Economics Books

Book SynopsisThe Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping is a complete guide on how to create and run a successful dropshipping business. This is by far the best book on dropshipping available. You will will learn everything you need to know about finding a product, setting up an online store and growing your business. (Sean Work, Director of Marketing, KISSmetrics)Andrew and Mark have written a comprehensive, no-BS guide to dropshipping. Essential reading for anyone considering this type of retail. (Chandra Clark, Founder & President, Scribendi)These guys distill everything you need to know about dropshipping. It''s a must read if you want practical advice and a clear blueprint to help you grow your business. (Valerie Khoo, National Director, Australian Writers'' Centre)Holy jeez - I wish these guys had written this 7 years ago.... I can say that the advice in this book is spot on. (Chris Plough, Executive Director, MavenWire)

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Book SynopsisFiction, including novels, plays, and films, can be a powerful force in educating students and employees in ways that lectures, textbooks, articles, case studies, and other traditional teaching approaches cannot. Works of fiction can address a range of issues and topics, provide detailed real-life descriptions of the organizational contexts in which workers find themselves, and tell interesting, engaging, and memorable stories that are richer and more likely to stay with the reader or viewer longer than lectures and other teaching approaches. For these reasons, Exploring Capitalist Fiction: Business through Literature and Film analyzes 25 films, novels, and plays that engage the theories, concepts, and issues most relevant to the business world. Through critical examinations of works such as Atlas Shrugged and Wall Street, Younkins shows how fiction is a powerful teaching tool to sensitize business students without business experience and to educate and train managers in real businesseTrade ReviewThis richly annotated bibliography of novels, films, and plays could be read in conjunction with studying business. Arguing that these imaginative works offer insights not found in textbooks or case studies, Younkins explicates their power to represent as well as entertain. After a summary introduction, the author presents 25 brief, chronological chapters, each focusing on a separate work, beginning with William Dean Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) and ending with Oliver Stone's film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010). In summarizing these works, Younkins emphasizes universal themes, such as amorality in Theodore Dreiser's The Financier, the American Dream in Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, individualism in Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion, and competition in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross. After a brief conclusion that again summarizes the content, the book ends with appendixes that list additional business novels, plays, and films . . . [T]his volume serves as an ideal primer for an instructor who wishes to include literature in a business course. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty; general readers. * CHOICE *Exploring Capitalist Fiction, a new volume of literary analysis by Dr. Edward W. Younkins, offers perceptive, relevant, and engaging commentaries on 25 works of fiction which portray the business world and its relationship to all areas of human life. . .Younkins is to be commended for emphasizing the value of fiction as a teaching tool for both students of business and individuals immersed in the business world. . . .Exploring Capitalist Fiction is an excellent means to appreciate the richness and variety of fictional portrayals of business, especially since the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century. The book offers a concise introduction to many works and endeavors to motivate readers to seek out and experience the original novels, plays, and films. * The Rational Argumentator *Exploring Capitalist Fiction may not sound like a page-turner. But Edward W. Younkins, a professor of accountancy and director of graduate programs in the Department of Business at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia, has produced a most appealing and useful text, one that can satisfy a variety of interests. ... Younkins gives the reader a good mix of works. There are novels, plays and movies, and in some cases such as "The Great Gatsby," novels that have been made into movies a number of times—1949, 1974, 2000, 2003—an indication, perhaps, of the story's enduring attraction. ... In sum, there is a lot to like and a lot of learn in Exploring Capitalist Fiction. * El Paso Times *Younkins puts together a canon of economics-themed fiction here and does not stop with works that are just still popular today. ... Anyone who teaches business or economics will find in Younkins’s book an extremely helpful guide to expanding one’s teaching beyond the usual non-fiction standards to connect with students on a level that goes beyond mere concepts and into the illustrations of how humans truly interact with the economic systems around them. In other words, this book will help instructors use art to improve