Poverty, Inequality and Development: Essays in Honor of Erik Thorbecke (Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion and Well-Being)

Book Description

Traditionally, there have been two strands in the analysis of poverty, inequality and development – a micro strand that focuses on individual behavior, welfare economics and the measurement of inequality and poverty; and a macro strand that analyzes economy-wide policies and the role of institutions. This unique volume brings together both strands in a series of essays written by leading experts in the field of economic development. Topics include measurement issues, micro-behavior determinants of poverty outcomes, economy-wide models in the SAM-CGE tradition and the institutional framework underlying macro policies.

Amazon.com

For years the personal reference shelf has remained fairly static: the dictionary and thesaurus, the atlas and almanac. But Louis Rubin's A Writer's Companion fills perfectly the niche of his own creation; it is a compilation of eclectic and elusive information on everything a writer, editor, teacher, or data-dabbler might want within arm's reach. Dedicated to Charles Dillon Stengel's maxim "You could look it up," Rubin's gift to the reference community features 66 lists and glossaries ranging from travel and transportation to history and politics, architecture and art to religion, literature, and television, plus sports, gastronomy, law, psychoanalysis, and the natural world.

Customer Reviews:

Great facts; good resource for trivia lovers........2001-08-20

If you love to learn interesting facts about a wide variety of topics, including science, film and history, then this will make a unique book to own. I also recommend this for those who love trivia and who watch game shows, for this book contains valuable information on many topics.

The Writerýs Resource.......2000-10-03

When you write, you commit history. Others will read your Work in their research and may even quote you. Putting ink on paper is too easy; taking it off is very expensive. You must be correct with your facts, definitions and references.

And, of course, background detail makes your writing more valuable and interesting.

Whether you are researching the names of native American tribes, legal terms, sports, movies, religious calendars, architectural terms, famous hotels or just about anything else, this book will be your constant reference.

As the author of 113 books (including revisions and foreign-language editions) and over 500 magazine articles, I highly recommend this book to writers everywhere. DanPoynter@ParaPublishing.com.

Excellent Reference for... Everything.......1999-09-24

You can only put so much stuff in a 1000 page book, but the author has chosen some very good lists. I've vowed to put at least 15 minutes a day into this book. Might alternatively be called "A Breif Guide to Humans and their Culture"

It worked great for my academic team!!!.......1999-06-24

My whole team academic team studied from this book. It is quick and easy to learn a thourough description for a wide subject. We used it and won the State Championship this year.

A must-have for Jeopardy fans & other curious people.......1998-04-28

*A Writer's Companion* works well as a starting point for researching subjects and an ending point for settling arguements. A gift from Rubin to writers, reseachers, teachers and editors, this book keeps true to its name and provides page after page of names, dates and other information you only thought you'd never need to know. The lists are extensive and the subjects are very logically organized. The list of inventions and their dates of conception is a goldmine! *AWC* is a welcome partner to any almanac and a solid investment for anyone who wants a more comprehsive reference (home) library.

Customer Reviews:

This book is pure "crap".......2005-05-16

I should of paid more attention to the other reviews of this book before making my buying decision. My copy as well ended up in the garbage, where it belongs. Not only is the author inaccurate, most of the chapters are redundant; cut and paste statements. The individual that wrote this book should consider a new profession, and stop writing books. Needless to say, it deserves less than a 1 star. I am so mad at myself for wasting my time and money on this piece of garbage.

Would have been better with photos.......2004-12-17

There are some good pointers in this book but I would have liked to seen photos and more visual examples.

Lacking depth.......2002-03-05

I am a firm believer in ongoing personal development, so I have continued to read and grow my perspective. Your Executive Image looked interesting because of attention given to clothing, space, gestures, etc...

Then I read it. Not all of it, but as much as I could before I realized this was a waste of time. For instance, the entire posture chapter could have been replaced with a single line: Posture is important as it conveys confidence or insecurity... The rest of the chapter reinforced this one point. Twenty minutes of time for a thirty-second concept. In some chapters, I didn't even see a worthwhile thirty-second concept (like the chapter on space).

Money could have been better spent elsewhere.

Excellent Use Of Time.......2001-07-21

This book continues all the sound advice I have received from my parents while I was growing up. The material contained in this book is an excellent reference for any person at any level of employment. I have been able to easily relate parts of the book to past experiences.

Getting To The Top.......2001-07-20

If a business minded individual wants to successfully make it to the top of the corporate ladder, then this book is a must. The author explains in great detail exactly what it takes to achieve "Your Executive Image." To keep and maintain employment the right image is a must and the author takes you there and keeps you there. I give this book as a gift to all of my friends.

