economics-schools

I enjoyed the story, have been reading Westlake since I was a kid and read The Spy in the Ointment. The Parker books by Stark were (are) more edgy and well written, good solid stories. Other reviewers here have done a much better job than I can discussing the merits of the story and the characters, etc.

I found Comeback to be a bit disappointing, however - it was too easy a read. Amazon so helpfully shows the books dimensions (slightly larger than your typical paperback) and it's page count (304), but when it arrived and I opened it, I was dismayed to see that the book had huge margins and very generous line spacing - I had to doubletake and be sure I had not ordered the "large print" version!

Overall, a good story, there just wasn't quite as much of it as I had expected.

I just finished COMEBACK by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark. It was a heist novel starring "Parker" , the thief from Stark's novels written in the 1970's. It was great to see Parker back in this updated adventure. I hope Westlake writes more of them. In this book, Parker and his crew rip off a TV Preacher during his stadium show. Doublecrosses, violence, and cat-and-mouse games ensue. Westlake never gives the name of the city that 99% of the action takes place, but he seems to be dropping many clues. Its not California, the Midwest, Memphis or Baltimore. Can anyone tell me the setting for this novel? My guess is Philadelphia, although I can't be certain. Anyway, go out and read this book. Make some noise about it, too, so Westlake writes some more. This wasn't the best Parker novel ever, but it was head and shoulders above most of the crime novels written today. Also, if you are intersted in seeing where Quentin Tarantino got many of his ideas, read other Parker novels.

After a very long hiatus, arch criminal Parker is back. This time he is involoved in the robbery of a Jim Baker-like tele evangelist's revival. After he steals the money, one of his partners tries to double cross him and steal the money from Parker, but he fails. Now Parker must find and nutralize the traitor, find his other partners who are lost, and avoid the law and the evangelist's head of security. Like all the other Parker books, "Comeback" is fast paced, action packed and contains ingenious capers I myself wouldn't stake my life on. But in Richard Stark's world, the cops aren't that bright, most of the crooks aren't either, and Parker is nearly omnipitant. It is still a lot of fun to read, and for some reason, these robbery thrillers never get old.

This book has some good descriptions of scams. However, I found it annoying that he keeps name-dropping. Totally unnecessary, if you ask me.

I also think that the book is miss-titled. To me "Scam School" would mean that the book should be written more as a manual for scam artists. Not that it should be a real manual, but more like a tongue-in-cheek attitude. In my opinion the book should have been entitled "Scam Busters" (or something along these lines).

Another point to mention is that the book is written as an exam text-book. Each chapter ends with a lesson that summarizes the chapter, and then there is a final exam at the end of the book. I believe that this format is the reason why they decided to call the book "Scam School" (or they put these lessons in because they already entitled the book as such, whatever...). I personally found these lessons and exams annoying and quite honestly I started skipping them after the first couple of chapters. I simply don't know if there is a necessity for them. Why would I want to read a brief synopsis of a chapter that I've just finished reading?

I still think that it is worth your time if you want to read it. There is some sound advice and some good stories. But the book is far from top-ten.

Grab a beer. Sit out on the patio - relax and read about all the gimmicks that are out there. Hey - you won't be able to put it down! Enjoy!

Chuck Whitlock's book is a collection of his stories from radio and TV spots exposing scam artists. He tells a few stories around a central theme for each chapture and then extracts the lesson to be learned. All stories are told from the victims point of view (because that's how the stories are reported to him.) All are good, but presenting a stronger approach from the con artists side and law-enforcements side would bring a stronger balance to the book. Also, the chapter on Internet fraud is pretty dated now.

This series of lectures sheds light on the major contributors to Economic thought since Plato and Aristotle. Since the book is made up of transcripts of his lectures, he doesn't manage to cover the figures or the ideas in depth. However he does manage to give some guidelines as to what you should read if you want to be well informed on the history of Economic thought.

I did not find the language in it frustrating, it just made the book seem like a personal lecture with Robbins (minus the questions) which added to my enjoyment. He stops at Fisher, so if you were hoping for ideas and icons after that, you will be disappointed.

