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This paper discusses how to enhance automatic stabilizers without increasing the size of government. We distinguish between permanent changes in the parameters of the tax and expenditure system (e.g., changes in tax progressivity) that will enhance the traditional automatic stabilizer, and temporary changes triggered by certain economic developments (e.g., tax measures targeted at credit and liquidity constrained households, triggered during a severe downturn). We argue that, with some exceptions, the latter are preferable as they can be implemented with lower disruptions in other fiscal policy goals (e.g., economic efficiency). Moreover, countries should also avoid introducing procyclicality as a result of fiscal rules, as these would offset the effect of existing automatic stabilizers.

Get the Summary of David Bach's The Automatic Millionaire, Expanded and Updated in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: The Automatic Millionaire starts with the powerful story of an average American couple--he's a low-level manager, she's a beautician--whose joint income never exceeds $55,000 a year, yet who somehow manage to own two homes debt-free, put two kids through college, and retire at 55 with more than $1 million in savings. Through their story you'll learn the surprising fact that you cannot get rich with a budget! You have to have a plan to pay yourself first that is totally automatic, a plan that will automatically secure your future and pay for your present.

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,3, University of Mannheim, language: English, abstract: The thesis addresses a part of the requirements engineering process (RE), namely the treatment of non-functional requirements. Requirements are commonly divided into functional requirements (FRs) and non-functional requirements (NFRs). NFRs address the non-functional aspects of a system, for example, its user interface. The thesis lays the theoretical background and explores the general nature of NFRs including different taxonomies of NFRs. It then looks closely at NFRs in the context of mobile applications. In their marketplaces, so-called App Stores, users can express their opinion about an app after downloading and using it. Software developers can collect requirements straight from these reviews. This can help them improve their software to meet users'expectations. Due to the vast amount of review data manual inspection is tedious, time-consuming, cumbersome, or even infeasible. Tools to automatically classify such reviews might aid with this problem. However, there is still no solution to automatically extract NFRs from app store reviews and classify them into different types in practice. The thesis, therefore, assesses the current state of research in developing automated solutions to classify NFRs from app store reviews. It analyzes several past approaches to automatically classify NFRs from app store reviews using machine learning and looks at the performance of different algorithms used for these approaches. It states that the so-called Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm performed best in the settings analyzed. The second practical part of the thesis then applies this SVM algorithm onto a given dataset with labeled reviews using Python. The reviews are classified into either one of these categories or no category at all: Usability, Dependability, Performance, and Supportability.

Drawing on the most prominent research in the field, this timely book offers bold new fiscal policies that can complement current automatic stabilizers and counter-cyclical monetary policy to help combat recessions. Dr. Seidman argues for an independent fiscal policy board or the Federal Reserve to decide changes in the magnitude of Congress's fiscal policy package of stimulus or restraint, with recommendations going into effect immediately, subject only to Congressional override.

Technical Notes and Manuals are produced by IMF departments to expand the dissemination of their technical assistance advice. These papers present general advice and guidance, drawn in part from unpublished technical assistance reports, to a broader audience. This new series was launched in August 2009.

The Communication, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) systems provide air traffic controllers with the information necessary to ensure the specified separation between aircraft and efficient management of airspace, as well as assistance to flight crew for safe navigation. However, the radar systems that support air traffic management (ATM), and in particular air traffic control (ATC), are at their operational limit. This is particularly acute in the provision of the ATC services in low altitude, remote and oceanic areas. Limitations in the current surveillance systems include unavailability of services in oceanic and remote areas, limited services during extreme weather conditions, and outdated equipment with limited availability of spare parts to support system operation. These limitations have resulted in fatal accidents. This book addresses the limitations of radar to support ATC in various operational environments, identified and verified by analysing five years of safety data from Avinor, the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) in Norway. It derives a set of taxonomy and from this develops a causal model for incident/accident due to limitations in the surveillance system. The taxonomy provides a new method for ANSPs to categorize incidents while the causal model is useful for incident/accident investigations. The book also provides theoretical justifications for the use of Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) to overcome the limitations of radar systems and identify areas of improvements to enable seamless ATC services. Written in a style that makes it accessible to non-specialists, Aircraft Surveillance Systems will be of interest to many in the field of aviation, particularly ATM, safety and accident/incident investigation. It will also offer a useful reference on this vital topic for air traffic management courses.

The managing director of one of ADP's divisions must recommend whether to divest, harvest, or grow the division. Recent performance has been excellent and the near-term outlook for profitability is very positive. However, the industry is maturing and the division is not well positioned for the long term. ADP imposes a set of strategic and competitive requirements on all divisions each year to force management to address the determinants of long-term performance. Teaching Purpose: To demonstrate the power of boundary systems in forcing management to address strategic and competitive issues.

The managing director of one of ADP's divisions must recommend whether to divest, harvest, or grow the division. Recent performance has been excellent and the near-term outlook for profitability is very promising. Despite some strategic concerns, the strong financial performance and near-term prospects seem to suggest continued support of the division.

Illustrates how ADP's top management uses formal planning and control systems to establish strategic boundaries for its business units. Top management has developed a detailed list of strategic criteria that ADP managers use to evaluate products and business units, as well as acquisition and divestiture candidates. Focuses on whether ADP should divest a profitable business that is drifting outside defined strategic boundaries.

