Economics, Management and Financial Markets

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Values Economics, Theology and Legitimacy: Catholic Social Thought and Its Implications for Legal Regulatory Systems

The dominant system of global private economic ordering, grounded in classical liberal economic theory and based on robust private markets and a limited state regulatory role, has come under attack. That attack has been sharpened over the last several decades as the development of many poor states has failed to accelerate and as a consequence of the economic crisis of developed states that began to be felt in earnest in 2008. Like legal systems, economic systems grounded solely on rational ac...

A Critique of Yunus and His Micro-Finance

Micro-finance is a left wing attack on the free enterprise system; as such, it ought to be opposed by all freedom lovers, at least in its present format. Other baggage weighing it down is, if not absolute fraud, then, what might well be considered at least serious chicanery. A further criticism is the cult-like behavior now surrounding it. The present paper offers a critique of it, and thus constitutes a defense of private markets. This claim is a matter of prudential judgment, not praxeology...

Trade Policy As a Pressure Tool: The Case of Us-Bolivian Drug Policy

When Evo Morales, former coca grower and leader of the coca-growers' union, was elected president of Bolivia in 2005, many observers of Bolivian politics anticipated that Bolivia would rapidly cease cooperation with the United States in the "War on Drugs." Such a change, however, has not been apparent. What explains Bolivia's continued cooperation? I argue here that US-Bolivian trade policy, which enables the US to use trade preferences as a carrot to promote Bolivian drug policy, may best ex...

The Political Economies of Economic Liberalization: The Role of Diffusion, Crisis, and Parties in the Shift to Free Market Economies

What factors drove the global shift towards more market-oriented economic policies over the past three decades? The extant literature posits three main factors impacted policy-making in both the developed and the developing world: policy diffusion, economic constraints, and domestic political actors. Our paper utilizes factor analysis to construct a unidimensional measure of economic liberalization. We then examine whether learning through policy diffusion, economic crisis, and party preferen...

What Is the Internet of Things? An Economic Perspective

In this paper, I tried to answer the question "What is the Internet of Things?" I did so by digesting a careful study of hundreds applications that automatically or semi-automatically integrate real-world objects and places with the Internet. In the first step, I looked at the differences between Internet applications and applications that probably belong in the category of the IOT, mainly to sharpen my own understanding of what the unique features of an IOT would be and where IOT-specific ch...

Making Transnational Networks More Accountable

Because transnational networks of financial officials are likely to continue to play a central role in overseeing the coordination of financial regulation internationally, it is important to devote more attention to their accountability. We identify three distinct accountability problems associated with these networks: uneven representation of countries; their overly technocratic character; and the risk of capture by the financial industry. In the process of international financial reform tha...

Could Behavioral Economics Help Improve Diet Quality for Nutrition Assistance Program Participants?

Findings from behavioral and psychological studies indicate that people regularly and predictably behave in ways that contradict some standard assumptions of economic analysis. Recognizing that consumption choices are determined by factors other than prices, income, and information illuminates a broad array of strategies to influence consumers' food choices. These strategies expand the list of possible ideas for improving the diet the diet quality and health of participants in the Food Stamp ...

Market Institutions: An Expository Essay

This essay provides an elementary, unified introduction to the models of market institutions that go beyond the competitive model of pricetaking behavior on both sides of the market. Several models of market institutions that govern price determination are explored and compared, including contracting, posted prices, bilateral bargaining, middlemen, and auctions. While equilibrium models still do not capture the full possibilities for market behavior, modeling specific market institutions redu...

The Moral Aspect of Business Decisions

Baker contends that ethical rules in society change in time and are different in different cultures. McGee maintains that efficiency is a variant of utilitarian ethics. Doom asserts that Rawls' method of wide reflective equilibrium explicates and defends his theory of justice. Burton and Goldsby argue that behavior that does not meet an identifiable and justifiable ethical standard must lead to relative harm to shareholders over the long term. Meinster explains how economic theory based on em...

Media Concentration, Digital Communication Networks, and the Impact of New Media On the News Environment

Cooper says that the dissemination of news and information to the vast majority of citizens will continue to come from the commercial mass media for the foreseeable future. Palmer claims that the paradox of user control is that of the illusion of choice within which the user is offered up for a form of soft domination. Brodsky claims that the nature of the news is changing. Freedman observes that the internet presents a genuine challenge to the business operations of traditional news organiza...

Competition Policy Among the Energy Utilities and the Evolution of Liberalized Electricity Markets

Green explains that electricity trade across European borders was limited by the low levels of interconnection. Andersen points out that conceptual interest in carbon-energy taxation emerged across Europe in recognition of serious environmental challenges. Enevoldsen et al. argue that the effect of an energy tax is exactly the same as the equivalent increase in energy prices. Andersen and Speck stress that more substantial tax rates would be required to induce further energy savings.