The book is split into five sections. The first deals with those philosophers that preceded the formal study of economics; Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas etc... Very interesting stuff, especially if you aren't familiar with the relationship between the ancients and economics.

The second to the fourth sections deal with famous economists, from Adam Smith to Karl Marx. His treatment of Marx is brief so don't expect anything more than a few pages. While he goes into some length about Adam Smith and the other classical economists.

Finally he lectures on Jevons, Menger and others of the "Marginal Revolution", ending his series of lectures with Fisher.

A good read, I would recommend it to undergraduates in Economics or any one else who is interested in the history of economic ideas.

This is a collection of lectures given at the LSE. So DON'T think it is a history. Nevertheless, it is a comprehensive journey from aristotle's economica thru the modern era. Good as a reference. Not bad as a read -- but be aware you are reading a transcribed lecture and adjust your expectations accordingly.

A well-organized and well-considered series of concise lectures are codified in this book. This is a substantial, but not overwhelming, chronology of the more influential contributors to economic history and thought.

If you want to understand everything about the historical backgrounds of such now well-known management instruments like the balanced scorecard, activity based costing and EVA, there is no better book to read than this book. This book started off a transformation of management accounting and of organizational performance management. Essential reading for controllers, students of management and management consultants.

Good in-depth survey of the history and purpose of Management Accounting. Classic book. You see Kaplan's thought processes as he develops the basis of his later works on new forms of accounting such as the Balanced Scorecard and EVA.

If you are a management accountant this book will put your work into perspective as well as caution you about the pitfalls of doing things the way theu have always been done.

Relevance lost of a book about the history of management accounting. The book is very well documented in that in times they were able to deduce different conclusions made by others. They start from the very beginning exploring as far back as the 18th century. They start out by discussing how textile mills started recording in their books accounting information. They begin from the very beginnings of accounting. Accounting emerged as a discipline in the early 18th century, but their underlying purpose in not for internal uses but it was created so that stakeholders can gauge the value of their investment in the firms that put out these financial statements. In the book there are a number of firms they highlight that made important contributions to management accounting. The first company they highlight is DuPont corporation in the nineteenth century. There is a theme to the development of management accounting. DuPont first staterted out as a manufacturer of gunpowder but went on to become bigger. The first companies that innovated their way of internal controls in management accounting grew out of a necessity. DuPont first came out with a measure of their business which was the return on investment measure. Because Dupont was becoming bigger and it needed to measure return on investment to measure the profitability of individual business units. It was a measuring rod to asses the different business activities of it business units. With this measure the managers of DuPont could make decisions such us which business units to invest on and do away with units that are performing poorly.
In the 1920's at General Motors they have been experimenting with using variances to measure how well they are doing in their manufacturing. In to the picture is a man named Alfred Sloan, he is one of the most brilliant thinkers in management. With implementing variances GM was able to have a uniform way to impose standards to its managers. With this system, GM's growth became remunerative.
Then there came a period as the authors put it when relevance was lost. Financial accounting accounted for the bulk of the innovations in accounting leaving behind management accounting. This is like the "dark ages" of cost accounting when companies and academics did not innovate methods and processes to advance management accounting. There were a number of reasons for this, first is the requirement imposed in companies to generate financial statements for the stakeholders of the companies. Second, the cost of putting together the necessary information was prohibitive. Technology has not yet grown mature enough to allow managers to go through the trouble of compiling the information needed to make the decisions.
The beauty of this book is that it traces beginnings of topics that are familiar to us now. Topics like variances, discounted cash flow analysis, return on investment, sunk cost, and even just-in-time inventory systems. The next evolution of management accounting is to be led by academicians according to the authors. In this stage of the life of management accounting arose discounted cash flow analysis. This is a step ahead of the return on investment method. This is also a time when economist started to innovate management accounting further. The concept of sunk cost is introduced by economist in the London School of Economics. Innovations also arose by way of the field of operations research. Operations research deals primarily of mathematics. And about this time management accounting was taking hold as a discipline of its own. Along with discounted cash flow analysis, opportunity cost is introduces as well as agency theory and residual income. Residual income is interesting in that it was a step backward in the innovations of theories. Even though, GM started using this instead of the return-on-investment measure. The driving force of this period of the growth of management accounting is the need to have better decision making. This is why economics along with operations research contributed to the growth of management accounting.
Next up, management accounting in its evolved form before 1980 falls short. Management accountants make a couple of theoretical mistakes. They are no longer providing managers of the critical information needed to make decisions. Management accounting has become obsolete in a sense. The next development is what happened after 1980. Because of bitter and growing competition because of global forces and deregulation there needed to be more changes. In this period arose what is now called total quality management, and its progeny just-in-time systems. Manufacturers needed to control their work-in-process inventory. Meaning the Japanese where beating Americans by having zero inventory. This led to changes in management accounting systems throughout the United States.

