Understanding Economics presents an interesting and accessible introduction to key economic ideas. The book clearly shows the relevance of economics to everyday situations. Examples are drawn from the internal workings of households, business firms and non-profit organizations. The book is user friendly in both style and content and requires no prior knowledge of economics and minimal mathematics.

The corporation is one of the most important and remarkable institutions in the world. It affects all our lives continuously. It feeds, entertains, houses and, employs us. It generates vast amounts of revenue for those who own it and it invests a substantial proportion of the wealth that we possess. But the corporation is also the cause of immense problems and suffering, a source of poverty and pollution, and its failures are increasing. How is the corporation failing us? Why is it happeni...

When low-income city dwellers lack access to mainstream banking services, many end up turning to ‘fringe banks,’ such as cheque-cashers and pawnshops, for some or all of their financial transactions. This predicament of ‘financial exclusion’ – faced by those underserved by conventional financial institutions – is comprehensively examined in Jerry Buckland's powerful study, Hard Choices.The first account of the nature and causes of financial exclusion in Canada, Hard Ch...

Written under the shadow of the global financial crisis, this book charts the current shape of global finance and tries to explain why the crisis arose – and what can be done about it. Economics alone cannot fully explain how global finance operates, and why it is so crisis prone. Global Finance offers a wider approach in three key ways, by:setting markets and financial market failure in a historical contextbringing politics and culture back into the analys...

Banks of all sorts are troubled institutions. The cost of public bail-outs associated with the subprime crisis in the United States alone may be as high as US$5 trillion. What is the problem with banks? Why do they seem to be at the centre of economic and financial turmoil down through the ages? In this provocative and timely book, Rethel and Sinclair seek answers to these questions, arguing that banks suffer from perennial problems, and that developments in the financial markets and gover...

First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of...

Exam Board: OCRLevel: AS/A-levelSubject: EconomicsFirst Teaching: September 2015First Exam: Summer 2016Reinforce students' understanding throughout the course. Clear topic summaries with sample questions and answers will help to improve exam technique to achieve higher grades.Written by experienced teacher Sam Dobin, this Student Guide will help ...

Ethics and Finance: An Introduction provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the ethical issues raised by modern finance. Drawing carefully on ethical theory and with frequent use of case studies, it includes an analysis of the global financial system and its regulation and control, as well as a detailed analysis of the financial crisis. Chapters on specific areas of finance practice cover all the major financial scandals of recent times, from mis-selling to market manipulat...

Today more and more people want their investments to reflect their social, environmental and/or humanitarian values.This ground-breaking book explains how you can put your money where your heart is and still make healthy profits.The Ethical Investor covers all aspects of this complex topic. It includes: performance comparisons for ethical and mainstream managed funds approaches to screening investments discussion of the chief ethical issues, from animal rights to weapons manufacture a ques...

The Theory of the Firm presents a path-breaking general framework for understanding the economics of the firm. The book addresses why firms exist, how firms are established, and what contributions firms make to the economy. The book presents a new theoretical analysis of the foundations of microeconomics that makes institutions endogenous. Entrepreneurs play a central economic role by establishing firms. In turn, firms create and operate markets and organizations. The book provides innovat...

There are many deep-seated reasons for the current financial turmoil but a key factor has undoubtedly been the serious failings within the corporate governance practices of financial institutions. There have been shortcomings in the risk management and incentive structures; the boards’ supervision was at times weak; disclosure and accounting standards were in some cases inadequate; the institutional investors’ engagement with management was at times insufficient and, last but not least, th...

Much of what is written about colleges and universities ties rapidly rising tuition to dysfunctional behavior in the academy. Common targets of dysfunction include prestige games among universities, gold plated amenities, and bloated administration. This book offers a different view. To explain rising college cost, the authors place the higher education industry firmly within the larger economic history of the United States. The trajectory of college cost is similar to cost behavior in man...