instruction while helping students consume popular culture more insightfully. * Mises Review *Although his prior books establish Dr. Younkins as a scholarly and prolific philosopher of liberty, Exploring Capitalist Fiction focuses not on the philosophy of business but on the complex lives of fictional men who implement it. Its twenty-five plot summaries illustrate, unsurprisingly, that businessmen are neither more nor less moral or confused than the rest of us, from the crony-capitalist railroaders in Norris's The Octopus, Cahan's wealthy but unhappy David Levinsky, and Lewis's terrified conformist Babbitt to more heroic, less conflicted figures like Hawley's Cash McCall, Kesey's Stamper family, and King Vidor's Steve Dangos. Dr. Younkins occasionally offers a valuable philosophical or economic insight, but the book is principally a welcome, fascinating, even-handed study of business and capitalism in literature. -- John Egger, Towson UniversityExploring Capitalist Fiction is one of those books I have needed for a long time, but just didn’t know it. In this volume, Younkins assembles a remarkable collection of insights about how business is portrayed in literature and film. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the book is Younkins’s ability to balance historical viewpoints with contemporary and whimsical perspectives with serious ones, across both film and print. And he does so while striking a balance between supportive and critical outlooks on business and capitalism that I would not have thought possible. This is an excellent book. -- Marshall Schminke, University of Central FloridaPerhaps no subject has been so much discussed in literature and film yet so under-analyzed and examined as business. This volume is a virtual pioneer in remedying this situation. Drawing from novels, plays, and films, and ranging over a variety of attitudes towards business, Younkins selects works of depth and importance for anyone interested in exploring the treatment of business in fiction and thereby coming to appreciate its cultural and moral significance. Especially refreshing is Younkins’s selection process which avoids the temptation to concentrate on contemporary works. Instead we see selections from a number of different eras with attention paid to lesser known works as well as some obvious favorites. I have little doubt that this book will become a standard reference work for those interested in the treatment of business through creative fiction. -- Douglas Den Uyl, Vice President of Educational Programs, Liberty FundI am a testament to the validity of the theme of this book, which is that fiction can be a powerful tool for business education. A novel, Atlas Shrugged, changed my life and was far more important to me in successfully leading a business than any nonfiction book or college course. -- John A. Allison, President and CEO, Cato InstituteProfessor Younkins makes another contribution to the literature of freedom, this time by showing us what pro-capitalist fiction—and anti-capitalist, too—can teach us about business and its enemies. -- Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., Chairman and CEO, Ludwig von Mises InstituteWhy do critics of laissez faire capitalism have all the good folk songs? All the good novels (well, most of them)? Ditto for poems, plays, stories. Why is virtually all of literature, music and art almost a wholly owned subsidiary of those who oppose economic freedom? Probably, because they work harder at it than we do. It is all the more important, then, that those of us who treasure the free marketplace and private property rights get into this ‘industry’ as well. Now along comes a very important contribution in this regard: Edward Younkins’s new book: Exploring Capitalist Fiction: Business Through Literature and Film. He unerringly explores, contemplates and analyzes twenty-five important books and movies that deal with business. I cannot possibly overestimate the importance of this initiative in promoting liberty and the free society. I have been a fan of Ed’s for many years now. I greatly admire his previous works, and this one fully lives up to his previous contributions. I am delighted to recommend this book, highly, to all those with an interest in both literature and freedom. A note to English majors: read this book! It will give you a perspective on literature you are unlikely, in the extreme, to have ever seen before. It will be a real thrill to see these books and movies not from the eyes of your typical leftish literature professor, but from the vantage point of someone who celebrates liberty. -- Walter Block, Loyola University, New OrleansMost people today spend at least a third of their weekday lives in the business world. Some view that world as a second family. Younkins' superb summaries and analyses of twenty-five works of capitalist fiction create the feel of what it is like to work in the modern institution known as business. In all of these fictional cases there are many complex personal, ethical, and psychological interactions: government vs. business, employer vs. employee, supplier vs. client, and, of course, fellow entrepreneur/employee vs. fellow entrepreneur/employee. Ethical issues are the star. Indeed, the book could easily be used as a text in business ethics courses. -- Jerry Kirkpatrick, California