World Economics

Brought to you by Penguin. Why is the Berlin Brandenburg Airport ten years behind schedule and nearly four billion euros over budget? And what possessed Kenya's government to spend a whopping $35 million on a chain link fence just six miles long? In this hilarious, fascinating and insightful...

‘One of the most important books of the decade’ Country Life Finally, a practical, realistic plan to rescue, preserve and enhance nature. News about Britain’s wildlife and ecosystems tends to be grim. In Green and Prosperous Land, Oxford economist and Natural Capital Committee chair Dieter...

Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and, as Dark Commerce tells, now operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. Author Louise Shelley examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade and considers diverse ways of responding to this increasing challenge.

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.

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.

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification.

Globalization, long considered the best route to economic prosperity, is not inevitable. An approach built on the principles of free trade and, since the 1980s, open capital markets is beginning to fracture. With disappointing growth rates across the Western world, nations are no longer willing to sacrifice national interests for global growth, nor are their leaders able - or willing - to sell the idea of pursuing a global agenda of prosperity to their citizens.

Elmira Bayrasli's colorful narrative brings listeners inside the world of high-growth entrepreneurs as they overcome vexing obstacles to build businesses that create jobs and economic growth and - perhaps most important - shift mindsets. Here are the people who personify the transformative force of entrepreneurship from parts of the world that will be the source of the overwhelming amount of economic growth over the next 25 years.

The global finance system can be regulated to prevent massive credit fraud, tame capitalism, confront the sovereign debt crisis, and move towards investing in the real economy and full employment. "Obamanomics" and American reinvention can lead to a sustained economic recovery but only together with major domestic, European, and global monetary reforms in cooperation with emerging nations.

In this ambitious and groundbreaking history of the dollar, financial journalist and economic scholar Brendan Greeley makes a new argument about the origins of our money—and the people and nations who have surrendered to it. “Brimming with startling details, this is also serious financial...

The future of blockchain is unknown, but it appears that blockchain technologies are beginning to take over some major industries utilized by the general public. And being able to use this technology will place you a step above those who do not understand the technology.

Da più di sessant'anni è, insieme al Wto e alla Banca mondiale - le altre due organizzazioni nate dagli accordi di Bretton Woods nel 1944 -, un pilastro dell'ordine economico internazionale. Ne sono prova gli interventi messi in atto dal Fondo monetario in molti paesi per fronteggiare la crisi dei mutui subprime, e il sostegno fornito alla Grecia, che nel maggio 2010 ha rischiato una bancarotta dello stato.

Den fjerde industrielle revolution er mere betydningsfuld og mere omfattende end noget, menneskeheden før har været vidne til. Nye teknologier forener de fysiske, digitale og biologiske verdener og resulterer i kunstig intelligens, 3D-printning, DNA-sekvensering og bærbar teknologi indbygget i tøj eller gadgets. Disse teknologier er først og fremmest designet til at forbedre vores liv, men med dette væld af muligheder kommer også udfordringer og potentielle risikoelementer.

The Cluetrain Manifesto is all the buzz. This iconoclastic look at business in the Internet age has a special eye for debunking old views of customers and service. Download and listen now - an audible.com audio exclusive.
Plus, check out the rants of Cluetrain co-author Christopher Locke, a.k.a. RageBoy.

Con un bilancio di 280 miliardi di dollari e più di 10.000 dipendenti, la Banca mondiale è l'istituzione leader nella lotta alla povertà, eppure molti la accusano di aggravare il divario tra paesi ricchi e paesi poveri. Poche istituzioni scontano una percezione pubblica così distante dalla loro "missione". A cosa si deve questo scarto? Alla mancanza di informazione sul suo operato? All'inadeguatezza della Banca di fronte a un contesto mondiale in rapida evoluzione? O al prevalere, nella sua agenda, di interessi diversi da quelli dei paesi più poveri?

The industrial civilization, which began roughly 150 years ago, is entering a decisive phase as the resources needed to satisfy its ravenous appetite are running scarce. Human societies living an industrialized life have used up resources that took nature millions of years to create. How long we can continue to support this reckless behavior is a question that concerns each one of us who lives anywhere upon the planet today, as the crumbling of this colossal system is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Transcending Capitalism explains why many influential mid-century American social theorists came to believe it was no longer meaningful to describe modern Western society as "capitalist", but instead preferred alternatives such as "postcapitalist" society, "postindustrial" society, or the "technological" society.

In this sequel to Gold: The Once and Future Money, Lewis describes in greater depth how actual gold standard systems are created, and how they have been used through history. The pre-1913 world gold standard system was perhaps the greatest monetary system the world has ever seen. The greatest champion of the gold standard system of the 19th century, Britain, was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and eventually presided over the largest empire the world had ever seen.

In 1784, when Americans first voyaged to China, they confronted Chinese authorities who were unaware that the United States even existed. Nevertheless, a long, complicated, and fruitful trade relationship was born after American traders, missionaries, diplomats, and others sailed to China with lofty ambitions: to acquire fabulous wealth, convert China to Christianity, and even command a Chinese army. In America's First Adventure in China, John Haddad provides a colourful history of the evolving cultural exchange and interactions between these countries.

From the best-selling authors of The Right Nation, a visionary argument that our current crisis in government is nothing less than the fourth radical transition in the history of the nation-state. Dysfunctional government: It' s become a cliché, and most of us are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change. As John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge show us, that is a seriously limited view of things. In fact, there have been three great revolutions in government in the history of the modern world.