...Why Nations Fail In this essay, I am reviewing a book entitled Why Nations Fail written by Daron Acemoglu, and James Robinson. The book was written in 2012, and the authors mention the ongoing Arab Spring as they were putting together their ideas in writing. This coincidence makes me wonder if these authors were also impacted by the information revolution or the information outburst as Nye (2013) often chooses to call. In fact, the authors did not mention the term ‘information revolution’ in the book; they simply state that Egyptians are on the street not because they are poor, as many scholars and political analysts suggest, but because power has resided in the hands of a few elites, and these elites have used political power to amass personal wealth at the expense of the bigger mass. But why the Egyptian revolution took place at this particular time, instead of a decade ago, for example? As far as I understand political theories, the answer lies behind globalization and information revolution which opened a new gate to information. That is, since billions of people around the globe are capable of reaching the internet (about 1.7 million according to Nye), many are able to read online news, or even watch them live as they are being broadcasted. Thus, it is possible to associate the Egyptian revolution or the Arab Spring to globalization and information revolution. Acemoglu et al, (2012) also indicate that Egypt’s ex-president, Hosni Mubarak gathered a huge amount of...
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...Women vs. Wal Mart Ethical Case Analysis Key Ethical Issue The main ethical issue in the Women and Wal-Mart case is its discrimination of women in the workforce, and how they go hand in hand with the utility, rights, and justice arguments of discrimination. The Utilitarian arguments claim that discrimination leads to inefficient use of human resources. This applies to the Wal-Mart case because they were not getting full use out of their employees because they would often times promote a man instead of a woman, even if she had more experience and was better qualified. Studies conducted by a statistical expert that the six women hired, Richard Drogin, revealed that a much larger amount of men were receiving promotions at every level in the Wal-Mart workplace, even though women’s performance ratings were higher than men’s. Wal-Mart was clearly not promoting or giving benefits to these women because of their gender, and they were stuck underneath the “glass ceiling.” The Rights-based arguments claim that discrimination violates basic human rights. In this case, Wal-Mart didn’t view women to be equal to men because men were receiving the promotions when it should have been the women, as stated before. A Kantian argument also states that a person would not want to be discriminated on the basis of their characteristics that do not affect the person’s ability to perform a job, in this case, being a woman. Wal-Mart is not viewing their male and female employees as equals, as...
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...nation’s economy. These suspicions are based on his belief in a limited government and that a capitalist economy free of government interference would provide the best choices for a consumer. Instead of being so involved in the market, he believes that the government has a responsibility to keep a high standard of living through certain functions like defense, education, and public utilities and set certain laws regarding economic policy in order to keep in check the “game” of economics. (Friedman 25) Friedman suggests that the government pass “a legislated rule instructing the monetary authority to achieve a specified rate of growth in the stock of money.” (Friedman 54) Besides serving this purpose, Friedman believes the government’s interference is detrimental. Friedman’s Suspicions of Government Interference The United States government portrays the idea that without government intervention, society’s economic growth would stagger. According to Friedman, economic growth and stability are due to the reduction of government interference. Friedman has many reasons for why he believes that government interference in the economy is not good. He believes that the government creates monopolies and impedes on personal freedoms and liberties. He argues that although the government has to take care of basic essentials of its people, it should have as small a role as possible. Friedman’s attitude is similar to that of Adam Smith, who believed in Laissez-faire, a capitalistic...
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...socio-scientific discourses especially on institutional evolution.This concept of path dependency establishes a dynamic relationship between power,actors and institutions which compels any research to study institutions and their corresponding developments from critical theory perspective to understand mechanics behind such institutional metamorphosis and its impact on human environment and subsequent responses to such changes.Such theories also make bold attempts to explain institutional stagnancy; why actors may intentionally or unintentionally fail to respond to changes in the environment even when such responses would yield better results directly countering those economic...
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...of traps, that “people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction(Mills),” and that people fail fail to see how history effects them individually. These observations can be considered as the practice of sociology in the modern world. Sociology is a study of human behavior, as we learn things from such a course, we discover how we can be wiser by ways of seeing the world around us. As what the author says in his article, he wants us to use our imaginations to wake our world up; to use our imaginations to change the issues that we have; to use our imaginations to think wisely about situations that are happening. Sociology imagination can affect everything in our life, such as unemployment, war, and marriage. As the author says, the unemployed rate goes up as the issues grow up. When one is unemployed, it is one’s own trouble. When millions of people become unemployed, this becomes our world’s problem. On the other hand, the war also effects upon our economic and political. War comes when ones only thinking how many benefits the war can bring to ones country, instead of considering what negative effects it brings. Also the marriage, it is not just a divorce. If everyone is getting a divorce, then the divorce rate goes up can causes so many problems among family and other institutions. We can not think things in one side but in many sides. What we can do in order to fix these problems is to learn sociology, and...
