market-economics Books

Markets in Mexico turned out to be a great source of information for me as I was looking for specific facts about different states in Mexico. The book provided me with all kinds of information regarding the conditions of the economies, infrastructure, business activities and consumer markets. As an investor it was important for me to have a clear understanding of the potential risks and benefits involved before deciding which of Mexico's states to invest in. I also appreciated the list of state government agencies that the book provided as a source of contact. Markets in Mexico was very beneficial to me and I hope others will find it as useful as I did.

This book contains an exhaustive volume of data and statistics about Mexico and its states that you simply can't find ANYWHERE else.

I use it in my law/consulting firm in Monterrey on a daily basis.

I have looked for other publications, and nothing exists like this book, put out by the American Chamber of Commerce.

My only worry is that if enough people find out about this, I might be out of a job!

Could free market competition be what that saves medicine? "Markets Without Magic: How Competition Might Save Medicine" is an examination of the current health care epidemic with a focus on Medicare. Claiming that promoting competition between private health care companies by encouraging them to insure the uninsured could save American health care as a whole, "Markets Without Magic" is a dissenting viewpoint against America's problems that backs up what it says and offers a solution. A scholarly take on the subject, recommended for any community library collection covering the health care issue.

We babyboomers are becoming more and more concerned about Medicare because we are going to break its bank. What is the solution? The single-payer folks are using this hammer to finally drive their nail home. Market-based options are given little attention because the assumption is that the "broken" system we have now is a free-market fee-for-service model. But it isn't.

This short book by health care economist Mark V. Pauly examines the current Medicare system and proposes a way to get market based efficiencies while also ensuring no one does without medical care. The rapidly increasing demand for medical services cannot continue, but our society will rightly never allow people in need to suffer and die from lack of needed medical care.

He debunks the usual objections of too many and confusing choices, insurers cherry-picking the healthy and leaving the sick unprotected, and the government power of traditional Medicare is needed to control costs. You can read his arguments and decide for yourself what you think of them. I think he makes sense. Yes, he realizes the poor and the sick would need some levels of subsidies.

Pauly advocates a limited growth voucher system that would keep benefits available while constraining the growth of costs. Yes, people would prefer an unlimited buffet of "free" steak and lobster health care, but that option is going to be foreclosed in short order. The issue is whether you believe government mandated rationing and every higher taxation is better than a free market system (which, remember, would be an actual innovation on what we have now). I would prefer Pauly's system.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

As a person who has worked an office job and as a teacher, I can tell you that this book has great information for both office managers and teachers. I really wish that my office job employer would have used Mary Kay's advice; I sincerely believe that it would have made me a better employee who cared about my job and motivated me to do my best. As a teacher, many of the suggestions can be applied to creating positive interactions with students. It's such a shame that this book is out of print because it is wonderful! Here's a summary of Mary Kay's advice, taken from the back cover:

"This is the management philosophy that turned Mary Kay Ash's storefront cosmetics business into a multimillion dollar corporation in just twenty years. Based on the age-old Golden Rule, it encourages managers to treat staff, customers, suppliers -everyone- with the same care, consideration, and concern they would like to receive themselves. It brought spectacular success to Mary Kay. Here's how it can work for you.

Recognize the Value of People. People are you company's number one asset. When you treat them as you would like to be treated yourself, everyone benefits.

Praise Your People to Success. Recognition is the most powerful of all motivators. Even criticism can build confidence when it's `sandwiched' between layers of praise.

Tear Down That Ivory Tower. Keep all doors open. Be accessible to everyone. Remember that every good manager is also a good listener...

Create a Stress-Free Workplace. By elimination stress factors -fear of the boss, unreasonable deadlines, and others- you can increase and inspire productivity.

Develop and Promote People from Within. Upward mobility for employees in your company builds loyalty. People give you their best when they know they'll be rewarded.

Keep Business in Its Proper Place. At Mary Kay Cosmetics the order of priorities is faith, family, and career. The real key to success is creating an environment where people are encouraged to balance the many aspects of their lives."

I truly enjoyed this book. I have been a Beauty Consultant for 2 years now. I always heard from others how wonderful Mary Kay Ash is, but never had a personal experience myself to make that same statement. After reading this book I felt that she was talking directly to me. She is a women I truly admire and respect. Reading the book gave me a touch of insight on her life and I feel honored to have the chance to be a part of her dream. This booked changed my outlook and I recommend it to anyone wishing to know Mary Kay better as well as understanding the opportunity she has created for women all over the world.

This book is the best guide to FX markets and the corresponding instruments. The book structure and contents are extremely well planned and written to provide not only a beginner with first hand knowledge, but can be a good refresher for others.