Yoffie & Kwak have written a terrific practical guide to winning a competitive battle against a business rival. I have used their ideas on numerous occasions in the past few months with my own strategy consulting clients and have highly recommended this book to them as well. I enjoyed the clear well-written insights from my first reading, but I am now drawn back to write this review months later as I have come to realize the general applicability of these concepts and the value I've gained from them.

On reflection, I believe the strength of their book is the judicious use of the judo metaphor. Metaphors are powerful when they get us to see familiar opportunities or threats in new ways. That is exactly what this book did for me. Moreover, the judo metaphor helped me to remember easily all the nuances of their three core principles--movement, balance, and leverage--so that I could apply them to the business situations I deal with in my everyday life. This book describes a competitive insight supported by an apt metaphor--not a metaphor accompanied by numerous business examples.

Yoffie & Kwak describe a battle plan for stealing advantage from the dominant player in an industry. Their advice for winning is not to be better, but to be smarter. I think their principles apply in any situation where the market leader has made explicit, valuable, often irreversible, commitments to the market place--to its customers, to its suppliers, to its employees, or to its alliance partners--in order to achieve its position. The strength of the leader's market position derives from these commitments. The authors recommend that we study these commitments and then use them against our rivals in order to gain competitive advantage for ourselves. The book guides one through numerous techniques for doing exactly this.

Even though their examples are largely high-tech companies, this principle is as applicable to the steel industry as it is to biotech. I appreciated, though, their numerous applications of the often very clever techniques used by the high-tech companies cited in the book. Once I saw how the principles worked in these more challenging, and sometimes, more subtle situations, I was able to extend the principles myself to other industries and to make them part of my own strategy toolkit.

Judo Strategy is one of the best strategy books I've read in the past year.

I read dozens of business books every year, and this one is a standout. In clear compelling language, Yoffie and Kwak lay out a set of strategic principles and techniques that companies can use to fight back against stronger competitors. The three principles they analyze are movement, balance, and leverage; the techniques include the puppy dog ploy, define the competitive space, and leverage your opponent's assets, partners, and competitors. These ideas come originally from the sport of judo, but Yoffie and Kwak demonstrate through numerous examples that they also make sense in business.

As well as short examples from Intuit, eBay, Schwab, etc. that are used to explain the three principles, the book includes indepth studies of three companies that have been successful at judo strategy (Palm, Real Networks, and CNET). These chapters are a "must read" for anyone interested in the new economy. A great deal has been written about all three companies (especially Palm), but here the analysis and details, often culled from interviews, are first-rate.

The last section of the book deals with sumo strategy, which is the counterpart to judo for large companies such as Microsoft and Intel. Smaller companies will find few direct lessons here, but reading about sumo strategy is a good wake-up call for anyone who thought that competing with giants might be easy.