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...A Review of Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail by Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine and Salvatore Modica Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail [2012] is a grand history in the style of Diamond [1997] or McNeil [1963]. Like those books, this book is exceptionally fun to read and full of interesting historical examples and provocative ideas. The basic theme of the book is that what matters most in why some nations fail – and others succeed, for the book is as much about success as failure – are not – as earlier authors have argued - economic policies, geography, culture, or value systems – but rather institutions, more precisely the political institutions that determine economic institutions. Acemoglu and Robinson theorize that political institutions can be divided into two kinds - “extractive” institutions in which a “small” group of individuals do their best to exploit - in the sense of Marx - the rest of the population, and “inclusive” institutions in which “many” people are included in the process of governing hence the exploitation process is either attenuated or absent. Needless to say Acemoglu and Robinson’s theory is more subtle than this simple summary. They argue that for any economic success political institutions must be sufficiently centralized to provide basic public services including justice, the enforcement of contracts, and education. Given that these functions are carried out, inclusive institutions enable innovative energies to emerge and lead to continuing...
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...a new idea. There is not much new about basic idea of corporate governance except the phrase ‘Corporate Governance’. Corporate entities always need governing. Corporate governance is necessary when ownership or membership is separated from management control. Beginning of the modern concept in ‘Corporate Governance’ was in 19th century. In 19th century there were two ways in which business was performed; • Sole proprietorship • Partnerships But if business fails creditors will take all your the assets even the house. In other words business man had an unlimited liability. And unfortunately you could be sent to prison. That was not a good incentive for businesses. Why would any one risk his/her life as well as life of the family for a business? Fortunately industrial revolution was knocking at the door, business opportunities were opening up. Investment was needed in many sectors but people were scared of investing in their own businesses because of the danger that if their business fails to perform they could be left with nothing, and even end up in a prison. States around the globe wanted a change and this change came from U.K and U.S i.e. the “development of Joint Stock Limited Liability Company” in which owners are separate from company. In 1855 first ever company act created an independent legal entity called ‘limited liability Company’ separate from owners. These companies were separate from owners but with similar legal...
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...main theoretical question addressed by sociologists working within the Functionalist perspective is that of: * How do social systems ("societies") hold together? In their attempts to provide an answer to this question, Functionalists have initially concentrated upon two ideas that are closely related to the above: 1. How is order maintained in any society? 2. What are the main sources of stability in any society? As you might imagine - given that the theoretical emphasis seems to be placed on rather grand questions about the nature of social systems - Functionalist sociologists are not particularly concerned with an examination of individual ideas, meanings and interpretations. We will look in more detail about why this should be the case in a moment. What they do tend to emphasise, however, is the idea that the basis of social order is to be found in shared values / consensus (hence this perspective...
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...Someone called Chris has placed a comment below my last little piece on aid and conditionality and, as is sometimes the case when he resists his impulse to troll, he has made some almost-sensible points. Or at least, points that have had much currency in the mainstream media and debates about international development. So I thought I’d take the time to discuss them here. In his post Chris wrote: ...the fact remains, Africa's problems are by and large internal…True, agricultural subsidies must be lifted by the US and the EU, but simply throwing aid money at the problem will ultimately come to no good. After all, even when African countries do possess sources of great wealth--diamonds in Sierra Leone and oil in Nigeria, for instance--those resources often end up being a curse on95% of the respective country's populace. On the other hand, a few nations have done better through internal improvements; Botswana is often cited as an example of this, but their 40% Aids rate--definitely attributable to rampant sexual activity--is impossible to overlook. Encapsulated in this spiel are what could be termed ‘the four great fallacies of the Africa Debate’. I’ll attend to each of these in turn. Fallacy 1 - Africa’s problems are by in large internal There’s no denying that some of Africa’s problems are internal but the claim that they are entirely (or even by in large internal) is demonstrably false: it ignores history and turns a blind eye to the interconnected world that we...
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...Dr.Himanshu Raninga Assistant Professor in Economics Smt.J.J.Kundalia Arts & Commerce College, Rajkot-India Economics Of Knowledge Knowledge and information appear in economic models in two different contexts. The mostfundamental assumption of standard microeconomics is that the economic system is based on rational choices made by individual agents. Thus, how much and what kind of information agents have about the world in which they operate and how powerful their ability to process the information is crucial issues. The other major perspective is one in which knowledge is regarded as an asset. Here, knowledge may appear both as an input (competence) and output (innovation) in the production process. Under certain circumstances, it can be privately owned and/or bought and sold in the market as a commodity. The economics of knowledge is to a high degree about specifying the conditions for Knowledge to appear as “a normal commodity”, i.e. as something similar a producible and reproducible tangible product. One reason for the interest in this issue is that it is crucial for defining the role of government inknowledge production. If knowledge is a public good that can be accessed by anyone, there is noincentive for rational private agents to invest in its production. If it is less costly to imitate than to produce new knowledge, the social rate of return would be higher than the private rate of return and, again, private agents would invest too little. Nelson’s (1959) and...