This book is a definitive masterpiece.

The full title Percy Greaves' book is "Mises Made Easier: A Glossary for Ludwig von Mises' HUMAN ACTION". For clarification, Ludwig von Mises wrote a book titled "HUMAN ACTION". Mises was an economist, and being fluent in various languages, used French, Greek and Latin phrases in HUMAN ACTION that was written in English. As Percy Greaves noted in the dust-jacket inside cover: "Mises chose his terms and expressions with scientific accuracy and scholarly precision. He thus used many words and foreign phrases with which many readers may be unfamiliar, particularly in the exact sense that Mises had in mind. The purpose of the Glossary is to define, explain, interpret and translate all the book's difficult terms and foreign phrases into simple English words which will permit HUMAN ACTION readers to grasp all the fine, but important, points that Mises was trying to make in his own scholarly way." Not only are foreign phrases translated into English, but various economic and legal concepts are also defined; almost 700 words or phrases are explained to help clarify the thoughts being expressed in HUMAN ACTION. Also, Greaves printed in this book a little known "position paper" that Mises wrote titled: "A critique of Bohm-Bawerk's reasoning in support of his time preference theory." It is certainly very beneficial to read this glossary before reading HUMAN ACTION.

The full title Percy Greaves' book is "Mises Made Easier: A Glossary for Ludwig von Mises' HUMAN ACTION". For clarification, Ludwig von Mises wrote a book titled "HUMAN ACTION". Mises was an economist, and being fluent in various languages, used French, Greek and Latin phrases in HUMAN ACTION that was written in English. As Percy Greaves noted in the dust-jacket inside cover: "Mises chose his terms and expressions with scientific accuracy and scholarly precision. He thus used many words and foreign phrases with which many readers may be unfamiliar, particularly in the exact sense that Mises had in mind. The purpose of the Glossary is to define, explain, interpret and translate all the book's difficult terms and foreign phrases into simple English words which will permit HUMAN ACTION readers to grasp all the fine, but important, points that Mises was trying to make in his own scholarly way." Not only are foreign phrases translated into English, but various economic and legal concepts are also defined; almost 700 words or phrases are explained to help clarify the thoughts being expressed in HUMAN ACTION. Also, Greaves printed in this book a little known "position paper" that Mises wrote titled: "A critique of Bohm-Bawerk's reasoning in support of his time preference theory." It is certainly very beneficial to read this glossary before reading HUMAN ACTION.

I agree completely with what the previous reviewer [Parhat] said and will not bore you with variations on a theme . I have all the books on Financial Astrology that have been published and this together with the books by David Williams and Louise McWhirter are the best around . Those who know French should read also G.L. Brahy .

I purchased this book a long time ago and did not realized itsimportance. Apparently the book keeps the good stuff later in the book,prefering to teach the reader with the basics of astrology. The technique is very valuable even for those who do not believe in astrology, which is the method of averaging GDP, Stock market indexes in relation to the cycles of the planets. Of course the techniques can be applied to cycles where it can be 1 year, 1.5 year, 4 year. Once you averaged them out , then using the bradley model, you can predict the stocks - non-linearly, with a VERY GOOD predictive accuracy! Softwares are critical for you to explore and can be obtained at Alphee.com or other books by Rob Merridian or David Williams in case this book is no longer available. I have explored every technologies known in the stock markets from chaos theory, neural networks, moon tides, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, cycle analysis, EMH, factoring analysis, value line, multiple linear regression, visual recurrence analysis, etc. etc. etc. and I can say with great confidence that there is something to astrology their timing can be deadly accurate! W.D. Gann predicted the stock market crash in 1929 to the very month, missing by only a couple of days. Two British astrologers actually predicted the stock market Crash of 1987 to the very day before the crash by one year in advanced. These are all documented and are reported to newspaper before it actually occurred. You will find the details how they managed to predict them. David Williams made a million in the stock market using his astrological techniques. One astrology fund outperformed the stock markets averages in 5 out of 7 years. You will find this and other information in this book, It will change how you view the markets. It totally changed me! All these amazing fact is well worth the reading. Use it along with your fundamental and technical indicators, it is indispensible! END

"Money, Markets, and Sovereignty" is an instant classic in political economy. In addition to being the most insightful book on globalization I've ever read, MMS is an amazing tutorial on the history of economic and political thought. Beautifully and entertainingly written.