Platooning steht für: Mehrere Lkw fahren auf der Autobahn in einer Kolonne, idealerweise im Abstand von 15 m (das ergaben Daimler-Fahrversuche), mit der Geschwindigkeit von 80 km/h, die Lkw steuern sich selbst (sind autonom, der Fahrer ist entlastet). Ab 2020 soll es Platoons auf europäischen Autobahnen geben. Informiert wird über die Vorteile und Risiken von Platooning sowie über mögliche Veränderungen bei Lkw-Herstellern, Unternehmen der Transport und Logistikbranche sowie bei Lkw-Fahrern.

Service Automation is the concept of achieving customer loyalty by the use of automated technologies and builds upon a large demographic and sociological trend. We are the self-service generation, who are able to make our own decisions. The self-service generation is nowadays used to search, evaluate and purchase products online for a number of years now. This book will give you deep insight into the concept of Service Automation, the concept by which you can automate customer service in your organization. If you adequately apply Service Automation in your organization, you will see both employee and customer satisfaction rise and significantly increase the number of people who ‘like'your company. The Service Automation Framework (SAF®) has been created to find a methodical way to discuss Service Automation. It offers a simplistic version of any organization, which includes a number of processes that every organization can think of to systematically enhance its Service. As with any model, it is a simplified version of reality, but it structures the mind and provides uniform terminology when discussing the contents with co-workers and colleagues. Nothing more, nothing less. We encourage you to adapt and apply the model in any way that you see fit and which helps you and your organization. This book is intended for anyone who has ever experienced that the level of Service in his organization can be increased and is looking for guidance on a step-by-step model to achieve this, whether you are an entrepreneur, executive, consultant or work in the field of academia.

Dynamic environments abound, encompassing many real-world problems in fields as diverse as finance, engineering, biology and business. A vibrant research literature has emerged which takes inspiration from evolutionary processes to develop problem-solvers for these environments.'Foundations in Grammatical Evolution for Dynamic Environments'is a cutting edge volume illustrating current state of the art in applying grammar-based evolutionary computation to solve real-world problems in dynamic environments. The book provides a clear introduction to dynamic environments and the types of change that can occur. This is followed by a detailed description of evolutionary computation, concentrating on the powerful Grammatical Evolution methodology. It continues by addressing fundamental issues facing all Evolutionary Algorithms in dynamic problems, such as how to adapt and generate constants, how to enhance evolvability and maintain diversity. Finally, the developed methods are illustrated with application to the real-world dynamic problem of trading on financial time-series. The book was written to be accessible to a wide audience and should be of interest to practitioners, academics and students, who are seeking to apply grammar-based evolutionary algorithms to solve problems in dynamic environments.'Foundations in Grammatical Evolution for Dynamic Environments'is the second book dedicated to the topic of Grammatical Evolution.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 Procrastination is a natural procedure that people depend on in the nick of time. It is about how they will constantly agree to handle another assignment before finishing the previous one. It is not about obligation and also whether the individual can finish jobs or not. It is about wanting to handle an obstacle and also complete more jobs than the individual beside them. #2 The prefrontal cortex manages the planning process in the mind, but the limbic system controls the amount of pleasure and also relaxation that an individual will feel. The prefrontal cortex recognizes that an assignment must be completed by a specific time if not, it will undergo a specific punishment that will make life less enjoyable. #3 The truth is, the action that leads to more relaxation has a tendency to win each time. The closer an individual approaches a due date, the more he starts to panic because he feels that he can not kick back as much. The moment this is really felt, it is easier to keep the prefrontal cortex engaged. #4 The part of the mind that produces adrenaline is called the amygdala. It is associated with an automatic psychological response that is activated whenever a situation that is difficult for the mind to process emerges. For example, a person can walk or drive to reach the places where he needs to go. One day, he can wind up running late, which causes him to worry and become overwhelmed.

Master's Thesis from the year 2021 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: Merit, University of Salford, course: International Business, language: English, abstract: The research aimed to analyse the impact of blockchain technology on international trade and find out how blockchain technology can improve the various fields of international trade. The research also intended to find the challenges regarding the implementation of blockchain technology in international trade to help companies achieve successful collaboration and understand what requirements need to be met in advance. The literature review of this research covered the fundamentals of blockchain technology, blockchain's role in facilitating supply chain and trade finance, the impact and adoption of blockchain technology, and blockchain implementation's key challenges. A qualitative approach was used based on 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten companies operating in different business fields and two blockchain specialists to obtain empirical data. This research found that blockchain technology has significantly impacted international trade by improving supply chain efficiency, reducing the complexity of the paper-based trade process, and enabling faster cross-border payments. The empirical findings presented that blockchain can facilitate the supply chain by providing a high level of transparency and better product traceability. Furthermore, the findings showed that smart contracts could facilitate trade finance by providing automatic payments and eliminating intermediaries and blockchain-based ICOs could be a great fundraising option for innovative projects. However, this research also found that the large-scale implementation of blockchain in trade finance is still not possible due to government regulations. Blockchain technology ensures to transform the supply chain and trade finance and reduce the complexity of the current international trade process. However, some critical challenges are associated with blockchain implementation, and some essential requirements need to be met in advance for successful implementation, which was discussed in this research. Furthermore, several suggestions regarding the large-scale implementation of blockchain in trade finance were presented. The empirical findings will help companies develop their adoption strategies and prepare to implement the technology in the trade process. Furthermore, the findings of this research can bring new insight into the policymaking process regarding the implementation of blockchain in trade finance.