State Polytechnic UniversityThe struggle for liberty must consist of more than an intellectual appeal. As Ayn Rand demonstrated in her novels, the establishment of a free society will succeed only if people have an emotional investment in such an outcome. It is art that creates and supports the level of personal involvement required to motivate and sustain people in the face of unrelenting and unforgiving opposition. In his book Exploring Capitalist Fiction: Business Through Literature and Film, Edward Younkins recognizes the power of art as a force both for and against the ideals necessary for a world in which we can exist fully as human beings. Tapping into a wide range of source material, Younkins explores the role of fiction in sustaining or retarding the course the Founders set for our nation. Providing clear yet succinct summaries of a variety of works—including The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, Atlas Shrugged, and the movie Wall Street— Younkins succeeds in explaining and analyzing these twenty-five diverse works in the context of his book's themes. Readers of Exploring Capitalist Fiction will enjoy these bite-sized introductions to unfamiliar works as well as explorations of fiction they have already enjoyed. With luck, Younkins's efforts here will spark more interest in expanding the arguments for freedom beyond dry academic journals to include art that moves us, involves us, and provides us emotional fuel in the face of the greatest task of our lives. -- Russell Madden, Author of the novel, Death is EasyEd Younkins’s newest book will be indispensable to anyone either teaching or studying the portrayal of business in American fiction, plays, and films over the past century and a quarter. His admirably evenhanded summaries of twenty-five important works in this tradition, and his exhaustive lists of other titles not discussed at length, will be useful also to the general reader who simply wants to discover more about how commercial enterprise has been depicted in novels, plays, and movies over the past hundred years or so. -- Jeff Riggenbach, Author of In Praise of Decadence, and Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to RevisionismLawyer and statesman St. Thomas More argued that the study of literature provides greater moral understanding than does the study of law. Edward Younkins strengthens that argument through his perceptive and insightful examination of both pro- and anti-business fiction and film. -- Samuel Bostaph, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of DallasThis work includes essays on an amazingly wide range of American novels, plays, and films from the past two centuries, all containing business and economic themes and content. Younkins’s insightful reading of many of the major texts that explore issues of business and capitalism is a welcome addition to interdisciplinary studies. It can easily serve as a guideline for a course in either a College of Business or a College of Liberal Arts. -- Mimi R. Gladstein, University of Texas at El PasoOnce more Ed Younkins has come up with an insightful discussion of an important topic. Professor Younkins writes in a way that is intelligible to the general audience while retaining the rigor of thought expected of an academic. Exploring Capitalist Fiction is fun to read and will change the way you look at a film, read a book or watch a play. -- Gary Wolfram, Hillsdale CollegeTable of ContentsPreface Introduction Chapter 1. The Rise of Silas Lapham: A Story of Self-Identity, Self-Respect, and Morality Chapter 2. Taking a Look at Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward Chapter 3. Frank Norris's The Octopus: An Epic of Wheat and Railroads Chapter 4. The Financier: Theodore Dreiser's Portrait of a Darwinian Businessman Chapter 5. Abraham Cahan's The Rise of David Levinsky Chapter 6. Babbitt: Sinclair Lewis's Portrait of a Middle-Aged Middle Class Businessman Chapter 7. "Who is Henry M. Galt?": A Review of Garet Garrett's The Driver Chapter 8. F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby Chapter 9. An American Romance: King Vidor's Epic Film of Immigration and the American Dream Chapter 10. Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman: A Case of Self-Delusion Chapter 11. John P. Marquand's Point of No Return Chapter 12. Henry Hazlitt's Time Will Run Back: A Tale of the Reinvention of Capitalism Chapter 13. Executive Suite: A Story of Corporate Success and Succession Chapter 14. Cash McCall: The Story of a Heroic Corporate Rider Chapter 15. Sloan Wilson's The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit Chapter 16. Atlas Shrugged: An Epic Story of Heroic Businessmen Chapter 17. Sometimes a Great Notion: The Story of a Family Who Would Never Give an Inch Chapter 18. Wilfrid Sheed's Office Politics: A Lesson about Organizational Conflict Chapter 19. The Franchiser: Stanley Elkin's Tale of a Man Who Wanted to Costume the Country Chapter 20. Glengarry Glen Ross: A David Mamet Word Play Chapter 21. Wall Street: Oliver Stone's Zero-Sum Vision of Capitalism Chapter 22. Tucker: The Man and His Dream Chapter 23. David Lodge's Nice Work: A Tale of Two Cultures Chapter 24. Other People's Money: A Tale of Capitalism and Creative Destruction Chapter 25: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Conclusion