This is a wonderful discussion of money, trade and finance, how they originated as a natural result of people's innate desire to trade and interact, and how they have been hijacked by the sovereign state. There is also a devastating critique of anti-globalism; defeating globalism demands the state take even more control of people's lives, so as to restrict or eliminate interactions with anyone outside of the country. The book illustrates its points about money with examples from the role of sterling in the 19th century to the current hegemony of the US dollar (for how long?), supplemented by useful graphs.
Our national, economic and business leaders should all read this book because current trends with the dollar cannot be sustained. The only thing saving the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency today is the lack of an alternative. However statist politicians and economists have an amazing ability to not let reality interfere with their theories. If medical research was run on the same 'scientific' principles as economics, eye of newt and salamander tail would still be major drugs, bleeding would be the major surgical procedure, and medical students would be studying the four humors, much as all economics PhD candidates and MBA's today learn about perfectly efficient markets and completely rational investors (which means, as noted by Jeremy Grantham at GMO, the Federal Reserve and most economists could not see the housing bubble as bubbles are by definition impossible).
The authors' discussion of the Great Depression is terrifying (world trade dropped 70 % from January 1929 to March 1933, kicked off by the Smoot-Hawley tariff in the US) as the Obama administration is committed to a new round of protectionism, since it is unable to resist the protectionist demands of the labor unions or its own craze for carbon caps (which Energy Secretary Chu says will require a new set of tariffs against countries without adequate caps-contrary to current trade agreements, which are evidently of no concern whatever to the new administration even dedicated as it says it is to multilateralism).
Those who are ignorant of history....

The role of values in the modern market economy is important for two reasons. First, economic development in poor countries involves importing some subset of institutions and cultural values from the currently advanced economies, while rejecting others in order to maintain traditional values and institutions, where possible. We have a pretty good idea as to which institutions are required for a healthy market economy, but only a few obvious organizing points when it comes to cultural values (e.g., corruption and nepotism are bad, primary, secondary, and higher education, and the rule of law are good). Second, business leaders in the United States and other advanced market economies have been involved in huge numbers of scandals in recent years, and there is a general sense that business culture tolerates a much higher level of unethical and illegal behavior that such other professions as medicine, science, education, and law. What can be done, if anything, to rectify this situation?

This problem is interdisciplinary by its very nature, drawing upon the knowledge of psychologists, economists, legal scholars, sociologists, and biologists within the behavioral sciences, as well as neuroscientists, philosophers, journalists, and even business executives themselves. Twenty years ago, the need for interdisciplinary research would have assured that nothing interesting from the scientific point of view could possibly be said. This is because until recently, interdisciplinary research meant compromising down to a common denominator that could be accepted by all representatives of diverse fields with largely contradictory organizing principles and incompatible views of social organization and dynamics.

This distressing situation is no longer the case, as this excellent volume clearly indicates. This is not a highly technical volume for the professional experts, but rather a report for the intelligent layman on what experts from a variety of fields have come to accept in common as a framework for dealing with the question of the role of values in a market economy. While the chapters of this books were written independently by various authors, most of whom had limited or no exposure to one another prior to the formation in 2006 of a "free enterprise research group," funded by the Gruter Institute and the Templeton Foundation, there are no major disagreements among them. This is doubtless in part because researchers with incompatible ideas were not invited to join the group, but it is also because there is a solid basis in scientific research for the views put forth in the volume.

I was a member of this research group, and even though the topic is a specialty of mine, I learned an immense amount from the other participants, and this books includes in detail many of the important things I have learned. My only proviso is that I hated from the first calling the entity we were studying the "free enterprise" economy, because the latter term usually implies some right-wing ideology about minimal state intervention, whereas in fact the modern market economy requires extensive intervention to work properly and produce fair and environmentally sound outcomes. However, we addressed no issues concerning government intervention, and we accepted the stupid term "free enterprise" only because the funding agencies required us to do so.

