Power Economics

Within every company, there lies a sleeping giant. Companies have long been viewed as either the primary cause of environmental destruction, or as a deep-pocketed funding source for people trying to confront it. But with their access to innovation, new technology, and intellectual firepower, most companies are built to tackle the challenges our planet faces in a way smaller organizations and foundations can’t. What would happen if executives stopped looking at sustainability as a side project for the PR team and saw it instead as a way to benefit the planet and their profits?

Just as Thomas Piketty offered a sweeping critique and progressive reassessment of capitalism, former World Bank Group chief financial officer Bertrand Badré looks at the destructive role finance played in the global economic crisis of 2007–2008 and offers a bold prescription for making it a force for good. Badré says that finance is inherently neither good nor bad. It's just a tool—the most powerful tool on earth. Used correctly, it can be at the heart of the way we address many of the world's biggest problems, ranging from climate change to the eradication of poverty to building much-needed infrastructure. He describes innovations in financial tools and approaches that are already happening around the world and looks at the role regulation can play in channeling the power of finance in a positive direction. He details options for strengthening international cooperation for financial stability and prosperity and overcoming the blinkered nationalism currently on the rise. And he tells what is working and what needs to change in financing the sustainable development of the world.

In this incisive new book, Michael Mandelbaum argues that the era marked by an expansive American foreign policy is coming to an end. During the seven decades from the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 to the present, economic constraints rarely limited what the United States did in the world. Now that will change. The country's soaring deficits, fueled by the huge costs of the financial crash and of its entitlement programs - Social Security and Medicare - will compel a more modest American international presence.

China’s meteoric rise to economic powerhouse might be charted with dams. Every river in the country has been tapped to power exploding cities and factories - every river but one. Running through one of the richest natural areas in the world, the Nujiang’s raging waters were on the verge of being dammed when a 2004 government moratorium halted construction. Might the Chinese dragon bow to the "Angry River"? Would Beijing put local people and their land ahead of power and profit? Could this remote region actually become a model for sustainable growth? Ed Grumbine traveled to the far corners of China’s Yunnan province to find out.

The former editor-in-chief of the Economist returns to the territory of his best-selling The Sun Also Sets to lay out a fresh analysis of the growing rivalry between China, India, and Japan and what it will mean for America, the global economy, and the 21st-century world.

With 1.1 billion residents, the world's largest democracy is poised to dominate the world stage. One of India's wealthiest men gives an insider's view into his country's dynamic transformation, revealing the forces and unique characteristics behind India's meteoric rise.

Woher kommt das Geld? Wieso ist es meist knapp und in Krisen auf einmal schier unbegrenzt verfügbar? Weshalb gibt es die erbitterten Kämpfe zwischen den beiden großen Lagern der Keynesianer und der Neoklassiker? Woher nimmt die Bundesregierung in Zeiten von Corona auf einmal Hunderte Milliarden von Euro? Anschaulich und für ein breites Publikum erklärt Monika Stemmer die Formen der Geldschöpfung, die Rolle des Staates mit seinem Währungsmonopol und das Konzept der Modern Monetary Theorie (MMT).

A vital call to disrupt systemic forces that impoverish families and to reimagine accessible higher education, empowering parents to thrive in college and at home From the former teen mom and award-winning founder of Generation Hope, a nonprofit committed to expanding education access for young...

Written in the same entertaining, story-driven style that made The Power of Nice the go-to book for finishing first, The Power of Small demonstrates how all of us can harness the power of small to improve and reinvent our lives. It's the ultimate guide to shrinking your outlook to broaden your horizons.

Une demande en forte croissance La demande d'énergie devrait croître de 60% d'ici à 2030 sous l'effet conjugué de la croissance de la population mondiale et de la croissance de la consommation énergétique par habitant. Or c'est précisément la consommation énergétique, largement dominée par les énergies fossiles, pétrole notamment, qui produit le gaz carbonique qui détériore notre environnement. Concilier croissance économique et protection de l'environnement est donc un enjeu majeur des prochaines décennies.

Could you lose weight if you put $20,000 at risk? Would you finally set up your billing software if it meant that your favorite charity would earn a new contribution? If you’ve ever tried to meet a goal and came up short, the problem may not have been that the goal was too difficult or that you lacked the discipline to succeed. From giving up cigarettes to increasing your productivity at work, you may simply have neglected to give yourself the proper incentives.

Perhaps an important question deals with whether China has been able to convert its rising power into international influence and, if so, whether this influence extends to the international system as a whole or exists on a country-to-country basis. It is widely assumed that China's growing capabilities and activities translate into influence, but the linkage remains assumed and not proven.

Every day, we produce loads of data about ourselves simply by living in the modern world: we click web pages, flip channels, and shop with credit cards. Now, in one of the greatest undertakings of the 21st century, a savvy group of mathematicians and computer scientists is beginning to sift through this data to profile us as workers, shoppers, patients, voters, potential terrorists, even lovers. Their goal? To manipulate our behavior.

Despite Brazil being part of the BRIC nations, those with the most potential for growth in the global economy, Brazil is considered economically backwards in many ways. You get an idea of this when you look deeper into its politics and economic policies. In this edition of Summary Shorts, we will analyze and summarize the ideas put forth in Brazillionaires, a book that truly exposes the dark side of Brazil's rise and arguably its inexorable fall.