Recommending Books for Purchase (Bulletin 18 - May 2018): Production

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Governments play a major role in the development process, and constantly introduce reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don't learn, IT systems are introduced but not used, plans arewritten but not implemented. These achievement deficiencies reveal gaps in capabilities, and weaknesses in the process of building state capability. This book addresses these weaknesses and gaps. It starts by providing evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, showing that many governments lack basic capacities even after decades of reforms and capacity building efforts. The book then analyses this evidence,identifying capability traps that hold many governments back - particularly related to isomorphic mimicry (where governments copy best practice solutions from other countries that make them look more capable even if they are not more capable) and premature load bearing (where governments adopt newmechanisms that they cannot actually make work, given weak extant capacities). The book then describes a process that governments can use to escape these capability traps. Called PDIA (problem driven iterative adaptation), this process empowers people working in governments to find and fit solutionsto the problems they face. The discussion about this process is structured in a practical manner so that readers can actually apply tools and ideas to the capability challenges they face in their own contexts. These applications will help readers devise policies and reforms that have more impactthan those of the past.

Publisher : Routledge

The theory of costs is a cornerstone of economic thinking, and figures crucially in the study of human action and society. From the first day of a principles-level course to the most advanced academic literature, costs play a vital role in virtually all behaviors and economic outcomes. How we make choices, why we trade, and how we build institutions and social orders are all problems that can be explained in light of the costs we face. This volume explores, develops, and critiques the rich literature on costs, examining some of the many ways cost remains relevant in economic theory and practice. The book especially studies costs from the perspective of the Austrian or "causal-realist" approach to economics. The chapters integrate the history of economic thought with contemporary research, finding valuable crossroads between numerous traditions in economics. They examine the role of costs in theories of choice and opportunity costs; demand and income effects; production and distribution; risk and interest rates; uncertainty and production; monopsony; Post-Keynesianism; transaction costs; socialism and management; and social entrepreneurship. Together, these papers represent an update and restatement of a central element in the economic way of thinking. Each chapter reveals how the Austrian, causalrealist approach to costs can be used to solve an important problem or debate in economics. These chapters are not only useful for students learning these concepts for the first time: they are also valuable for researchers seeking to understand the unique Austrian perspective and those who want to apply it to new problems.

Publisher: Routledge

Darwin's Medicineis the sequel to Brian D. Smith's influential and critically acclaimedFuture of Pharma(Gower, 2011). Whereas the earlier book predicted the evolution of the pharmaceutical market and the business models of pharmaceutical companies, Darwin's Medicinegoes much deeper into the drivers of industry change and how leading pharmaceutical and medical technology companies are adapting their strategies, structures and capabilities in practice. Through the lens of evolutionary science, Professor Smith explores the speciation of new business models in the Life Sciences Industry. This sophisticated and highly original approach offers insights into: The mechanisms of evolution in this exceptional industry; The six great technological and social shifts that are shaping its landscape; The emergence of 26 distinct, new business models; and The lessons that enable firms to direct and accelerate their own evolution. These insights map out the industry's complex, changing landscape and provide an invaluable guide to those firms seeking to survive and thrive in this dynamic market. The book is essential reading for anyone working in or studying the pharmaceutical, medical technology and related sectors. It provides a unique and novel way of making sense of the transformation we can see going on around us and a practical, focused approach to managing a firm's evolutionary trajectory.　

Publisher : Cambridge University Press

How can industrial production be managed without the guidance of the state? Adnan Naseemullah discusses industrial development in a new era of drastically constricted state capacity, from the perspective of the manufacturing firm. India's manufacturing economy has been growing after state promotion has receded. How, then, does Indian manufacturing develop in this context? Naseemullah argues that Indian firms must create production structures themselves, investing in networks of capital and labor without signals from above. Depending on manufacturers' backgrounds, these relationships are based either on formal rules or through personal ties, creating a patchwork of institutions that crosscut region and sector. As a result, many firms have been able to regain some certainty for investment, but at the cost of national coherence and the possibility of broader transformation. As a mirror case, this book also explores Pakistan's industrial trajectories, in which similar dynamics suggest the broader applicability of this framework.

Publisher : CRC Press

International and global in nature, Dubai - The Epicenter of Modern Innovation: A Guide to Implementing Innovation Strategiesprovides a roadmap for the successful implementation of innovation for companies and businesses currently working in the Middle East, the UAE, and more specifically, Dubai. The discussion focuses on implementing sustained innovation success within several industry segments, while identifying past, current, and future innovation-related successes that are leading to Dubai's rise as the epicenter of innovation in the Middle East and most notably, the world. The authors share key innovation leadership philosophies from Sheikh Mohammed bin Al Maktoum, recognized business leaders, and the highest levels in the UAE. This book: Features　key leadership and innovation insights relative from the highest levels of government, including Sheikh Mohammed bin Al Maktoum and multiple UAE ministry officials. Focuses on the United Arab Emirates (UAE), most specifically, Dubai and the Nation's preparation for hosting World Expo 2020. Contains numerous examples of past, present, and future innovations in Dubai. Provides an easy to implement innovation process management methodology, which has been tested to work in various businesses and organizations. Authored by individuals who have 'on the ground' experience living and working with the chief architects of Dubai's innovation vision and strategy. This book will attempt to take the reader through the construct of this new innovative revolution, particularly in Dubai, and provide a bird's-eye view of how it came about. Most notably, the discussion will walk the reader through key milestones instrumental to Dubai's success--such as the present and past leadership, culture, strategy, and strategic vision. In addition, the discussion will present an industry agnostic, agile and progressive approach to building and leading successful innovation teams through to a successful project out-come and the attributes of good innovation leadership. 　