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Book SynopsisCrowdfunding is the springboard your project needs. From theatre to virtual reality headsets, small businesses to international corporations, crowdfunding has helped entrepreneurs and project leaders across the world to raise money, build their customer bases and prove that there is a market for their product.how to: use crowdfunding gives you the guidance and advice you need, taking you step by step all the way from planning your crowdfunding campaign to getting the money in the bank. Entrepreneur Julian Costley shares key tips to make your campaign a roaring success, and includes the essential facts on company and regulatory law, tax and risk.

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Book SynopsisThe digital economy is a driver of change, innovation, and competitiveness for international businesses and organizations. Because of this, it is important to highlight emergent and innovative aspects of marketing strategies and entrepreneurial approaches to overcome the challenges of the digital world.The Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship and Marketing for Global Reach in the Digital Economy provides innovative insights into the key developments and new trends associated with online challenges and opportunities. The content within this publication represents research encompassing corporate social responsibility, economic policy, and female entrepreneurship, and it is a vital reference source for policymakers, managers, entrepreneurs, graduate-level business students, researchers, and academicians seeking coverage on topics centered on conceptual, technological, and design issues related to digital developments in the economy.

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Book SynopsisFinancial institutions are tasked with keeping businesses of all sizes financially sounds while also providing accessible banking options to everyday individuals. Fintech, or financial technology, is an emerging disruptive technology in financial transaction that will change banking behavior for stakeholders and enable better traceability of funds against specific assets.FinTech as a Disruptive Technology for Financial Institutions is an essential reference source that discusses applications of FinTech in financial institutions in small, medium, and large businesses and through cultural and religious filters. Featuring research on topics such as machine learning, market development, crypto-currency, financial security, blockchain, and financial technology, this book is ideally designed for bankers, business managers, economists, computer scientists, academicians, researchers, financial professionals, and students.

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Book SynopsisGenre theory has been used to describe patterns within certain types of mass media, especially patterns associated with written and spoken language. These same methods can be applied to interviewing and the planning and creation of focus groups.Elicitation Strategies for Interviewing and Fieldwork: Emerging Research and Opportunities is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the application of textual strategies associated with initiating or eliciting texts and strategies for keeping responders on task. While highlighting topics such as microgenre, interview protocol, and cultural context, this publication explores interview techniques as well as the methods of using these strategies to keep interviews relevant. This book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, journalists, communication specialists, and interviewers seeking current research on interview strategies and textual strategies important to recognizing and evaluating patterns within responses.