Nutritional Science and Food Politics

Chadwick contends that overall diet gets short shrift in contemporary food safety legislation. Bagchi et al. observe that obesity has rapidly grown into a global epidemic. Frewer and Fischer argue that consumer perceptions associated with the introduction of novel food technologies are characterised by a range of specific perceptions. Paarlberg states that the best way to judge the magnitude of the crisis is to measure actual hunger.

The Role of Financial Globalization in the Changing Governance Practices

da Silveira and Dias Jr. maintain that the privatization model adopted in Brazil created large companies with shared control. Othman and Ameer assert that firms tend to disclose social and environmental issues in narrative (non-monetary) terms. Callaghan and Nehmer maintain that visible companies with higher intrinsic risk and lower GS are adopting XBRL early in a low-cost attempt to improve the perception of their corporate governance quality. Dong and Xue point out that imposing stricter go...

Effective Corporate Governance and Financial Market Transparency

Roohani et al. write that financial data are defined using authoritative XBRL FR taxonomies. Maharaj writes that it is important to understand how corporate ideology is transferred between and among both internal and external stakeholders. On Elbannan's reading, control weaknesses carry significant implications for assessing debt-financing costs by reducing the likelihood of receiving an investment-grade debt rating. Eccles et al. hold that XBRL is a technical supply chain standard for moving...

Ecological Economics, Sustainable Development, and Environmental Justice

Li and Cai claim that implementing green marketing is pivotal to the sustainable development of garment industry. Dahlgaard et al. say that TQM is a vision which the firm can only achieve through long-term planning. As Burkett puts it, Marxism sees mainstream "natural-capital" theory as an analytical reification of capitalism's alienation and exploitation of labour and nature.

Assessing a Quality Management Program by Enabling the Cost-Effective Measurement of Critical Organizational Processes

Karsten and Pennink notice a tension between the teachings of total quality management (TQM) and actual management practices. Zhao and Bryar contend that the management of knowledge in businesses is an important and necessary factor for organisational survival. Dooley et al. observe that theories of neural networks can be incorporated into theories concerning individual cognition. On Tavana et al.'s reading, AHP assesses the consistency of the manager's pairwise comparisons. Vinni analyzes th...

The Effect of Organizational Culture On Quality Management Practices

According to Bloom and van Reenen, family ownership combined with professional management has a mildly positive association with good managerial practices. Wu et al. contend that legitimization makes employees believe that KM initiatives are useful in their work processes and task activities. Chen et al. discuss the concept of enterprise integration (EI), propose an integrated SCM model using EI as a foundation, develop an implementation (operational) strategy for ISCM, and focus on agent-bas...

Organizations As a Source of Operational Risk

Dickstein and Flast affirm that designing and managing business processes is a critical factor to develop and implement successful operational risk management. Spencer Pickett explains that internal auditing is firmly rooted in the risk management, control, and governance agenda. Oakland and Tanner state that management should encourage people to be dissatisfied with the way things are currently done. Wankhade and Dabade hold that perceived quality as customers' response to quality is equally...

Management of the Standardization Activity Based On Programs

According to Mirguet, the actual management of the standardization activity is scientifically performed based on standardization programs that reflect the capacity of the national standardization system of corresponding to the national economic and social system, on the one hand, and the compatibility of the national standardization system with the global system, on the other hand, taking first into account the economical activities, the cooperations, the exchanges of goods and the specific s...

The Phenomenon of Image Manipulation in Advertising

As Huhmann puts it, a rhetorical work is any visual or verbal communication that applies rhetorical principles to enhance audience processing or persuasion. Amos et al. hold that repeated pairings of a brand and celebrity strengthen the associative link consumers establish between brand and celebrity. Bermeitinger et al. say that positive values indicate more consumption of the primed product than the nonprimed product. AriasBolzmann et al. focus on absurdity that arises from illogical relati...

Optimum Productivity, Performance, and Milling Machines

Suh et al. claim that to maximize the productivity in machining molds and dies, machine tools should operate at high speeds. Moshat et al. study material removal rate (MRR) and surface roughness of the product prepared by CNC end milling operation experimentally. Corbett says that the principal areas for automatic supervision of the machine tool are the tooling, appropriate machine elements and the overall machine system. Budak presents a complete analytical model for the design of variable p...

Rubrics As an Evaluation Tool in Macroeconomics

Critical thinking and writing skills are necessary competencies for effective communication, problem resolution, and analysis in economics. Although there are several different approaches to evaluate critical thinking and writing skills, rubrics is an evaluation tool which provides more information than numerical grades because it establishes a set of criteria which both professors and students know and are able to evaluate jointly. Meanwhile, rubrics provide students more effective feedback ...