The book analyzes the most relevant developments in the relation between contracts and technology, from automatically concluded contracts to today's revolutionary'smart contracts'developed through blockchain, which are beginning to and will increasingly disrupt many economic and social relations. First of all, the author offers a broad analysis of the peculiarities and evolution of the relation between contracts and technology. The main features and elements of electronic contracts are then examined in depth to highlight the specific rules applicable to them in the international comparative legal framework. In turn, the book provides a detailed explanation of the technology, economic and social dynamics, and legal issues concerning blockchain and smart contracts. The analysis focuses on the question of the legal nature of smart contracts, the issues posed by their development and the first legal solutions adopted in some countries. The comparative approach pursuedmakes it possible to focus attention on the first solutions adopted until now in various systems, with particular regard to the circulation of models and ideas and to the specificities of their local variations, in terms of e.g. applicable law and jurisdiction. In reviewing the characteristics of distributed ledger technologies, and in particular of the blockchain technology on which smart contracts are based, above all the peculiarities of the latter are taken into consideration, especially automatic execution and resistance to tampering, which simultaneously present significant opportunities and complex legal issues. A comprehensive framework is then provided to reconcile smart contracts with comparative contract law, in order to define the scope and specificities of their binding force, legal effectiveness and regulation in various legal systems. Lastly, with specific reference to the elements, pathologies and contractual remedies for smart contracts, the book examines the peculiarities of their application and the main issues that emerge in comparative contract law in order to promote their harmonized use, in keeping with the transnational nature of such a revolutionary tool.

Get the Summary of Rob Fitzpatrick and Devin Hunt's The Workshop Survival Guide in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: The first half of the book covers everything you'll need to know about designing and refining the session itself. With a good design in hand, teaching a brilliant workshop goes from arduous to nearly automatic. The second half of the book shifts from ahead-of-time design to day-of facilitation.

Get the Summary of Joel Greenblatt's The Little Book That Still Beats the Market in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In 2005, Joel Greenblatt published a book that is already considered one of the classics of finance literature. In The Little Book that Beats the Market—a New York Times bestseller with 300,000 copies in print—Greenblatt explained how investors can outperform the popular market averages by simply and systematically applying a formula that seeks out good businesses when they are available at bargain prices. Now, with a new Introduction and Afterword for 2010, The Little Book that Still Beats the Market updates and expands upon the research findings from the original book. Included are data and analysis covering the recent financial crisis and model performance through the end of 2009. In a straightforward and accessible style, the book explores the basic principles of successful stock market investing and then reveals the author's time-tested formula that makes buying above average companies at below average prices automatic.

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Miscellaneous, grade: 2,2, University of applied Sciences Regensburg, language: English, abstract: The goal of this thesis is to find out if goal wall shooting has the potential to make the transition from a game to a recognised sport, as in the case of darts. For this purpose, a profit calculation was performed to assess the profitability of the goal wall arena and estimate the return for investors. The performance of the players was measured throughout the first league season using the motion sensors in the goal wall arena and analysed by regression analysis and the method of least squares to find out which factors are critical for their performance. A probability analysis was carried out to determine the level of difficulty and show that the game offers the possibility to quantify perfection. Darts and squash were analysed with regard to their governing bodies, rules, circuits of tournaments, and ranking systems, to identify similarities and differences with the game modes and derive recommendations for KickUp:5. The dartboard sequence was analysed to assess the difficulty level of darts and a Python programme was written and executed to find the possible paths for a nine-dart finish. The results show that goal wall shooting is a challenging yet accessible sport for people of all ages and genders. Mental toughness is a decisive factor, but players can improve their shooting accuracy through regular exercise. Even though the level of difficulty is not as high as in darts, hard work and commitment is necessary to climb in the rankings and reach a certain level of experience. Excitement is guaranteed due to the importance of the centre hole, which doubles the score and often decides a match with the last shot. The goal wall arena is a well-designed and implemented concept that offers a profitable investment with competitive returns, but adjustments in certain areas could help KickUp:5 speed up the transition process. Uwe Schneider is not only a successful entrepreneur, but also a passionate footballer who had a dream of making goal wall shooting a sport in its own right when his shooting accuracy won him several prizes and trophies in goal wall shooting events across the country. It took him years to realise his dream, but the invention of a fully automatic goal wall arena is just another proof that anything is possible if you believe in yourself and are willing to work hard to achieve your goals.

This is a perfect guide to understanding the core principles of qualitative marketing research. It presents qualitative marketing research in the broader context of marketing and managerial decisions, consumer psychology and contemporary knowledge about unconscious and automatic processes. Different types of qualitative marketing research methods are examined, from the classic focus group interview (FGI) and individual in-depth interview (IDI), to more cutting-edge methods such as ethnography or bulletin boards, which enable marketing researchers to discover and understand real consumer motivations, needs, values, and attitudes. With numerous international case studies, including PepsiCo, Unilever, Danone, Nestle, Aviva and Citibank, the book is uniquely practical in its approach. It is vital reading for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of marketing research, consumer behaviour and consumer psychology.