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Book SynopsisIn all walks of life, at some point in time, we all use the process of problem solving. We all talk about it, we all use it, but chances are we all mean different things by it. Six Sigma and Beyond: Problem Solving and Basic Mathematics organizes the topic and provides a structured approach based on the scientific method. Specifically designed to address the issue of cognitive functioning this volume provides a generic approach to problem solving.The Six Sigma methodology demands that problems be resolved in such a way that both the customer and organization benefit. Not a bad expectation. In this book, the author addresses what a problem is and systematically defines the process of resolving it. He stresses the importance of the team - people power - dedicated to solving a specific problem - process power - and how this combination leads to efficiencies that please the customer and enhance the bottom line.Identifying the problem is only half the task. The next step is to resolve it. This book gives you a detailed rationale and a theoretical explanation of the problem solving process. It focuses on problem solving from a quality perspective and addresses key concepts in team dynamics. It provides an overview of the basic tools of problem solving. In addition, the author introduces the Global Problem Solving (GPS) process. This strategic program brings the focus of quality programs back to eliminating mistakes, waste, and rework. The book highlights the basic mathematics used in all phases of quality control. It introduces each mathematical concept, gives an example, and proceeds with several exercises that demonstrate the solution. With Six Sigma and Beyond: Problem Solving and Basic Mathematics you get the techniques and statistical tools to go beyond theory to real-world applications and take quality management to the next level.Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION. Theoretical Aspects of Problem Solving. Overview of Key Elements to Problem Solving. Problem-Solving (PS) and Process Improvement (PI) Cycle. Tools of Quality. The Global Problem Solving (GPS) Process. Six Sigma Approach to Problem Solving. BASIC MATHEMATICS. The Value of Whole Numbers. Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers. Multiplication and Division of Whole Numbers. Parts and Types of Fractions. Simple Form and Common Denominators of Fractions. Adding and Subtracting Fractions. Multiplication and Division of Fractions. Ordering, Rounding and Changing Decimals. The Four Operations of Decimals. DIVISION WITH DECIMALS. Squares, Square Roots, Cubes, Cube Roots and Proportions. Scientific Notation and Powers of Ten. Decimals. The Metric System. International System of Units. Conversion of English to Metric. APPENDICES. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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Book SynopsisIn this book, Michael Lebowitz deepens the arguments he made in his award-winning, Beyond Capital. Karl Marx, in Capital, focused on capital and the capitalist class that is its embodiment. It is the endless accumulation of capital, its causes and consequences that are central to Marx’s analysis. In taking this approach, Marx tended to obscure not only the centrality of capital’s “immanent drive” and “constant tendency” to divide the working class but also the political economy of the working class (“social production controlled by social foresight”). In Between Capitalism and Community, Lebowitz demonstrates that capitalism contains within itself elements of a different society, one of community. Whereas Marx’s intellectual construct of capitalism treats it as an organic system that reproduces its premises of capital and wage-labor (including a working class that looks upon the requirements of capital “as self-evident natural laws”), Lebowitz argues that the struggle of workers in common and activities based upon solidarity point in the direction of the organic system of community, an alternative system that produces its own premises, communality, and recognition of the needs of others. If we are to escape the ultimate barbarism portended by the existing crisis of the earth system, the subordination of the system of capitalism by that of community is essential. Since the interregnum in which capitalism and community coexist is marked by the interpenetration and mutual deformation of both sides within this whole, however, the path to community cannot emerge spontaneously but requires a revolutionary party that stresses the development of the capacities of people through their protagonism.Trade Review“This book should be mandatory for all economics, political science, and social philosophy classes. Comrades—especially younger ones—will find it immensely helpful for years to come. The sweep of the work is truly impressive; comprehensive and clear on everything essential for understanding the horrors of capitalism and the paths toward a better world. In this period of political madness, Lebowitz's message of political hope could not be timelier.” —Tony Smith, Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Iowa State University; author, Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism: Marx and Normative Social Theory for the Twenty-First Century