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...individual to invest as well as institutional investors. Prior to development in capital markets, individual investors used to make their own investment decisions. But all these are changed now as individual investors have been replaced by institutional investors. This is also known as shareholding. Institutional investors play a very enviable role in corporate governance since the primary responsibility lies in side the board room, with the top management not with people and system imposed from outside. Looking at Board of Directors and investors, investors are seen as “sources of finance” or “partners in the enterprise”. This means that shareholders are seen as faceless, financial resource whose trust may be limited and need for checks and balances real? Or are they part of the business? Companies do take advice and guidance from their institutional shareholder in domestic and foreign business growth decisions (Stuffman 2008). This takes us to Hermes Fund Management, an institutional investment Corporation, which plays a strategic role in the activities of Total and Premier Oil. Total and Premier Oil has sought assistance from Hermes in managing business concern in Burma. This case study will show how trusted are Directors bearing in mind the interest or the shareholders. Shareholders are in turn given consideration and the respect for their membership in merit. Institutional Investors and Corporate Social Responsibility: As earlier stated, institutional investors are organizations...
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...returns that result in the creation of wealth. In line with this he says that destruction of old ways of doing things through innovation is key to entrepreneurial activities and GDP growth. This is supported by Kirzner’s (1973) theory of entrepreneurship of “alertness to hitherto undiscovered opportunities” and the action in the market economy of arbitrage and the value this can create. Who becomes and entrepreneur and why? According to Gartner (1985), “the entrepreneur is not a fixed state of existence; rather entrepreneurship is a role that individuals undertake to create organisations”. In this way one can understand how complex the matter of answering the question of who becomes and entrepreneur and why. Gartner believes that using a behavioural approach scholars are able to separate the act of entrepreneurship from the individual entrepreneur and so methodologies and techniques can be developed to discover correlations between the two factors. When looking at the individual, studying the he individual domains which include personality, motivation, and prior experience are helpful. The psychological characteristics such as risk-taking propensity and entrepreneurial self-efficacy along with developed skills and abilities influence entrepreneurial intentions (Zhao, Seibert, and Hills 2005). Contextual variables such as social context, markets, and economics...
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...funding, the perverse incentives created by executive compensation practices, conflicts of interest within the rating agencies, and permissive monetary policies. These long lists of causes lead to correspondingly long lists of reforms: regulate mortgage brokers, rating agencies, and executive compensation; force banks to keep a participation in any securities they originate; require banks to hold more capital; and revisit whether monetary policy should respond to credit booms and asset bubbles. This of course is only a very incomplete summary of a vast and rapidly-growing literature. The limitations of this standard operating procedure will be apparent. However successful it is at pinpointing the immediate causes of the crisis, it fails to identify the deeper conditions that allowed those...
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...a company that rents out carpet tiles, reuses them when no longer required, replacing only those that have worn out, and even then recycling the discards using energy generated from wind and the sun. To explore the skills demanded of people in the twenty-first century, this book brings leading specialists from many areas, and the interaction with them is provided by workshops firstly exploring skills such as social conscience, permaculture design, or futures thinking, after that the book provide a list of resources for gaining a deeper insight into the skills described. The book aims to bring different perspectives that can shift the debate away from the narrow focus of the dominant discourse on ‘skill set’ for employability which often fail to take into consideration important environment characteristics...
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...Paul Woods PSC 485 Dr. Edward Kwon 4-14-11 How the U.S Economy affects International Countries The United States of America has the most expansive economic system that out rivals any other country when compared to the U.S. The thought that if the United State’s financial system were to crumble would have a devastating effect for not only the United States but that of every other country in the northern as well as the southern hemisphere. It’s no surprise that the United States is one of the biggest exporter/importers in the world, but when the biggest country suffers economic turmoil, how does it affect the entire international community? The first question that I want to bring to the surface is what kind of impact does the Federal Reserve Bank have upon the United States economy and what exactly do their powers entail? In order to find out why our economy is in the shape it’s in, we must go straight to the source and find out what they are able to do as well as what must be done to keep our economy afloat. The second research question that I want to address covers the economic crisis that occurred in 2008-09, when Wall Street crashed, making it the second worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in 1929. We will deeper and examine the government bailouts and how it affected the GDP of domestic industry and on the international scale. Finally, our third question will be how we can focus our attempts to avoid instances like this in the future. We will look...
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