The book is very good and give the reader a broad perspective and 360 degree view of business model. It tells you how to think on another side of what we thought. Tell you the examples from the past. Even though it forces some example to be an example of the strategy, it's still good to know what we should look. I believe this is one of the best book for any business man who has 360 degree perspective.

may be hard for some to swallow whole. This book is written from within a particular ideological/ religious framework (specifically, Unity) and if one does not share this perspective some of the foundational assumptions may not work. For the non-Unity reader, the work would have been strengthened by a straightforward statement of assumptions at the very beginning. Otherwise, the statements about Universal Laws and Demonstrations can read as jargon and lead one to dismiss otherwise useful ideas. As you can tell, Unity is not my religious/philosophical framework, but still I did gain useful insights about the links between one's personal economic wellbeing and one's spiritual beliefs -- once I did what I like to call "filtering the ideology through my teeth."

Covers the source of supply from the spiritual perspective. As such it covers the elimination of wrong ideas and attitudes and suggests ways to allow prosperity to appear in one's life. It is non materialistic in approach recognising that prosperity comes as a reaction to what is in an individual as first cause and is not determined by the world. It cautions against the use of mental tricks to attain an objective.

Emphasis is given on what attitudes, beliefs and techniques will bring about prosperity. Sound advice is given on the nature of life from the christian perspective, the importance of placing oneself in the flow of life where giving is more important than getting and the importance of the grateful heart in the recognition of the source of supply.

A good book that could be better. Some points are underdeveloped and that is a lapse in a book that is so opposite to the materialistic world view that supply is in the economy whereas the author's message is that it is within you.

An easy book to read containing thoughts to make you think. No difficult economics. Makes a lot of sense.

I loaned out my old copy and never got it back, so just bought a new copy....does that tell you how much I like this book?

I've read my share of prosperity books, and this one is at the top of my list with Howard Caesar's audio book, "All About Prosperity".

If you're looking for some get rich quick type book, well this isn't it. I imagine that's one reason why he gave it the name he did, instead of emphasizing prosperity in the title. It's about changing your thinking about finances, health, relationships, all facets of prosperity. If you believe that changing your thinking will change your life, that we can control our thoughts and by doing so improve our over all circumstances, you'll find this book extremely helpful. Eric Butterworth comes from a very spiritual, and yet very practical level. He challenges many ideas that you might have studied in other prosperity books. Without naming her, he does challenge some of the prosperity techniques taught by Catherine Ponders and others. This is not to say that you should read him instead of her. To completely understand prosperity thinking, you should read both perspectives and then be guided by those principles that seem right to you. If you are open to a new perspective, and not bound by a fixed and rigid mind, you will find a lot of helpful material here.

I have an MBA and I was looking for a basic reference book that would cover some of the information that I had learned. This book does not cover two of the most basic concepts that every student learns during their MBA program: NPV & IRR (net present value and internal rate of return)

I recommend "the complete idiot's guide to MBA basics." That book covers more of the calculations that one learns during an MBA program.

Another thing to note: the above-mentioned books should only be used as a quick reference book. If you really need to understand a concept, then you need to find a subject matter book for that topic. For example, there is no way to truly understand the 5 p's of marketing by reading 3 to 5 pages. You need to grab a marketing textbook and read couple of chapters that cover the 5 p's of marketing. Then, you can use "idiots" or "dummies" books as a reference guide.

As mentioned in other reviews, this is not the reference that will substitute for doing an MBA program. However, for those of us that need a quick reference to a variety of topics, this book fits the bill. We at SmallBizBargains.com often refer to it when giving simple advice for basic business issues. It definitely covers a broad range of topics - from Accounting and Finance to Marketing, and even Negotiation Skills. Again, not for the advanced academic, but a good resource for a lot of basic information.

I suspect that trying to jam everything you ever wanted to know about business but were afraid to ask is a difficult task, even when you've been given 400 or so pages to complete your task. One thing I know for sure, the authors of The Complete MBA for Dummies have done a far better job completing this task than any other business book I've ever read (and I've read a LOT of business books!). Kathleen Allen and Peter Economy really know their stuff, and it shows loud and clear on every page of this extremely well-written and comprehensive book. While the tone is humorous (fun, actually), it never veers onto the thin ice of sillyness that plagues other books of this type.

