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The book examines the relationship between inequality, growth and technological progress. It provides a broad overview of the existing literature and introduces specific, innovative aspects about the impact of inequality and redistribution on growth when growth is driven by human or physical capital investments, as well as the impact of technological progress and accumulation on the distribution of earnings. There is a special focus on the role of social comparison, redistributive taxation and new information technologies for the relationship between inequality and growth. The analytical part of the book mainly consists of endogenous growth models

"The political collapse of some of the long-standing regimes in the Middle East and the unrests in other Middle Eastern states are a huge step forward on the way to transit the authoritarian Islamic shaped states into modern pluralistic democracies. This essay first outlines the legal orders of these states and identifies them as instruments of the authoritarian regimes for safeguarding and strengthening their political power. The background of the actual protest movements is seen in a deplorable state of the socio-economic affairs not only in the poorer but also in the oil-rich states and in the political restraints of public life which makes it impossible or difficult to discuss openly all actual questions and to engage freely in daily life. In the main part of the essay the need of the legal reforms is analyzed by giving proposals for state measures and hints for further discussions in order to promote democratic structures and procedures, to strengthen individual freedoms and guarantees and to grant social justice. At the end, the legal problem how to transit from an authoritarian constitution to a more democratic one is discussed using the examples of Tunisia and Egypt. Tunisia's interim president is going to prepare elections for a constitutional assembly on the basis of which elections should take place. This procedure may contradict the constitution in several aspects. In Egypt an interim constitution of which only some articles are democratically legitimized by a referendum should be the basis of the further process for parliamentary and presidential elections." (author's abstract)

Harness 'Code Halos' to gain competitive advantage in the digital eraAmazon beating Borders, Netflix beating Blockbuster, Apple beating Kodak, and the rise of companies like Google, LinkedIn, and Pandora are not isolated or random events. Today's outliers in revenue growth and value creation are winning with a new set of rules. They are dominating by managing the information that surrounds people, organizations, processes, and products—what authors Malcolm Frank, Paul Roehrig, and Ben Pring call Code Halos. This is far beyond "Big Data" and analytics. Code Halos spark new commercial models that can dramatically flip market dominance from industry stalwarts to challengers. In this new book, the authors show leaders how digital innovators and traditional companies can build Code Halo solutions to drive success. The book:Examines the explosion of digital information that now surrounds us and describes the profound impact this is having on individuals, corporations, and societies;Shows how the Crossroads Model can help anticipate and navigate this market shift;Provides examples of traditional firms already harnessing the power of Code Halos including GE's 'Brilliant Machines,' Disney's theme park 'Magic Band,' and Allstate's mobile devices and analytics that transform auto insurance.With reasoned insight, new data, real-world cases, and practical guidance, Code Halosshows seasoned executives, entrepreneurs, students, line-of-business owners, and technology leaders how to master the new rules of the Code Halo economy.

In The Game Culture Reader, editors Jason C. Thompson and Marc A. Ouellette propose that Game Studies-that peculiar multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary field wherein international researchers from such diverse areas as rhetoric, computer science, literary studies, culture studies, psychology, media studies and so on come together to study the production, distribution, and consumption of games-has reached an unproductive stasis. Its scholarship remains either divided (as in the narratologis

The Chinese and Russian Communists, as Marxist-Leninists, are fundamentally hostile towards religion, and are committed to its ultimate eradication. Although their attitudes towards religion are similar, their prescriptions for dealing with it are different. In essence, this difference arises from two divergent conceptions, one optimistic, the other pessimistic, regarding the progress of religion towards oblivion in a situation where the Communist Party has assumed leadership and where the "social" roots of religion have supposedly disappeared. The Chinese hold the optimistic view, a position which may be explained in part by the fact that institutional religion has traditionally been weak in China. I quote here C. K. Yang's description of institutional religion in China as it emerged in the modern period:As an organised body, modern institutional religion had a very small priesthood, divided into minute units of two or three priests each, largely unconnected with each other. It had barely enough financial resources for subsistence for this scanty personnel. It was deprived of the support of an organised laity. … It did not participate in various organised aspects of community life such as charity, education, and the enforcement of moral discipline. There was no powerful centralised priesthood to dominate religious life or to direct operation of the secular social institutions.