First published in 1998, revised in 2021, this volume develops and tests an information-processing model of organization, within the context of the accession of a new generation of a production technology. The model conceptualizes organizations as systems which accomplish their objectives through the processing of information. The book begins with the conceptual basis of the theory, developing the fundamental concepts of information, information processing, and technology. The accession of an automatic avionics tester during the 1970s and 1980s is the change in production technology used to test the theory. The theory is tested by mapping and analysing performance with a three-wave longitudinal field experiment and objective performance measures in the workflow of a very complex system, the U.S. Navy's avionics maintenance organization. The information processing capacity of the system is shown to be the primary determinant of system performance, with or without the use of information technology. Additional support for the theory comes from newer test and information technologies deployed in the 1980s and 1990s. Implications of this theory for current generations of test technology are provided in the final chapters, along with further development of the theory and its general application to many types of organizations.

Focusing on the design and implementation of computer-based automatic machine tools, David F. Noble challenges the idea that technology has a life of its own. Technology has been both a convenient scapegoat and a universal solution, serving to disarm critics, divert attention, depoliticize debate, and dismiss discussion of the fundamental antagonisms and inequalities that continue to beset America. This provocative study of the postwar automation of the American metal-working industry—the heart of a modern industrial economy—explains how dominant institutions like the great corporations, the universities, and the military, along with the ideology of modern engineering shape, the development of technology.Noble shows how the system of'numerical control,'perfected at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and put into general industrial use, was chosen over competing systems for reasons other than the technical and economic superiority typically advanced by its promoters. Numerical control took shape at an MIT laboratory rather than in a manufacturing setting, and a market for the new technology was created, not by cost-minded producers, but instead by the U. S. Air Force. Competing methods, equally promising, were rejected because they left control of production in the hands of skilled workers, rather than in those of management or programmers.Noble demonstrates that engineering design is influenced by political, economic, managerial, and sociological considerations, while the deployment of equipment—illustrated by a detailed case history of a large General Electric plant in Massachusetts—can become entangled with such matters as labor classification, shop organization, managerial responsibility, and patterns of authority. In its examination of technology as a human, social process, Forces of Production is a path-breaking contribution to the understanding of this phenomenon in American society.

Executives'morality and ethics became major research topics following recent business scandals, but the research missed a major explanation of executives'immorality: career advancement by'jumping'between firms that causes ignorance of job-pertinent tacit local knowledge, tempting'jumpers'to covertly conceal this ignorance. Generating distrust and ignorance cycles and mismanagement, this choice bars performance-based career advancement and encourages immoral careerism, advancing by immoral subterfuges. Such careerism is a known managerial malady, but explaining its emergence proved challenging as managerial ignorance is covertly concealed as a dark secret on organizations'dark side by conspiracies of silence. Managerially educated and experienced, Dr. Shapira achieved a breakthrough by a 5-year semi-native anthropological study of five'jumper'-managed automatic processing plants and their parent firms. This book untangles common ignorance and immoral careerism, concealed as dark secrets by executives who'rode'on the successes of mid-level'jumpers'who high-morally risked their authority and power by admitting ignorance and trustfully learned local tacit knowledge. The opposite choice tendencies accorded power, authority, and status rankings, which made practicing immorality easier the higher one's position, suggesting that the common'jumping'between managerial careers nurtures immoral executives similar to those exposed in the recent business scandals.

In the past decades, organizations had to face numerous challenges due to intensifying globalization, shorter innovation cycles and growing IT support. Business process management is seen as a comprehensive approach to address these challenges. For this purpose, business process models are increasingly utilized to document and redesign relevant parts of the organization's business operations. Since organizations tend to have a huge number of such models, analysis techniques are required that ensure the quality of these process models in an automatic fashion. The goal of this doctoral thesis is the development of model refactoring techniques by integrating and applying concepts from the three main branches of theoretical linguistics: syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. The syntactical refactoring technique addresses linguistic issues that arise by expressing process behavior with natural language. The semantic refactoring technique reworks terminology with overlapping and synonymous meaning. The pragmatic refactoring technique provides recommendations for incompletely specified process models. All of the presented techniques have been evaluated with real-world process model repositories from various industries to demonstrate their applicability and efficiency.

Ship management is a worldwide activity. Modern ships are sophisticated designed structures equipped with several automatic devices. It is estimated that 90 per cent of commodities transported worldwide are carried by ships. Therefore there is great interest from many private and public organizations that those ships are operating, manned, designed and maintained within international acceptable standards. The obligation of stakeholders to comply with maritime regulations is included in most statutory and commercial agreements and therefore inadequate implementation of maritime regulations exposes stakeholders to commercial risks.This book explores how the application of mathematical decision-making tools could be used to manage maritime regulations. Performance management tools are proposed which would allow stakeholders to monitor the regulatory performance of their organization in order to reduce or eliminate those commercial risks. The process of introducing an implementation process for maritime regulations worldwide is described within this text. An emphasis is put on the role of main stakeholders in the regulatory process and reasons that increase the willingness of stakeholders to participate in the implementation of regulations.This book will be of interest to scholars and students interested in the management of the shipping industry as well as ship owners and managers who are charged with implementing maritime regulations.

