifting imperial identity created new avenues for success but also made success harder to define and demonstrate socially. Such a mobile urban milieu was the ideal breeding ground for crime and conspiracy, which became all too evident in 1741, when thirty slaves were executed and more than seventy other people were deported after being found guilty—on dubious evidence—of plotting a revolt. This sort of violent outburst was the unforeseen but unsurprising result of the seething culture that existed at the margins of the British Empire.

Download or read book Deep Economy written by Bill McKibben and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-03-06 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contending that more is not better for consumers, bestselling author McKibben offers a realistic, if challenging, scenario for a hopeful future. For those who wonder if there isn't more to life than buying, he provides insight on individual responsibility as well as global awareness.

Download or read book The Economy written by The Core Team and published by Core Economics Education. This book was released on 2022-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete introduction to economics and the economy taught in undergraduate economics and masters courses in public policy. CORE's approach to teaching economics is student-centred and motivated by real-world problems and real-world data. The only introductory economics text to equip students to address today's pressing problems by mastering the conceptual and quantitative tools of contemporary economics. THE ECONOMY: is a new approach that integrates recent developments in economics including contract theory, strategic interaction, behavioural economics, and financial instability; challenges students to address inequality, climate change, economic instability, wealth creation and innovation, and other problems; provides a unified treatment of micro- and macroeconomics; motivates all models and concepts by evidence and real-world applications.

Download or read book The Handbook of Diverse Economies written by J.K. Gibson-Graham and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic diversity abounds in a more-than-capitalist world, from worker-recuperated cooperatives and anti-mafia social enterprises to caring labour and the work of Earth Others, from fair trade and social procurement to community land trusts, free universities and Islamic finance. The Handbook of Diverse Economies presents research that inventories economic difference as a prelude to building ethical ways of living on our dangerously degraded planet. With contributing authors from twenty countries, it presents new thinking around subjectivity and methodology as strategies for making other worlds possible.

Download or read book Failure to Adjust written by Edward Alden and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-09-15 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Updated edition with a new foreword on the Trump administration's trade policy* The vast benefits promised by the supporters of globalization, and by their own government, have never materialized for many Americans. In Failure to Adjust Edward Alden provides a compelling history of the last four decades of US economic and trade policies that have left too many Americans unable to adapt to or compete in the current global marketplace. He tells the story of what went wrong and how to correct the course. Originally published on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, Alden’s book captured the zeitgeist that would propel Donald J. Trump to the presidency. In a new introduction to the paperback edition, Alden addresses the economic challenges now facing the Trump administration, and warns that economic disruption will continue to be among the most pressing issues facing the United States. If the failure to adjust continues, Alden predicts, the political disruptions of the future will be larger still.

Download or read book Oregon Blue Book written by Oregon. Office of the Secretary of State and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Imagined Economies written by Yoshiko M. Herrera and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The central finding of the book is that variation in Russian regional activism is explained not by differences in economic conditions but by differences in the construction or imagination of economic interests; in the language of other contemporary debates, economic advantage and disadvantage are imagined as nations." (taken from the book)

Download or read book The Experience Economy written by B. Joseph Pine and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text seeks to raise the curtain on competitive pricing strategies and asserts that businesses often miss their best opportunity for providing consumers with what they want - an experience. It presents a strategy for companies to script and stage the experiences provided by their products.