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Book SynopsisThose who control the world’s commanding economic heights, buttressed by the theories of mainstream economists, presume that capitalism is a self-contained and self-generating system. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this pathbreaking book—winner of the Paul A. Baran-Paul M. Sweezy Memorial Award—radical political economists Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik argue that the accumulation of capital has always required the taking of land, raw materials, and bodies from noncapitalist modes of production. They begin with a thorough debunking of mainstream economics. Then, looking at the history of capitalism, from the beginnings of colonialism half a millennium ago to today’s neoliberal regimes, they discover that, over the long haul, capitalism, in order to exist, must metastasize itself in the practice of imperialism and the immiseration of countless people. A few hundred years ago, write the Patnaiks, colonialism began to ensure vast, virtually free, markets for new products in burgeoning cities in the West. But even after slavery was generally abolished, millions of people in the Global South still fell prey to the continuing lethal exigencies of the marketplace. Even after the Second World War, when decolonization led to the end of the so-called “Golden Age of Capitalism,” neoliberal economies stepped in to reclaim the Global South, imposing drastic “austerity” measures on working people. But, say the Patnaiks, this neoliberal economy, which lives from bubble to bubble, is doomed to a protracted crisis. In its demise, we are beginning to see – finally – the transcendence of the capitalist system.Trade Review“The ideas outlined in A Theory of Imperialism are central to understanding the construction of the unequal global system in the past and in the present.” —Samir Amin, author, The Liberal Virus: Permanent War and the Americanization of the World

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Book SynopsisMarxist economic thought has had a long and distinguished history in Japan, dating back to the First World War. When interest in Marxist theory was virtually nonexistent in the United States, rival schools of thought in Japan emerged, and brilliant debates took place on Marx’s Capital and on capitalism as it was developing in Japan. Forty years ago, Makoto Itoh’s Value and Crisis began to chronicle these Japanese contributions to Marxist theory, discussing in particular views on Marx’s theories of value and crisis, and problems of Marx’s theory of market value. Now, in a second edition of his book, Itoh deepens his study Marx’s theories of value and crisis, as an essential reference point from which to analyze the multiple crises that have arisen during the past four decades of neoliberalism. One contribution of the original Value and Crisis was to bridge Japan and the world in the field of Marxian political economy. Itoh’s second edition demonstrates an even wider-ranging familiarity with major schools of Marxist thought, summarizing and assessing viewpoints of such theorists as Hilferding, Bauer, Kautsky, Bukharin, Luxemburg, Grossman, Sweezy, the Japanese Marxist Kozo Uno, together with the relevant parts of Capital and a section on the 1930’s Great Depression. Given today’s current emergencies of world capitalism and socialism, says Itoh, we need to work together to resolve new global problems, articulating new issues of Marx’s theories of value and crisis. The promise of Marx’s theories has not waned. If anything – given the failure of Soviet-style socialism and the catastrophe of neoliberalism – it grows daily.Trade ReviewThis is one of the most important books in Marxist political economy of the last several decades. With exemplary clarity, Makoto Itoh has built a bridge between the Uno tradition of Japan and the Marxism of Europe and the USA. Fresh material on crisis and the transformation of contemporary capitalism ensure that this new edition will be vital to Marxism in years to come. —Costas Lapavitsas, Professor of Economics at SOAS, University of London; author, The Left Case Against the EU and Profiting Without Producing

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Book SynopsisAn authoritative expose of the mysterious and potentially dangerous world of private equity.

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Book SynopsisPositive feedbackwhen A produces B, which in turn produces even more Adrives not only abrupt climate changes, but also the most important and disruptive events in economics and finance, from asset bubbles to debt crises, bank runs, even corporate corruption. But economists, with few exceptions, have ignored this reality for fifty years, holding onto the unreasonable belief in the wisdom of the market. It's past time to be asking how do markets really work? Can we replace economic magical thinking with a better means of predicting what the financial future holds, in order to prepare for, or even avoid the next extreme economic event?In Forecast, physicist and acclaimed science writer Mark Buchanan answers these questions and more in building a new model for economics, one that accepts that markets act much like the weather does. While centuries of classical financial thought has trained us to understand the market as something that always returns to equilibrium, economies work more like our atmospherea loose surface balance riding on a deeper torrent of fluctuation. Market instability is as naturaland dangerousas a prairie twister. With Buchanan's help, we can better govern the markets and weather their storms.

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