You are designed to smile! If you're wondering why you don't smile more in your life, then you may need to take a close look at why you do the things you do and why you don't do the things you know you should. What would make you smile? Starting and running your own business? Taking your corporate career to the next level? Spending more personal time with family and friends? Whatever facet of life you feel stuck in, How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About will pull you out of the rut and get your wheels moving in the right direction. Motivational speaker and success coach legend Darryl Davis shares his proven, no-nonsense program for making strategic changes to dramatically improve your life and increase your sense of purpose. Based on a unique and powerful combination of brain science, timeless wisdom, and good old common sense, How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About helps you: Identify negative automatic thoughts and take control of them Replace bad habits with good ones using scientifically proven methods Take full responsibility for your life, helping you feel more in control of your circumstances Form relationships with positive people Free yourself from the fear of change and let go of the past And the best part is, this is all a lot easier to accomplish than you think! You just have to take it step-by-step—and Davis serves as your personal guide to every point in the journey. Filled with hands-on exercises for brainstorming, focusing, and putting your ideas into action! In How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About, bestselling author Darryl Davis helps you meet any challenge with a positive outlook—and provides proven reasons why this generates very real business benefits. Davis gives you the tools you need to overcome negativity and make vast improvements to your life at home and in the office. He provides practical step-by-step tools for managing stress, dealing with difficult personalities, sparking self-motivation, and overcoming rejection. Happiness is within your control. Get How to Design a Life Worth Smiling About and start your journey to a purposeful, satisfying life today. PRAISE FOR HOW TO DESIGN A LIFE WORTH SMILING ABOUT'This book shows you how to build warmth, credibility and trust with people in your business and personal life.'-- BRIAN TRACY, Author, Ultimate Sales Success'This is an exceptional book on how our thought process can control our lives. By understanding that we have the power to create new thought pathways, we can live fuller, happier, and healthier lives.'-- DR. NIDO QUBEIN, President, High Point University and Chairman, Great Harvest Bread Co.'We all know the energy we feel when we're happy. In this book, Darryl helps us become intentional about how to make those days the dominant rather than occasional part of our lives.'-- PAM O'CONNOR, President/CEO, Leading Real Estate Companies of the World

Computer Programming and Computer Systems imparts a'reading knowledge of computer systems. This book describes the aspects of machine-language programming, monitor systems, computer hardware, and advanced programming that every thorough programmer should be acquainted with. This text discusses the automatic electronic digital computers, symbolic language, Reverse Polish Notation, and Fortran into assembly language. The routine for reading blocked tapes, dimension statements in subroutines, general-purpose input routine, and efficient use of memory are also elaborated. This publication is intended as an introduction to modern programming practices for professional programmers, but is also valuable to research workers in science, engineering, academic, and industrial fields who are using computers.

Continued progress in reducing advanced economy deficits and a gradually improving external environment have lowered short-term fiscal risks, according to this issue, but global prospects nevertheless remain subdued, and many advanced economies face a lengthy, difficult, and uncertain path to fiscal sustainability. Though many advanced economies are now close to achieving primary surpluses that will allow them to stabilize their debt ratios, this is only a first step, as merely stabilizing advanced economy debt at current levels would be detrimental to medium- and longer-term economic prospects. The key elements of the required policy package are well known: foremost among them is setting out—and implementing—a clear and credible plan to bring debt ratios down over the medium term. Debt dynamics have remained relatively positive in most emerging market economies and low-income countries, and most plan to continue to allow the automatic stabilizers to operate fully, while pausing the underlying fiscal adjustment process. Those with low general government debt and deficits can afford to maintain a neutral stance in response to a weaker global outlook. But countries with relatively high or quickly increasing debt levels are exposed to sizable risks, especially once effective interest rates rise as monetary policy normalizes in the advanced economies and concessional financing from advanced economies declines. The widespread use of energy subsidies makes commodity prices an additional source of vulnerability in many emerging market and low-income economies; subsidy reform, higher consumption taxes, and broadening of tax bases would help support consolidation efforts.

This is a major study of economic policy making in Britain between the wars. It provided the first full-length analysis of the early development of fiscal policy as a tool of modern economic management. The central question addressed is how Keynesian fiscal policies came to be adopted by the British government, with particular attention paid to the role of the Treasury and to that of Keynes himself.Drawing extensively on unpublished documents hitherto untapped by economists or historians, Roger Middleton challenges the widely held view of official economic thinking as an ill-informed group of people holding ‘the Treasury view'in opposition to Keynes's prescriptions for deficient demand and mass unemployment. Instead he argues that acceptance of Keynesian economics during the Second World War resulted from political and administrative factors as much as a conversion to Keynesian theory. He investigates the form and impact of fiscal policy during the 1930s and, through a constant employment budget analysis, shows convincingly that at times of rising unemployment governments ignore at their peril the effects of automatic stabilizers upon budgetary stability.Historians and economists welcomed this fresh perspective on a debate of historical as well as contemporary importance. Towards the Managed Economy is essential reading for all those interested in the rise and fall of Keynesian demand management. This classic text was first published in 1985.

C. B. TILANUS, EDITOR This book tries to strengthen the ties between, on the one hand, the business administration and accounting world and, on the other, the operational research and management science world. The readership for which it is intended consists ofthe following categories: managers and professionals in organizational departments of business administration, management science, automatic data processing, etc. ; management and operational research consultants; and students in academic departments of business administration, business economics, operational research, information systems, industrial engineering, etc. The book deals with the quantitative approach. to budgeting problems. Budgeting in this text is defined as the making of a financial, short-term plan for an organization. The budget is financial. Although volumes and prices play their part, the budget is finally expressed in terms of amounts of money thus allowing of the well-known two-way counting and balancing of double bookkeeping. (Whether items appear twice on the assets and liabili­ ties sides of balances, or are counted twice in the rows and columns of a matrix is immaterial.) The budget is short-term. It is a detailed, quantitative plan of action in the near future. In this sense, budgeting is opposed to strategic planning which considers the course of action to be taken in the medium and long term. Strategic planning is of a more aggregative, qualita­ tive nature than is budgeting. The budget is a plan for an organization, and as such it is complete.