Book Description

Helps re-entry women write outstanding resumes and conduct an effective job search.

Book Description

You'll enjoy greater confidence and success in your financial affairs with Money 101. This by-the-numbers guide gives you a solid foundation of information on which to build your financial future. It explains everything you need to know to manage your finances for greater security, profit, and growth, including how to:

• Invest to meet your needs and achieve your goals
• Manage and reduce your credit card debt
• Plan for parenthood, child care, and college bills
• Decide whether you should rent or buy a home
• Prepare for retirement and plan your estate
• And much more!

Even if you're consulting a personal financial planner, you need Money 101 to know which questions to ask and how to judge the answers. With this book you can take control of your financial future—starting today!

About the Author
Debra Wishik Englander is a personal finance writer and editor. Currently a business book editor, she was a longtime member of the editorial staff of Money magazine and manager of the Book-of-the-Month Club's business book club.

Product Description

How To Legally Protect Your Assets, by David A Tanzer, a former judge and litigation lawyer has created a layman's guide to asset protection and wealth preservation. For the first time, a complete guide to all of the different legal asset protection tools is contained under one cover. Professionals acting in the disciplines of law, accounting and asset management have found it a useful aid in providing stateside and offshore planning advice to their clients. This book is about protecting and preserving your hard-earned money and property, understanding the legal tools available and how to successfully use them every day. A 384 page hard cover book and complimentary video helps you identify domestic and offshore choices that are best for you. Learn how to level the playing field in a world of plaintiff hungry sharks out to get a chunk of your assets. Author of Offshore Living & Investing. Visit www.DavidTanzer.com

Customer Reviews:

Easy to follow advice!.......2004-07-08

I was sceptical about the price, but after watching the 100 minute introductory video and reading the book, feel it is worth every penny spent. The book is easy reading for those of us with limited technical knowledge in asset protection, has good planning ideas, and covers from simple to basic, and in between. The only criticsim is that it is unfortunate we need people and books like this to help us through life, but so be it. Enjoyed, and I recommend it.

Asset protection that is finally explained & understood!.......2004-05-08

I have read various books and articles trying to understand what asset protection was all about. Finally, Mr. Tanzer is able to communicate both the basic planning tools, as well as the more complicated world of international planning. I found his book easy to understand and follow, and the diagrams made good sense. It is well written with some good stories and even a little bit of humor. The bonus is the introductory video included with the book. Money well spent, particularly when compared to the cost of legal services today. Bravo!

Amazon.com

He's been called the postmodern Chicken Little, but it happens that the sky really is falling. Jeremy Rifkin pulls the plug on the trend away from property ownership and free public life in The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience. As usual, he's a bit ahead of the curve--most of us aren't fully immersed yet in the sea of leased products and packaged experiences that he sees awaiting us. Still, his eerie vision of a world of gatekeepers paying each other for access to nearly every aspect of human life brings a chilling new meaning to the phrase "pay to play" and should spark some debate over our new cultural revolution.

Using examples from business and government experiments with just-in-time access to goods and services and resource sharing, Rifkin defines a new society of renters who are too busy breaking the shackles of material possessions to mourn the passing of public property. Are we encouraging alienation or participation? Can we trust corporations with stewardship of our social lives? True to form, the author asks more questions than he answers--a sign of an open mind. If property is theft, leased access is extortion, and The Age of Access warns us of the complex changes coming in our relationships with our homes, our communities, and our world. --Rob Lightner

Book Description

Visionary activist and author Jeremy Rifkin exposes the real stakes of the new economy, delivering "the clearest summation yet of how the Internet is really changing our lives" (The Seattle Times).

Imagine waking up one day to find that virtually every activity you engage in outside your immediate family has become a "paid-for" experience. It's all part of a fundamental change taking place in the nature of business, contends Jeremy Rifkin. After several hundred years as the dominant organizing paradigm of civilization, the traditional market system is beginning to deconstruct. On the horizon looms the Age of Access, an era radically different from any we have known.

Customer Reviews:

Surprisingly current.......2007-09-22

Do you remember the dot.com revolution? Mass customization, location-based offers, intelligent e-business and all that? Much of it was, as Alan Greenspan famously said, irrational exuberance. But, some of it was true. The fact that Rifkin wrote this book in the heat of the dot.com boom (2000), and that he still got much of it right, is a testimony to his insight. As good as this book is, there is proof that he is not a perfect prognosticator. For example, he also wrote a book called The End of Work. That sure hasn't happened for me yet.