Publisher : Oxford University Press

There is much discussion about global poverty and the billions of people living with almost nothing. Why is it that governments, development banks, think-tanks, academics, NGOs and many others can't just fix the problem? Why is it that seemingly obvious reforms never happen? Why are prosperityand equity so elusive? The revised second edition of Economic Development: What Everyone Needs to KnowRG brings readers right into the trenches of development policies to show what practitioners are actually doing and explains the issues, dilemmas, options, frustrations and opportunities they face, day in and day out. Instraightforward language and a question-and-answer format, Marcelo M. Giugale outlines the frontier of the development practice or, as he puts it, "...the point at which knowledge stops and ignorance begins." He takes readers from why it is so difficult to get governments to function, to the basicpolicies that economies need to work well, the powerful new tools for social assistance, and the challenges of inclusion, education, health, infrastructure, technology, data, and foreign aid. Giugale gives no definitive, universal answers. They don't really exist. Rather, he highlights what works, what doesn't, and what's promising. Drawing from examples across the world, his overall message is clear: economic development, and the poverty reduction that goes with it, have never been morepossible for more countries.

Publisher : Springer

The book is written in the backdrop of the environmental impacts of and future requirements from the natural environment for rapid economic growth that has characterized recent economic history of China and India, especially over the past few decades. The environmental impacts of such rapid economic changes have been, more frequently than otherwise, degrading in character. Environmental impacts of economic activities create degraded natural ecosystems by over utilization of nature's provisioning ecosystem services (from Himalaya to the Ocean), as well, by the use of the natural environment as sink for dumping of unmarketable products or unused inputs of economic activities. Such processes affect wide range of ecosystem processes on which the natural environment including human population depend on. Critical perspectives cast by various chapters in this book draw attention to the various ways in which space and power interact to produce diverse geographies of sustainability in a globalizing world. They also address the questions such as who decides what kind of a spatial arrangement of political power is needed for sustaining the environment. Who stands to gain (or lose) what, when, where, and why from certain geographical areas being demarcated as ecologically unique, fragile and vulnerable environments? Whose needs and values are being catered to by a given ecosystem service? What is the scope for critical inquiry into the ways in which the environment is imagined, represented and resisted in both geopolitical struggles and everyday life? The book provides insights to both academics from diverse disciplines and policy makers, civil society actors interested in mutual exchange of knowledge between China and India.

Publisher : Oxford Univeristy Press

What does innovation mean to and in India? What are the predominant sites of activity where Indians innovate, and under what situations do they work or fail? This book addresses these all-important questions arising within diverse Indian contexts: informal economy, low-cost settings, largebusiness groups, entertainment and copyright industries, an evolving pharma sector, a poorly organized and appallingly underfunded public health system, social enterprises for the urban poor, and innovations-for-the-millions. Its balanced perspective on India's promises and failings makes it avaluable addition for those who believe that India's future banks heavily on its ability to leapfrog using innovation, as well as those sceptical of the Indian state's belief in the potential of private enterprise and innovation. It also provides critical insights on innovation in general, the mostimportant of which being the highly context-specific, context-driven character of the innovation project.

Publisher : Emerald Publishing

Parietti addresses one of the most important topic scrutinized by the scholars of International Business. Distance between two countries is a multidimensional concept, including not only a geographical dimension but also other dimensions related to the culture, the administrative, political and economic aspects as shown by Ghemawat (2001) and its "CAGE" framework, as well as by Berry et al. (2010) and their nine dimensions of cross-national distance. In the last decade, van Tulder (2010) notes that the research tends to be oriented towards the institutional and governance distance between countries. Many scholars have emphasized the role of institutions in the internationalization process of firms (Cantwell et al., 2010; Dunning and Lundan, 2008; Van Hoorn and Maseland, 2016). Institutional distance has been used primarily to explain the location and entry mode choices based on the concept of "liability of foreignness" introduced by Zaheer (1995). Nevertheless, previous studies show contradictory results due to differences in terms of conceptualization and measurement of institutional distance.

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Introduction to International Development is a collection of contributed chapters comprised of original essays by leading experts from a variety of disciplines. With ten new chapters and a new part on the practice of international development, this fully revised edition continues to givestudents a foundational overview to the field as well as in-depth coverage of issues at the heart of today's most pressing international debates.