SummaryFrom 1950 to 1960, in passing from the time of bullock traction to the tractor, from a subsistence to a market economy, the peasants have re‐modelled their image of society and their relations with other professions. The large farmers, who lived on the fringe of the peasant group, are today their competitors, such as the newly installed repatriates from French North Africa who are threatening their existence as landholders. The peasants are leaving their isolation and becoming conscious of their relations with society in general and particularly with city dwellers. The regions of diversified farming, developing with a relative time‐lag, are organizing a more intensive social life than before. The establishment of associations, the attendance at meetings and the reading of journals bear witness to this fact. The peasant is playing a new role in general society. Thus, he has had to revise his attitude towards those outside his group with whom he maintains new economic relations.RésuméDe 1950 à 1960, en passant de l'ère des boeufs à l'ère du tracteur, de l'économie vivrière à l'économie de marché, les paysans restructurent leur système de représentation de la société et leur mode de relations avec autrui. Les grands propriétaires, qui vivaient en marge du groupe paysan sont aujourd'hui des concurrents qui les menacent, comme les rapatries d'Afrique Française du Nord nouvellement installés, dans leur existence d'exploitants agricoles. Les paysans sortent de leur isolement et ils prennent conscience des rapports qu'ils entretiennent avec la société globale et particulièrement avec les citadins. Les pays de polyculture relativement attardés organisent une vie sociale plus intense que par le passé; la création d'associations, la fréquentation des réunions et la lecture des journaux en témoignent. En jouant un nouveau rôle dans la société globale le paysan ne pouvait que réviser son système de représentation du hors‐groupe avec lequel il entretient de nouveaux rapports économiques.ZusammenfassungVon 1950 bis 1960, während des Übergangs von der Ochsenanspannung zum Traktor und von der Subsistenz‐ zur Marktwirtschaft, haben die Bauern ihre Vorstellung der Gesellschaft und ihre Bezie‐hungen zu anderen Berufen neu strukturiert. Die großen Landwirte, die am Rande der bäuerlichen Schicht lebten, sind heute ihre Konkurrenten, wie auch die neu angesiedelten Rückkehrer aus Französisch‐Nordafrika. Diese Gruppen bedrohen die Existenz der Bauern als Landbewirtschafter. Die Bauern treten aus ihrer Isolierung heraus und werden sich ihrer Beziehungen mit der Gesellschaft im allgemeinen und mit den Stadtbewohnern im besonderen bewußt. Die Gebiete der Polykultur, die sich mit einer gewissen Verzögerung entwickeln, organisieren ein intensiveres soziales Leben als vorher. Die Bildung von Vereinigungen, die Teilnahme an Sitzungen und das Lesen von Zeitschriften bezeugen diese Tatsachen. Der Bauer spielt eine neue Rolle in der Gesellschaft im allgemeinen. Daher mußte er seine Haltung gegenüber den Menschen außerhalb seiner Gruppe revidieren, mit denen er neue wirtschaftliche Beziehungen pflegt.

The scientific community has a sustained history of issuing warnings to society's leaders and policy-makers. In such cases, scientists take on the task of alerting those in power to issues they may not notice or not wish to see. A distinctive thing about environmental warnings authored by leading scientists is that they are addressed to "humanity." This paper argues that attempts to "speak truth to humanity"—despite the undoubted quality of the data and analyses—face three sorts of problem. There is firstly the difficulty that humanity is not a unified entity in the way that is often assumed and that, in practice, citizens may not be in a position to act in the way that is presupposed by those who issues the warnings. Secondly, though the declaration of a climate emergency may appear to be a desirable corollary of speaking truth to humanity, there are good reasons from political science to think that such declarations will be made for messier and complex reasons. Finally, even the more technical aspects of the warning documents may contain normative or social scientific components; they are not exclusively technical. Together these points argue for the engagement of humanities and socials sciences scholars in future attempts to offer compressive, integrated warnings to humankind.