The book's editor, Paul Zak, lays out the major issues very clearly in an introductory essay. First, morality is not simply "learned," like physics, chemistry, or language, but is deeply ingrained in our nature as members of the species Homo sapiens. Thus, the study of morality is not the contemplative quest for the Nature of the Good and the Just, but rather the study of how people acquire, transform, and deploy moral principles in living their lives. Second, the market economy accustoms people to cooperating and sharing with strangers of different race, creed, and ethnicity, thus promoting a sense of fairness and tolerance that is generally absent from pre-market societies, in which charity and considerateness are extended only to family and close friends. While the market economy is based on competition, there are ethical values that, under the proper conditions, govern competitive interactions, including honestly, trustworthiness, and social responsibility. "The very freedom to exchange in markets celebrates individual dignity and choice," says Zak, "but also allows for transgressions." (p. vxii). Zak's point is that social interactions in a market economy are determined by legally enforceable contract alone, but rather by mutual trust and honesty, without which the rule of law is but a hollow shell. "Leges sine moribus vanae," said Horace (Third Ode)---Laws without morality are useless. The commonly expressed idea that the capitalist economy is run purely on greedy self-interest is thus so stunningly false that it is difficult to believe intelligent individuals could ever have believed it. T
The first part of this book deals with some philosophical issues that must be addressed before dealing with social issues. Philosophers William Casebeer and Robert Solomon defend what is know as "virtue ethics," associated with Aristotle among others, as opposed to intuitionist, deontological, and utilitarian ethical theories. I think this is an excellent choice, because the character virtues of honest, trustworthiness, fairness, tolerance, and loyalty are precisely what is needed to underpin social relations in a market society where agreements cannot be enforced by law along. Economist Robert Frank develops his idea that the moral emotions are precisely what motivates us to honor our commitments when naked material gain might induce us to behave otherwise.

The second part of the book treats human morality as an extension of moral behavior in primate species that live in social groups where prosocial behavior is a prerequisite to a high average fitness of group members. The third part includes a summary by Robert Boyd and Peter Richerson of their highly original and quite cogent theory of human sociality, called gene-culture coevolution. They argue that humans are the first species to have a cumulative culture, and that this culture became the basis for genetic development of prosociality in our species.

This explains why most humans derive pleasure and satisfaction from doing good to others and living up to the standards of virtuous living---behaving this way is in both our genes and our culture. Of course, this deep commitment to the social group is also the basis for the most vicious and horrific forms of human behavior, in which we maim and kill outsiders in real or imagined defense of one's own group of "insiders."
The final two parts of the book include several chapters that apply the foregoing principles to law, social policy, and business education.

I may be biased by being a member of the research group that produced this volume, and by having written a chapter in the book, but in complete honesty I believe this books to be absolutely seminal in jump-starting a serious scientific dialogue concerning the ethical basis of market societies. I think political democracy, civil liberties, and gender equality are intimately bound up with private property and market exchange, because powerful movements for political emancipation have been most salient in societies with modern market economies. Future research should explain why these political and economic institutions have so deep an elective affinity, and how the blessing of liberty and personal dignity can be extended the world over.

This collection of essays provides an accessible and often delightful guided tour of the frontier of current research in sociology, economics, biology and philosophy.

The first of five parts is philosophical and argues that core moral values are real and universal, and not something illusory or relativistic. The second discusses new scientific evidence that certain species of apes behave morally: the roots of morality run deep apparently. The third lays out a couple of ways in which markets and morals co-evolve. The fourth examines the not-always-obvious interdependence of morality and law. And the final section looks at ways in which markets and morality can in fact be highly supportive of one another.

There are great insights to be gleaned from this book: several of the shortcomings of traditional economic thinking are neatly exposed; morality is revealed to be a field of empirical research as well as a subject of philosophical enquiry; markets are shown to be almost psychic on occasion in the speed with which they can capture and evaluate information. Economists have for a long time appreciated that law is important to the smooth functioning of an economy. This book shows us how virtues matter as much.

Here is one example of a nice insight. In chapter eight, Lynn Stout, writes about "Taking Conscience Seriously" and starts off by describing Homo Economicus, the stereotypical rational profit maximizer featured in the pages of most economics textbooks. "Not to put too fine a point on it," she says, "Homo Economicus is a sociopath. The hallmark of sociopathy is extreme selfishness as shown by a willingness "to lie, cheat, take advantage, [and] exploit."" She uses the American Psychiatric Association's definition of a sociopath to make her point. She goes on to point out how Homo Economicus has not only impoverished economic analysis over the years but has also corrupted generations of economics students. She reports evidence that they are less cooperative than their peers from other disciplines and consistently do less well in games like the Prisoner's Dilemma that depend on trust.

Another interesting insight: according to Sarah Brosnan who wrote on "Fairness in Non-Human Primates" in Chapter five, it is not just human beings who care about fairness but also capuchin monkeys. They will cooperate productively if the outcome is reasonably fair, but stop if things become sufficiently inequitable, even if that means foregoing any benefits: just like children who will throw the pie on the floor rather than be short changed by a sibling. Caring about fairness has deep evolutionary roots.