Publisher : Springer

This book provides an economic analysis of various aspects of 'market quality', a new concept which emerged in the 21st century, using the tools of 'oligopoly theory' and 'auction theory' that evolved over the 19th and 20th centuries. In the economics literature the link between the theories of oligopoly and auctions with market quality remains largely unexplored. This book attempts to forge such a link as it brings together relevant theoretical results in the literature on these topics under a unified framework. While the book is mainly theoretical in nature, it also discusses some specific issues related to the problems of market quality in emerging economies like India. Illustrated by carefully chosen examples, this book is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the new field of market quality economics and are interested in some open research problems in this area. How should auctions and other allocation mechanisms be designed for oligopolistic industries to achieve such goals as efficiency, high-quality output and fast production? Krishnendu Ghosh Dastidar's book offers novel analysis of this question and also some interesting answers. Highly recommended. Eric S. Maskin, Nobel laureate in Economics

Publisher : Pluto Press

Any student, academic or practitioner wanting to succeed in development studies, radical or mainstream, must understand the World Bank's role and the evolution of its thinking and activities. The Political Economy of Development provides tools for gaining this understanding and applies them across a range of topics.The research, practice and scholarship of development are always set against the backdrop of the World Bank, whose formidable presence shapes both development practice and thinking. This book brings together academics that specialise in different subject areas of development and reviews their findings in the context of the World Bank as knowledge bank, policy-maker and financial institution. The volume offers a compelling contribution to our understanding of development studies and of development itself.The Political Economy of Development is an invaluable critical resource for students, policy-makers and activists in development studies.

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan

'This book is different from most other attempts to understand the politics of Indian economic development. Breaking down the last 65+ years of Indian development into several episodes of growth, it provides a rich set of insights into the political economy of the Indian development process and is a valuable addition to the literature.' -Pranab Bardham, University of California, Berkeley, USA 'Sustained economic growth in the world's largest democracy is critically important to human well-being, but the ups and downs of growth in India are not well-understood. This book provides a fresh and insightful approach to understanding what drives the starts of booms and the onset of slowdowns.' -Lant Pritchett, Harvard University, USA  'This is a little book with big arguments. The authors' explanation of the changing character of the deals done between political and business elites makes for the most original contribution to studies of the political economy of Indian development since Pranab Bardhan's seminal work of the early 1980s' -John Harriss, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, CanadaThis book moves beyond the usual economic analysis of the Indian growth story and provides a fresh perspective on the determinants of growth episodes in post-independence India, based on its political economy. Using a robust and novel technique, the authors identify four such episodes during this period. The first, running from the 1950s to 1992, was mostly characterized by economic stagnation, with a nascent recovery in the eighties. The second, covering the period 1993 to 2001, witnessed the first growth acceleration in the economy. A second acceleration ran from 2002 to 2010. The fourth and final episode started with the slowdown in 2010 and continues to this day. The book provides a theoretical framework that focuses on rent-structures, institutions and the polity, and demonstrates how changes in these can explain the four growth episodes. Kar and Sen argue that the transitions from one growth episode to another can be explained by the bi-directional relationship between growth outcomes and institutional arrangements, and by the manner in which institutional arrangements and their transitions are determined by the political bargains struck between the elite groups in Indian society.

Publisher : Oxford University Press

It is now widely accepted that politics plays a significant role in shaping the possibilities for inclusive development. However, the specific ways in which this happens across different types and forms of development, and in different contexts, remains poorly understood. This collectionprovides a state of the art review regarding what is currently known about the politics of inclusive development. Leading academics offer systematic reviews of how politics shapes development across multiple dimensions, including through growth, natural resource governance, poverty reduction,service delivery, social protection, justice systems, the empowerment of marginalised groups, and the role of both traditional and non-traditional donors. The volume not only provides a comprehensive update but also a ground-breaking range of new directions for thinking and acting around theseissues. The book's originality thus derives not only from the wide scope of its case-study material, but also from the new conceptual approaches it offers for thinking about the politics of inclusive development, and the innovative and practical suggestions for donors, policy makers, andpractitioners that flow from this.

Publisher : Routledge

The Routledge Companion to Business History is a definitive work of reference, and authoritative, international source on business history. Compiled by leading scholars in the field, it offers both researchers and students an introduction and overview of current scholarship in this expanding discipline. Drawing on a wealth of international contributions, this volume expands the field and explores how business history interacts theoretically and methodologically with other fields. It charts the origins and development of business history and its global reach from Latin America and Africa, to North America and Europe. With this multi-perspective approach, it illustrates the unique contribution of business history and its relationship with a range of other disciplines, from finance and banking to gender issues in corporations. The Routledge Companion to Business History is a vital source of reference for students and researchers in the fields of business history, corporate governance and business ethics.

Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan

Services and the Green Economy addresses a significant gap in theknowledge and understanding of sustainable economic development. Bringingtogether a range of expert contributions the book analyses the role of servicesand service industries in the transition to a greener economy. Framed by anapproach within environmental economic geography, chapters written by leadingresearchers from a range of disciplines explore how service industries, servicefirms and service activities are at heart of green economic processes. Adoptinga global perspective, it includes research from the US, Europe, South Americaand Japan, providing a detailed insight into how the crucial role of serviceindustry activity has often been ignored in current understandings of a greeneconomic transition.