If it's covered in a typical MBA program, you'll find the topic you're looking for here: dealing with change, information technology, global business, strategic planning, management, leadership, motivating employees, recruiting and retaining high quality employees, building teams, accounting, finance, marketing, negotiation and much, much more. Lots more interesting (and up to date) than any textbook you'd ever buy in an MBA program, and far less cost. This book packs a heck of a bang for the 16 or 17 bucks you'll pay to buy it.

Highly recommended.

Mr. Reichheld has impressive credentials and I respect his intentions, yet in this book he recommends using poorly-developed surveys to understand customer or employee loyalty. That's extremely misleading! That process and the results gained will only mislead management and will not truly indicate how loyal customers or employees really are. The only true way to understand and manage customer or employee loyalty is to talk to them and let them express their own thoughts! Mr. Reichheld has missed the mark.

Reichfeld's thesis is that loyalty, more than a fosuc on profits, is what guarantees companies long term success. He uses a handful of examples, including Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Northwestern Mutual, Harley Davidson, Cisco, among others, to make the case that having outstanding loyalty from your customers, suppliers and employees drives outstanding results.

The main rules Reichfeld sticks to and calls the "high road" are the following:
1. Focus on win/win solutions with partners
2. Focus only on clients which you can serve well
3. Focus on simplicity to allow everyone to understand the rules
4. Develop a set of principles and live by them, rewarding others who act according to those principles.

Overall, he makes a strong case to show how these principles can have a positive effect on business. By having low turnover, a fast food restaurant spends very little on HR expenses. By focusing on the bikes their customers love (and not diversifying), Harley gains lifelong customers.

The weakenesses of the book lie in the overemphasis of loyalty, in relation to other important tasks in business. Of course, being a book on loyalty, one could not expect anything different. Additionally, it would have eben useful to have some fake types of loyalty as example of weak attempts at loyalty. I am sure certain companies must have tried to gain loyalty through not-so-smart measures, so it would be nice to haev examples in order to differentiate them.

Overall, it is a very interesting book, useful to anyone involved in customer related businesses and in managing employee relationships. It is short (a benefit) and a bit too concise (a drawback), so it should not take more than a week to read for a regular reader.

Not long ago, loyalty was out of fashion. Tom Peters said, "Forget loyalty. Try loyalty to your Rolodex." The magazine Fast Company incited everyone to join the "free-agent nation." Now, loyalty is a hot topic.

The person most responsible for this turnaround is Frederick Reichheld, who published the seminal work, "TheLoyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits and Lasting Value," in 1996. Based on studies at Bain & Co., Reichheld determined that loyalty is the primary driver of profitability. The studies found that an increase in customer retention rates of just 5% increases profits by 25%-95%. The right customers, employees and investors who stay with a firm fuel a virtuous cycle of long-term growth that increases profitability,empowers the brand and cuts marketing costs.

"Loyalty Rules!" picks up on the same themes addressed in "Loyalty Effect." It's impossible to generate superior long-term profits without superior customer loyalty. The right measurements and rewards are critical to achieving the right results. The book illustrates how loyalty has made such organizations as Harley-Davidson, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, The Vanguard Group, Southwest Airlines, Northwestern Mutual, Chick-fil-a, and others so successful.

Such success, says Reichheld, results from the emphasis corporate leaders place on six loyalty principles:

o play to win/win
o be picky (membership is a privilege)
o keep it simple
o reward the right results
o listen hard
o talk straight, and preach what you practice

The "Loyalty Effect" was a primer on how to build loyalty. Numerous charts, graphs and even formulas illustrated the cause-and-effect relationships between loyalty and value creation. While "Loyalty Effect" sought to teach and persuade, "Loyalty Rules!" aims to inspire. Organizations should always take the high road. Vanguard employees are "proud to be part of the most ethical organization in the industry." Reichheld approvingly quotes Cisco CEO John Chambers: "Never do anything to competitors that you wouldn't want them to do to you." He encourages leaders "to assume the pulpit and preach about the values at the core of your life and your relationships."

