In the last two decades there has been a flourishing of research carried out jointly by economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. This meltdown of barriers between competences has led toward original approaches to investigate the mental and cognitive mechanisms involved in the way the economic agent colÂlects, processes, and uses information to make choices. This research field involves …
This book looks at the specific institutional arrangements and the policy choices that underpin the management of public finances in the Latin American and Caribbean region. It draws primarily from a sample of publicly available Country Financial Accountability Assessments and Country Procurement Assessment Reports undertaken at regular intervals by the World Bank and its development partn…
This book has been written in order to contribute to the debate about best practice in construction procurement. At the outset it should be made plain that the authors do not subscribe to the view that there is any such thing as best practice. The main argument in this book is that there can never be a best practice, only better practice, in construction procurement. The reason for arrivi…
One clearly evident dimension is research. Certain authors introduce quite new intellectual approaches into scientific debate. This requires a special frame of mind and a searching curiosity about social reality. Carl Gustav Jung identified a phenomenon which he called systematic blindness: when a science reaches a stage of maturity and equilibrium, it categorically refuses, from a sense of sel…
Public procurement and competition law are both important fields of EU law and policy, intimately intertwined in the creation of the internal market. Hitherto their close connection has been noted, but not closely examined. Th is work is the most comprehensive attempt to date to explain the many ways in which these fields, oft en considered independent of one another, interact and overlap i…
'Building procurement' has become a fashionable subject. It seems that hardly a week goes by without my receiving a note that a student is writing a dissertation on an apparently new angle to the subject or that a course, conference, seminar or whatever is offering to explain the challenge of con struction procurement now and in the future. Consultancies and contractors who should know bet…
The standard approach to the legal foundations of corporate governance is based on the view that corporate law promotes separation of ownership and control by protecting non-controlling shareholders from expropriation. This book takes a broader perspective by showing that investor protection is a necessary, but not sufficient, legal condition for the efficient separation of ownership and contro…
An essential question to ask before embarking on any exercise or enterprise beyond that of the transitory or trivial is 'Why?' An exercise, that is a set of movements, tasks and so on designed to train, improve or test abilities may perhaps be transitory or trivial especially to those not involved. But an enterprise, that is a project or undertaking especially one requiring boldness or eff…
Have you ever wondered about the meaning of a word, a phrase, or an acronym in international economics? I often do. So I have looked them up, written their definitions, and listed these in a glossary that I have assembled over the last several years on my web site. With that I have frequently been able to refresh my own failing memory, since having written the definitions, I often forget them…
The material in the main text ranges from a revision of high-school mathematics to applications of calculus (single-variate, multivariate and integral) to economics and finance. For example: linear and quadratic functions are introduced in the context of demand and supply analysis; geometric sequences, exponential and logarithmic functions are introduced in the context of finance; single-variat…
In this book, we synthesize a rich and vast literature on econometric challenges associated with accounting choices and their causal effects. Identification and esti- mation of endogenous causal effects is particularly challenging as observable data are rarely directly linked to the causal effect of interest. A common strategy is to employ logically consistent probability assessment via Bayesâ€â€¦
This is a collection of my main essays on econometric methodology from the period 1974– 85 during which the approach developed into its present form, integrated by a commentary on the motivations, personalities and ideas central to its formalization. Sue Corbett of Blackwell Publishers initiated the idea of drawing together the main steps through which the methodology had evolved,since a deve…
Starbucks’, the Seattle-based coffee store mission is to inspire and nurture the human spirit: one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. The company is well-known for its ethical sourcing of coffee from farmers all over the world, environmental stewardship (by 2015 all cups will be reusable or recyclable), and community involvement through volunteer work in neighborhoods wh…
The proposition that the economic and social wellbeing of society, and those in it, is substantially dependent on the effective and efficient performance of organisations of all kinds, that this in turn depends on adequate or excellent management and leadership capability, and that this in turn can be learnt and developed, would be accepted by many as likely to be true in common sense and e…
Strategy is about winning. This chapter explains what strategy is and why it is important to success—both for organizations and individuals. We will distinguish strategy from planning. Strategy is not a detailed plan or program of instructions; it is a unifying theme that gives coherence and direction to the actions and decisions of an individual or an organization. The principal task of…
In "Analyzing strategic Risks," we focus on industry dissonance, that is, the risk that an organization is executing an obsolete strategy. In "Maximizing the value of Competitive Itelligence, we focus on both market exploitation opportunities and industry dissonance.
The genesis of this book is the confluence of past and present food and nutrition policy. Each generation of people interested in the topics of food and nutrition start with a certain grounding and basis in the knowledge then currently agreed on. The elder author of this book struggled with seven food groups in school, the younger author learned about four. Those four food groups are now so ent…
The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector is a major employer of finance professionals. Although relatively few ACCA members’ careers start in SMEs, 45% have at some point in their lives worked for an SME. ACCA has long recognised this – and in 2013 it is launching ‘Accountants for Small Business’, a campaign aiming to raise awareness of the value of professional accountants i…
When what organizations do is not exclusive, how they do it becomes a competitive advantage, and the lingering effects of the global economic meltdown only reinforce the value of project management. Organizations that value project management understand that the contributions of professional project managers increase project success rates, create efficiencies and improve alignment with org…
Imagine that a time machine could carry you back to the year 900 and land you anywhere on earth for an extended stay. Where would you go live? As you consider the possibilities, you might want a bit of useful advice—namely, avoid western Europe at all costs.1 Why reside there, when it was poor, violent, politically chaotic, and by almost any yard- stick, hopelessly backward? There were no ci…
Nuclear.magnetic.resonance.(NMR),.discovered.as.a.physical.phenomenon.by.Bloch. and. Purcell. in. 1945,. has. rapidly. become. the. theoretical. basis. for. a. powerful. ana- lytical.method.that.is.widely.applied.in.different.fields.of.modern.fundamental.and. applied. science. as. well. as. in. medicine. and. industry.. This. is. easily. explained. not. only. by. the. capability. of. NMR. to. s…
The purpose of this volume is to outline the linguistic development of Old English (OE) phonology and morphology down to about AD  or so, and the development of OE syntax to the end of the OE period. This difference in periodization is dictated by the nature of the material at our disposal. OE phonology and morphology underwent significant changes—some of which are poorly recorded …