This year looks set to be another encouraging one for most sub-Saharan African economies. Reflecting mainly strong demand but also elevated commodity prices, the region's economy is set to expand by more than 5¼ percent in 2011. For 2012, the IMF staff's baseline projection is for growth to be higher at 5¾ percent, owing to one-off boosts to production in a number of countries. There are, however, specters at the feast: the increase in global food and fuel prices, amplified by drought affecting parts of the region, has hit the budgets of the poor and sparked rising inflation, and hesitations in the global recovery threaten to weaken export and growth prospects. The projection for 2012 for the region is highly contingent on global economic growth being sustained at about 4 percent. A further slowing of growth in advanced economies, curtailing global demand, would generate significant headwinds for the region's ongoing expansion, with more globally integrated countries likely to be most affected. Policies in the coming months need to tread a fine line between addressing the challenges that strong growth and recent exogenous shocks have engendered and warding off the adverse effects of another global downturn. In some slower-growing, mostly middle-income countries without binding financial constraints, policies should clearly remain supportive of output growth, even more so if global growth sputters. Provided the global economy experiences the currently predicted slow and steady growth, most of the region's low-income countries should focus squarely on medium-term considerations in setting fiscal policy while tightening monetary policy wherever nonfood inflation has climbed above single digits. In the event of a global downturn, subject to financing constraints, policies in these countries should focus on maintaining planned spending initiatives, while allowing automatic stabilizers to operate on the revenue side. For the region's oil exporters, better terms of trade provide a good opportunity to build up policy buffers against further price volatility.

Over the last few decades, the field of management enlarged its boundaries, especially in international terms, in a very rapid fashion—mainly because of the arrival of the so-called era of globalization. Many renowned scholars have criticized the universal approach given to ‘management'in the United States and its subsequent automatic conversion into ‘international management,'but their arguments too can fall into the trap of universalism at times. This book has a more specific concern: to challenge the conversion of ‘management'into ‘international management'from a Latin American perspective. This challenge might be taken as a first step toward the construction of a Latin American perspective in International Management and a potential contribution to the development of this field in other parts of the world. Drawing upon such critical standpoint, several authors in the book converge upon the idea that researchers, practitioners and authorities in Latin America should challenge the US dominance in International Management and foster interdisciplinary developments within International Relations. The critical perspective provided in this book challenges the US's narrow viewpoint on management as it clearly does not fit the governance features of ‘international management'in Latin America. So far, we have not observed the constitution of sub-areas such as international management of international organizations, international management of transnational institutions, international management of public-private networks, international management of public companies, and international public administration or international public management, all of which would be extremely important in Latin America.

Alex Osborn wrote the following:'Emotional drive is self-starting and largely automatic, whether based on hunger, fear, love, or ambition.''For all of us, a good rule is always to encourage ideas—to encourage speaking up as well as thinking up.''Whatever creative success I gained was due to my belief that creative power can be stepped up by effort, and that there are ways in which we can guide our creative thinking.''If we set aside a defined period for creative thinking we can best lure the muse.''With enough creative effort, each of us could find the ideas that would smooth out rocky roads!'

Many policymakers argue that the best poverty policy not only provides cash to the poor for subsistence but also incentives and structures that encourage long-term social and economic improvement. As part of this, they make the case for Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), a new policy proposal designed to help the poor save and to build assets. This book explores IDAs to determine their effectiveness. IDAs are matched savings accounts targeted on low-income, low-wealth individuals. Savings in IDAs are used for home ownership, post-secondary education, small business development, and other purposes. Do IDAs work? If they do, for whom? And does how an IDA is designed determine savings outcomes? This volume is the first analysis of matched savings by the poor to use data from monthly bank statements. It comes at a critical time, as debate rages over the merits of individual social security accounts. IDAs also respond to policy that is becoming more asset based and less inclusive of the poor. The authors argue for the efficacy of IDAs to counter this tendency. They find that while savings outcomes vary among participants, no characteristics (such as low income or public assistance) preclude saving. They examine effects of IDA design (the match rate, savings targets, and the use of automatic transfer) on savings results and analyze factors that influence varying rates of saving and spending over time. They conclude that financial education and other support services, though costly, improve savings performance. To address the issue of cost they suggest a two-tier system of IDA design, one with broad access and simple services and the other with targeted access and intensive services. Can the Poor Save? offers a wealth of lessons to those interested in saving and asset accumulation among the poor. It not only breaks new ground in the scientific study of savings behavior, but also offers concrete, evidence-based recommendations to improve policies designed to encourage the poor to save and how to make such policies more inclusive.

How do companies in high labor cost countries manage to remain competitive?In western manufacturing, the more manual a process, the more severe the competitive handicap of high wages. Full automation would make labor costs irrelevant but remain impractical in most industries. Most successful manufacturing processes in advanced economies are neither fully manual nor fully automatic -- they involve interactions between small numbers of highly skilled people and machines that account for the bulk of the manufacturing costs and thereby remain competitive. In Working with Machines: The Nuts and Bolts of Lean Operations With Jidoka, author Michel Baudin explains how performance differences that can be observed from one factory to the next are due to the way people use the machines -- from the human interfaces of individual machines to the linking of machines into cells, the management of monuments and common services, automation, maintenance, and production control.