One final example of a surprising and satisfying nugget: in Chapter six, Peter Richardson and Robert Boyd discuss evolution and free enterprise values. This chapter takes a panoramic view of human history. Starting 250,000 years ago, they consider the evidence that the rapid growth in human brain size was driven by extraordinary variation in weather throughout the Pleistocene era: it made cooperative hunter-gatherer tribes adaptable enough to survive climate changes. Then, as the weather stabilized at the beginning of the Holocene 50,000 years ago, settled agriculture became feasible and our ancestors' brains were large enough by then to support the development of complex social organizations and wider circles of cooperation so that the first great river civilizations could appear about 5,000 years ago. Their thesis is that in both the Pleistocene and Holocene, it was a combination of selflessness and selflessness in individual behavior that produced population success. Altruism and other regarding behavior is deeply imbedded in our nature. Thus free enterprise, which gives rein to both these traits, suits us very well.

This is a really well edited volume in which the essays are complementary, clear, engaging and concise. Only an omnivorous polymath will fail to get a lot out of it. If you care about the evolution of selflessness, morality and open forms of economic organization and want to know what recent research has to say on the subject, buy it and enjoy.

Chuck Brymer makes a substantive and compelling forecast on the marketing strategies used by consumer brands. The hyper-growth of social networking websites and the demand for user-generated content has redefined the concept of brand communities. In this book Chuck Brymer articulates the value of digital brand communities and why they must be factored into the business model and not just marketing strategy. He emphasizes the significance of creating a dialogue with consumers and why engaging them to that end cannot be accomplished solely through "herd" marketing. The concept of "swarm" marketing is not just an innovative approach to engaging consumers it is simplistically instinctive and will influence marketing strategy for a long time to come.

Read the book! Chuck Brymer provides fascinating insight on the prominent future of marketing! Also learn what Chuck himself has already done at his organization to capitalize on this revolution!

So many "experts" keep warning us that traditional branding and marketing are dying quick deaths. The massive momentum behind social-networking websites and other new media is certainly having an impact in how people consume and share information. No doubt. But is it really so clear-cut to say that marketing as we know it is dead? Chuck Brymer doesn't think so. Read his book and you will likely agree with him. He offers a logical and compelling argument for a strategic balance between "herd" (mass) and "swarm" (social) marketing. His perspective is rational, realistic, and refreshing.

Todd Sebastian
Author, Tell Your Clients Where to Go! A Practical Guide to Providing Passionate Client Leadership

Sellers and buyers on the Internet today have rarely ventured beyond the boundaries of print and broadcast metaphors in the Internet medium. While Internet uptake is dramatic, the business revolution has hardly begun. The real power of this new medium lies in its ability to allow the buyer and the seller to connect, communicate and negotiate in a faster, more efficient way. The dramatic rise and fall of "dot-com" companies was very much rooted in over extending the wrong metaphor, and that misconception largely continues.

In Net Benefits, Wingham Rowan has dared to think beyond the traditional broadcast metaphor and consider how marketplaces that exploit this new medium might operate. In their most highly developed state electronic marketplaces would act like the automated exchange behind international currency trading, or the automated exchange recently introduced to the Pacific Stock Exchange. These systems efficiently and impartially match buyers and sellers, and price becomes a function of current supply and demand. The revolution comes in their potential to replace the current marketing techniques designed to exploit the fragmented and inefficient matching of buyers and sellers inherent in paper and broadcast media.

This book forces us to question the attention paid to the recent dot-com model, the new Internet superstores, portals and the struggle for megamarkets. It suggests that perhaps these are just comfortable diversions along the way to the real revolution. Just as the Industrial Revolution grew out of the cottage industries so the new Interactive Revolution will grow from the seeds of atomized capitalism. The use of the web by small and local businesses for local and regional commerce will quietly undercut the current order of mega-merchants.

While the book considers detailed scenarios of how this revolution might impact a number of service areas, it stops short of perhaps the most profound impact, our concepts and opportunities for corporate ownership and investment in this new world. If you buy Rowan's view of the future, one wonders what will happen to a world of personal investment that relies on ever higher profits and stock values of large and growing corporations. Individual and small scale operations do not require the capital ownership or offer the individual growth potential of today's corporations. The stock portfolios of today may begin to look like the castles and estates during the last economic revolution as their ongoing value slips below their cost of maintenance. The dislocation would be as severe as the Industrial Revolution.

Whether the revolution takes the form of guaranteed electronic markets as Rowan envisions, or follows some other variant, is immaterial. The real electronic commerce revolution will be much more subtle in its approach and more devastating in its impact than anything we have seen so far. Net Benefits, at the very least, starts us thinking outside the traditional metaphors.

This is one hell of a vision. I read Small is Beautiful which was a great idea but not really workable in advanced countries. This guy seems to have worked out how to make "atomised capitalism" more efficient than what we think is going to happen with e-commerce. I can't stop thinking about it.