Inspirational stories and advice are balanced by "action checklists" at the end of each chapter. These include specific tips to achieve loyalty, such as "create a golden rule for your firm," "make recruiting an executive priority," "create a customer experience council," and "turn call centers and help desks into strategic listening posts."

Reichheld concludes with a "Loyalty Acid Test." These are sample questionnaires for customers and employees that can diagnose the health of relationships.

Other excellent books on the same topic are Customer Equity: Building and Managing Relationships as Valuable Assets by Blattberg, Getz and Thomas. Also highly recommended is FusionBranding: How to Forge Your Brand for the Future by customer loyalty consultant Nick Wreden, who looks at how to apply customer equity and accountability to branding

I confess to being a professor at one of the schools mentioned in this book as the "Best". Business schools have developed a love/hate relationship with this book because although it contains a lot of good, thoughtful information, some people use it for the wrong reasons.

Make a distinction between the RANKINGS and the extended essay-type descriptions contained on the top scools. The RANKINGS tell you (possibly) two things: they tell you (maybe, sometimes) about the quality of the results the graduates get, and they tell you....well they tell you whether you will get bragging rights to your friends. In other words, the rankings have developed their own prestige which is SEPARATE from the issue of whether they have anything to do with quality.

So consider the rankings with caution...do you need the reassurance of a very high ranking....or do you really care about quality of program? This book actually tells you a great deal about the quality of the program, including everything from details about the curriculum, what they are looking for in admissions, which teachers are held in highest esteem, and general comments from recent students. THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NUMBER. It's related to the number, but it's not the same thing.

Remember, however, not to stop with this book: the information given in any edition will start to get inaccurate before it hits the bookstore. I can think of 5 or 6 top schools with new deans within the past year or two. Perusing through the book I see a good number of "top faculty" that either have already gone on to another institution, or are non-tenured faculty on short-term contracts, who may be gone by the time you get there. Even the curricula change pretty quickly. Back up your reading of this book with school's web sites, visits, talks with alumns, etc.

After all, the question you really want the answer to is not "do grads of School W make more money and have better careers than graduates of School Y?", it's "Will I MYSELF have a better career at School W than School Y." Rather than worry about the ranking of the school you get into, find the school that works for YOU. Finally, I see other reviewers saying "this book got me into the BigBucks school." I think that reviewer's intelligence, personality, and experience got him in. If he hadn't gotten in to BigBucks, he would still be smart and hardworking, and the school that got him would have been lucky. And (for the record), the number at our school is just great!

This guide has been called "The bible for prospective students" by the London Times for good reason. If you are considering applying to the top programs, this guide will help you narrow your focus and apply to the schools that are the best fits for your profile. (Yes, your chances really are the greatest at the schools where you are best suited.)

BusinessWeek provides a good overview and some keen insight into the top 25 MBA programs as well as the 25 runner up programs. The guide also contains good information on its b-school ranking process. A word of caution though. This book does not contain highly detailed information on the profiled schools and if you do decide to apply to any of these schools, you will want to conduct some additional research for your "Why I want to attend your business school" essay.

Look no further. This book has EVERYTHING one could ask for when applying to schools.

Nothing in this book is new. It presents common sense topics as if the editors were the first ones to come up with the ideas. This book is very shallow and was not worth the money.

I read the MBA Jungle, B-School Survival Guide and found it to be an excellent resource. If I was reading this with the eyes of a prospective student, this book would have accurately addressed what I'd need to know. As an administrator/educatior who works with the MBA program at our institution, I can say the information I read was right on target! You did a great job. It was easy and fun to read and I plan to recommend this book to prospective students.

I found this text to be quite helpful, specifically, toward deciding if B-school is right for me, whether full-time/part-time is the way to go, and whether I should set my sights on a top-tier program or feel satisfied with a middle-tier school. Additionally, there's a ton of info that would be helpful for those in the first few months of the MBA program.

If you're still deciding whether or not an MBA is right for you, this book will be a great resourse in helping you decide.