The best parts of this book are in the middle. Toward the end of the book, his analysis of postmodernism and its relationship to the network economy is great. Some of his key points: there is a significant shift underway from products to services and that even what we understand as products today are being offered as services, there is a significant shift from a production-based capitalistic economy to a network economy, and there is a shift toward commoditizing human relationships as we are currently witnessing with the social networking sites. This is a good and amazingly current book.

not that good.......2007-06-03

maybe it's just that i read it in 2007 (as the date stamp of this review shows) but i already knew all of what was covered in the book. it is old news. maybe it was relevant at the time, but half the things he talked about weren't accurate. *shrug* i found myself skipping through the book; trying to find something worth reading.

Capitalism Conquers All.......2006-12-19

Rifkin states that the new economy is one in which cultural experiences are exchanged for money such as in tourism. He sees this development as the growth of capitalism into the cultural sphere in which cultural experiences become commercialized. He thinks that the work that we do now will be done by robots or computers in the future. The waning blue and white collar work will be replaced by opportunities in cultural work. The commodification of relationships means that people will buy the time, attention, and affection of other people.

Another feature of the new economy is that it deals in ideas and images, more than physical assets. Companies outsource the manufacturing of their product and concentrate on the design of the product only, such as with computers and cars. Companies also like to outsource manufacturing to non-union subcontractors so that they don't have deal with unions. Cheap labor overseas manufactures the product.

The intangible asset of the new economy is the knowledge or imagination of the associates in firms such as Microsoft. This company does not own many physical assets, but its stock still is valuable because of innovativeness of its knowledge workers in coming up with priceless commercial ideas. A new way of accounting needs to be devised to measure intangible assets such as knowledge, morale, progressive leadership, and creativity of different firms. Although Rifkin is excited about the new economy, he worries that non-commercial ideas will go by the wayside in a world in which only commercialized ideas are important.

Franchisees do not have as many rights as business owners do. In fact, the supplier often controls how the business is to be run. The contract can be broken if the franchisee violates any of the rules. Franchisees pay for the business formula and the name of the business, hoping for success without the risk of ownership. Rifkin predicts that small business will become extinct and will be replaced by franchises because the new economy is based on supplier/user relationships, not ownership. The franchisee is not autonomous and therefore cannot come up with any creative ideas on how the business should be run.

What we formally owned in the past will no longer be ours in the new economy. Rifkin informs us that we don't even own our genes because life science companies have patented them. If we want gene therapy, we will have to pay for the privilege of using their knowledge of the patent. Gene therapy may increase health care costs because of the expense of the genetic tests. We also will not own our seeds in the future because life science companies have patented the seeds that they have genetically modified. The seeds will be leased to the farmer for one growing season only. Heavy fines will be put on those who save the seeds to grow next season. Rifkin suggests that we need to revamp our anti-trusts laws for the knowledge economy so that monopolies will not control intellectual property.

The leasing of cars shows that businesses are turning to a service-based rather than a product-based economy. They seek the lifetime loyalty of the customer by establishing a relationship with him. I suppose that this will have an advantage for the customer since the supplier will seek the satisfaction of the customer over a lifetime, not wanting to betray trust. In the future, it will be assumed that products will come with long term service; if they don't, they could be rip-offs because the seller does not wish to maintain the product over the years. Invasions of privacy may occur if such suppliers are always seeking to find out what your buying habits are. Service relationships have also helped companies save money and the environment by having a service find out a way to provide that service more cheaply and less wastefully. The relationship between PPG painting and Ford Motor Company is given as an example.

The switch to product based economy to one in which service is emphasized has come about because there is more profit in providing added long-term services for a product, rather than selling the product as a one-time event. An over-production of goods means that it is difficult to sell products as one-offs and still make money. Products that are similar also have to have services that will differentiate them from the competition. The ability to customize a product to the customers needs is now able to be done. This mass customization replaces mass production of the previous era. In the new era, products are given away as the bait that will hook the customer into a relationship with the business over the long-term.

With the commodification of relationships in the new era, customers are ones that businesses seek to control, not so much the products. Companies will increasingly seek to sell to the same customer over the lifetime many different products. The customer is the market in this sense. With new technology, companies are able to find out what the buying habits of customers are and then cater to their preferences. Controlling the customer means that the company wants to become so "embedded" into the lives of customers that they can't live without the company. Changes to another company may become too much of a hassle, given the complexity of the commercial relationship. Corporate institutions wish to control the customer, just as they did the worker during the industrial era. They want to control economic life as opposed to having the masses control it. The purpose of capitalism is to keep increasing its power over our lives, even to the point of setting up communities of interests to help sell their services. Planned communities are also a way that corporations sell a lifestyle while abridging the ownership rights of the people who live there.