Behavioral economics questions the basic underpinnings of economic theory, showing that people often do not act consistently in their own self-interest when making economic decisions. While these findings have important theoretical implications, they also provide a new lens for examining public policies, such as taxation, public spending, and the provision of adequate pensions. How can people be encouraged to save adequately for retirement when evidence shows that they tend to spend their money as soon as they can? Would closer monitoring of income tax returns lead to more honest taxpayers or a more distrustful, uncooperative citizenry? Behavioral Public Finance, edited by Edward McCaffery and Joel Slemrod, applies the principles of behavioral economics to government's role in constructing economic and social policies of these kinds and suggests that programs crafted with rational participants in mind may require redesign. Behavioral Public Finance looks at several facets of economic life and asks how behavioral research can increase public welfare. Deborah A. Small, George Loewenstein, and Jeff Strnad note that public support for a tax often depends not only on who bears its burdens, but also on how the tax is framed. For example, people tend to prefer corporate taxes over sales taxes, even though the cost of both is eventually extracted from the consumer. James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, and Andrew Metrick assess the impact of several different features of 401(k) plans on employee savings behavior. They find that when employees are automatically enrolled in a retirement savings plan, they overwhelmingly accept the status quo and continue participating, while employees without automatic enrollment typically take over a year to join the saving plan. Behavioral Public Finance also looks at taxpayer compliance. While the classic economic model suggests that the low rate of IRS audits means far fewer people should voluntarily pay their taxes than actually do, John Cullis, Philip Jones, and Alan Lewis present new research showing that many people do not underreport their incomes even when the probability of getting caught is a mere one percent. Human beings are not always rational, utility-maximizing economic agents. Behavioral economics has shown how human behavior departs from the assumptions made by generations of economists. Now, Behavioral Public Finance brings the insights of behavioral economics to analysis of policies that affect us all.

Introduces radio frequency identification (RFID) as the next generation of automatic identification technologies that is expected to improve the performance of retail supply chains through reduced shrink, increased product availability, and improved labor productivity. Showcases the implementation of the technology by the METRO Group, the world's third-largest retailer. Places students in the position of Dr. Gerd Wolfram, managing director of METRO's internal IT service group, and Zygmunt Mierdorf, the company's chief information officer, who, in mid-2005, evaluate the results of the RFID rollout and decide on the next stage in the implementation.

E-Ductions, a small privately held start-up, developed a new voluntary employee benefit: a payroll-deduction-linked credit card. The CLEAR card provided workers, especially low-income and credit-challenged employees, access to a card with tight credit limits, zero APR, and automatic repayment. The firm's initial experience suggested that the CLEAR card might be attractive to employees, employers, and the card issuer, but E-Duction needed to increase employer acceptance of its new product.

Introduces radio frequency identification (RFID) as the next generation of automatic identification technologies that is expected to improve the performance of retail supply chains through reduced shrink, increased product availability, and improved labor productivity. Showcases the implementation of the technology by the METRO Group, the world's third-largest retailer. Places students in the position of Dr. Gerd Wolfram, managing director of METRO's internal IT service group, and Zygmunt Mierdorf, the company's chief information officer, who, in mid-2005, evaluate the results of the RFID rollout and decide on the next stage in the implementation.

This paper provides a perspective on how the IMF assesses a “sound fiscal policy,” focusing principally on industrial and emerging market economies. It observes six central criteria: the short-term fiscal policy stance, with greater emphasis on automatic stabilizers than discretionary fiscal policy.

eShip is a small Israeli start-up with a potentially exciting new concept for the residential package-delivery value chain--the Automatic Delivery Machine (ADM). Much like today's ubiquitous ATMs, ADMs would allow consumers to have parcels delivered to a nearby ADM rather than to their residences. When a package is delivered, the consumer would be contacted, given a PIN, and could retrieve the package anytime, day or night. Currently, carriers (FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service) bear huge costs for local deliveries (the so-called last-mile cost), perhaps as much as $6 billion annually. Most of this cost would disappear if packages could be delivered to ADMs rather than to residences. At the core of eShip's concept is a sophisticated information system that links all the ADMs over the Internet. This case focuses on eShip's attempt to formulate a business model to facilitate entering the U.S. market. The dilemma centers on the role that eShip should play in the value chain and with whom it should partner. Although the ADM concept potentially creates huge value, capturing some of that value is a daunting challenge, particularly in the face of the size and power of U.S. carriers.

Examines the investment decision of Cabot Brown and Bill Burgin, two venture capitalists, to finance Car Wash Partners (CWP). CWP intends to purchase automatic car washes around the country. Investment strategy and deal structuring are discussed.

The Inland Revenue (1965) examines the organization and functions of the UK's Inland Revenue Department as they stood at the beginning of 1965. The Department is responsible for the administration of taxes, and this book describes the organization that has been built up to handle the volume of work and the functions performed by its various elements.

A Short Economic and Social History of Twentieth Century Britain (1968) overcomes the statistical complexities of the twentieth century by establishing long-term social and economic trends to provide a succinct analysis of Twentieth Century Britain. It looks at population, including age structure, population distribution and urban expansion; agriculture; industry and transport; overseas trade; industrial relations; employment and occupational structure; social policy; education; public finance; living standards; and changes in leisure activities.