180 Degrees in one Book.......2006-10-29

This book makes you turn 180 degrees fast! It takes all that you have learned in school about the ways of modernity and it pushes you into the global economy where experiences, ideas and relationships are valued above all else.

If you are wondering why the world has changed and how you can leverage those changes, you should take some time and read this book.

FIGHTING FOR ATTENTION IN A DEFICIT SOCIETY...........2005-03-07

Attention is key to communication in any society....listening, seeing and experiencing-- so important to getting any message across, let alone establishing social networks and personal relationships. Rifkin is a master at spotting what is a major issue in our society-- I can't wait to read his European book...He understands trends before they hit the "Tipping Point" -- a salute to him. This book belongs on every marketer's shelf and on every student of branding and next-gen advertising and mass communications.....wonder why no one's paying attention -- Rifkin covers some of the possible answers here.

The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience

Average customer rating:

The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-For Experience
Jeremy Rifkin
Manufacturer: Penguin Putnam
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NYD6U4

Book Description

This book provides an incredibly detailed and thorough account of how Vietnam's dependence on Soviet aid during the 1960s and 1970s sustained and yet ultimately undermined the centrally-planned economy. Foreign aid provided most of the resources which, in the context of an under-developed agrarian economy, permitted planned industrialization. Yet, as in other socialist countries, chronic shortages emerged and, particularly when aid supplies were cut after 1975, encouraged individuals and enterprises to divert resources to local uses.

The authors show how development of non-plan trading relations was based on supplies of scarce, aid-subsidized goods which provided the means for local authorities, enterprises and individuals to convert their positions of political and social power into capital. They further highlight the ways in which new, market-oriented trade relations emerged in symbiosis with the planning system and continue to influence the economic structure and institutions today. Economic Transition in Vietnam outlines the many problems currently facing Vietnam, not least how new global forms of integration are affecting future development.

Average customer rating:
Foreign Trade in the Centrally Planned Economy (Fundamentals of Pure and Applied Economics)
Thomas A. Wolf
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Macroeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Microeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Federal Government | Levels of Government | Political Science | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 371864813X

Average customer rating:
The foreign trade practices of centrally planned economies and their effects on U.S. international competitiveness (CIR report ; #3)
Egon Neuberger
Manufacturer: NPA Committee on Changing International Realities
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0890680434

Average customer rating:
Indirect management in a centrally planned economy: System constructions in foreign trade (Contributions to economic analysis)
Witold Trzeciakowski
Manufacturer: sole distributors for the U.S.A. and Canada, Elsevier North-Holland
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Public | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0720431891

Average customer rating:
Exchange Rates, Foreign Trade Accounting, and Purchasing-Power Parity for Centrally Planned Economies (World Bank Staff Working Paper)
Thomas A. Wolf
Manufacturer: World Bank
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

International | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Macroeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
International | Accounting | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Purchasing & Buying | International | Accounting & Finance | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Banks & Banking | Finance | International | Accounting & Finance | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0821306359

Average customer rating:
Foreign trade in the balance of payments and GNP accounts of centrally planned economies,
Franklyn D Holzman
Manufacturer: University Center for International Studies, University of Pittsburgh
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006CC28K

Average customer rating:
Macroeconomic adjustment and foreign trade of centrally planned economies (Working paper / National Bureau of Economic Research)
John Burkett
Manufacturer: National Bureau of Economic Research
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Macroeconomics | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006Y357K

Book Description

Geography, history, people, language, culture, traditions, economy, government, politics, constitution, places to visit, info for travelers.

Average customer rating:

Albania Business Law Handbook
Emerging Markets Investment Center
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding
ASIN: 073970401X

Book Description

This law handbook contains information on basic business legislation, laws and regulatoins affecting export-import, business, foreign investments, property rights, taxation and banking.

Handbook on the Albanian Collateral Law (Issues in Business Environment Reform)

Average customer rating:

Handbook on the Albanian Collateral Law (Issues in Business Environment Reform)
Yair Baranes , and Ronald C. C. Cuming
Manufacturer: International Bank for Reconstruction & Devel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Reference | Law Practice | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0821350110

Average customer rating:

Albania Business Law Handbook
USA Ibp
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N7KNXO

Average customer rating:

Albania Business Law Handbook-98
I. Russian Information &. Bus
Manufacturer: Russian Information & Business Center, Incorp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1577518128

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books