In The Financiers and the Nation (1934) Mr. Johnston – Privy Councillor – examines a dozen or so of the most spectacular of the major financial frauds permitted by Bank of England and City merchants in 19th and early 20th centuries and ends with a few proposed remedies, among them being the nationalization of the Bank of England, the development of regional municipal banks, greater use of the Post Office Savings Bank, and the planning and direction of a capital investment board.

What might the impact be on a grown woman of having a nursery school teacher change and anglicise her name at the age of three? That three-year-old was me. In our world, we face more and more polarisation and so it feels imperative that we understand the concept and lived experience of “Othering”. Othering takes away individuality and reduces whole groups to “they”.This book explores the theory, examining why Othering is so much part of human biology and conditioning. Through a narrative approach, the experiences of women of colour growing up in 1970s and 1980s Britain are explored, sharing individual stories and common themes. Ultimately this book is a celebration of their deep commitment to self-work and development and their success in navigating the additional burden of being different.We hear from other thinkers and activists, and offer active hope and potential ways forward in how we might create more inclusive, sustainable societies. This is a monumental task but arguably we have no choice, and so the work of changing how we choose to live feels like the most important work we can do together.

Creativity and Innovation in the Fashion Business explores the ways in which creativity and innovation play a central role across the fashion industry, paying particular attention to design and technical perspectives. This topic is examined through careful theoretical analysis, incorporating the perspectives of multiple contributors who together possess a wealth of combined experience in creative and technical roles in the fashion business.Broad in scope, this textbook first provides a wide overview of creativity and innovative developments across the industry, before considering technical and digital innovation in production and product development, as well as trend forecasting. The final part of the book then consists of an exploration of sustainable innovation in design for fashion brands and retailers. Each chapter includes aims and summaries to structure learning and highlight key points, academic insights from thought leaders and interviews from industry and academia.A vital introductory textbook, Creativity and Innovation in the Fashion Industry is well-suited to undergraduate and postgraduate modules across subjects such as Fashion Business, Fashion Design and Manufacturing, Product Development, Innovation Management, and Buying and Merchandising. Online resources include PowerPoint slides and a test bank.

The Work of Management demonstrates how the concepts, models and tools of Systems Leadership can be applied, enabling you to become a more effective manager by improving your own work to create a more positive and effective organisation.Positive organisations, where people come together to achieve a productive and personally satisfying purpose, and which provide the basis for a good society, do not occur by chance. They are created by the work of leaders and members who are dependent upon the way the organisation is designed and operates – its structure and systems. While the theory is explained, this book primarily presents the practical aspects – the specific values, methods and tools – that can be used to improve work and the work performance of direct reports. Building on the bestselling book Systems Leadership, this book provides leaders with a manual for the application of concepts as well as an introduction to Systems Leadership Theory, a method that has been used successfully by businesses from large multinational firms and banks, to SMEs, public agencies and NGOs. It provides a predictive capability, allowing a leader to predict what will work well and what is likely to fail, according to the context. It gives the benefit of foresight as decisions must be made.Designed as a leader's manual for the application of the concepts around Systems Leadership, this book is for people who want to improve their own, and their organisation's, work practices and performance.

Unequal distribution of income is one of the most important socio-economic issues. The processes of globalisation and integration are accelerating economic growth; however, at the same time, imbalances between regions are growing. Reducing inequalities within regions and national economies, as well as around the world, is important for individual and societal well-being and cohesion, and for effective state policies.This book investigates the problem of left-behind regions in the European Union (EU). It first introduces the reader to the theories of regional imbalances and problems with measuring them. It then explores imbalances in the EU using a variety of indicators and describes the EU's regional policy for reducing regional disparities. It uses an empirical shift-share analysis to assess the productivity of EU regions which are lagging behind. The book also provides an empirical analysis of the effectiveness of EU funds in increasing labour productivity performed with DEA methodology.This book can be used as a teaching resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students and can serve as reference material for academics and researchers, as well as policymakers at the European, national and local levels.

This is a business history of soy that reveals how Japanese imperial and military institutions and financial-mercantile-industrial interests created a role for soy as a versatile raw material and global commodity beginning in the 19th century, even before the Western world recognized this “oilseed.” Originating in the rich food cultures of Asia, soy is praised as the “magic bean.” About 360 million tons are produced in the world today, and it is traded globally to become food, feed, and fuel. It is the second largest source of vegetable oil in the world, and soy meal is an essential feed without which the modern livestock industries could not exist. Its dominance today is often accounted for in terms of its versatile nature. This book, however, argues that soy was transformed into a versatile industrial raw material and global commodity through the political-economic strategies of state and business actors engaged in the development of the capitalist world-economy. By studying little-known Japanese historical documents and corporate records, and focusing on the less-researched vegetable oil and industrial uses of soy, this book provides a better understanding of how this traditional Asian food was transformed into a global commodity embedded in contradictions. Promoted as a healthy and sustainable food source, soy is also a destructive cash crop whose cultivation and use have played a significant role in the current climate crisis. Based on this case of soy, the book provides a structural understanding of broader food and agriculture systems in the history of capitalism, making it of interest to students at an advanced level, academics, and researchers in the fields of business history, corporate governance, Japanese business, as well as the political economy of food and agriculture.