The scientific community has a sustained history of issuing warnings to society's leaders and policy-makers. In such cases, scientists take on the task of alerting those in power to issues they may not notice or not wish to see. A distinctive thing about environmental warnings authored by leading scientists is that they are addressed to "humanity." This paper argues that attempts to "speak truth to humanity"—despite the undoubted quality of the data and analyses—face three sorts of problem. There is firstly the difficulty that humanity is not a unified entity in the way that is often assumed and that, in practice, citizens may not be in a position to act in the way that is presupposed by those who issues the warnings. Secondly, though the declaration of a climate emergency may appear to be a desirable corollary of speaking truth to humanity, there are good reasons from political science to think that such declarations will be made for messier and complex reasons. Finally, even the more technical aspects of the warning documents may contain normative or social scientific components; they are not exclusively technical. Together these points argue for the engagement of humanities and socials sciences scholars in future attempts to offer compressive, integrated warnings to humankind.

pt. 1, 1. On paradoxes in constitutions / Giancarlo Corsi ; 2. Exogenous self-binding : how social subsystems externalise their foundational paradoxes in the process of constitutionalisation / Gunther Teubner ; 3. Promise as premise : rewriting the paradox of constitutional reasoning / Ino Augsberg ; 4. On the binding nature of constitutions / Hans-Georg Moeller ; 5. Constitutionalism and legal pluralism / Alberto Febbrajo -- pt. 2, 6. The sociological origins of global law / Chris Thornhill ; 7. Constitutionalism and globalisation : a disputed relationship / Cesare Pinelli ; 8. 'Cross-constitutionalism' and sustainable comparison / Michele Carducci ; 9. Towards the constitution of networks? / Karl-Heinz Ladeur ; 10. Standards of 'good governance' and peripheral constitutionalism : the case of post-accession romania / Bogdan Iancu ; 11. The organization of market expectations beyond legality : an Argentinian case / Matias Dewey ; 12. De-constitutionalising Latin America : particularism and universalism in a constitutional perspective / Aldo Mascareno ; 13. Paradoxes of transconstitutionalism in Latin America / Marcelo Neves -- Appendix, 14. The constitution in the work of Niklas Luhmann / Giancarlo Corsi ; 15. The issue of the constitution in Luhmann's card index system : reading the traces / Johannes F.K. Schmidt.

This book addresses a blend of conceptual and applied discussions on women entrepreneurs with learning experience across continents A good read for managers and researchers. Angappa Gunasekaran, Director and Professor, School of Business Administration, Penn State Harrisburg, PA A woman with economic empowerment is, by definition, a strong woman. However, living the empowered journey is a major challenge. The author puts forth new concepts supported by the examples on women-led enterprises across developing economies, which makes this book a worth read Jose Balmori, Associate Dean, Business and Economics School, Universidades Anahuac Mexico, Mexico City This book focuses on social perspectives of womens entrepreneurship, in the context of work-life balance and crowd-based business modelling, and economic perspectives associated with quality-of-life expectations. It focuses on the convergence of business perspectives and the social values and lifestyle of women entrepreneurs. The attributes of women entrepreneurship in developing economies have been discussed with focus on new entrepreneurial trends, changing organizational design and workplace environment, frugal innovation and technology, and shifts in market behavior. The book presents a six-box strategy including learned knowledge, scope of enterprise, innovation and technology, social values, design-development, and entrepreneurial business modeling. The core argument underlies in critically examining the practical, tacit, and intuited strategies to redesign entrepreneurial business models against conventional social values of women entrepreneurs. The author analyzes positivist, constructivist, pragmatist, interpretivist, and phenomenological perspectives to explain entrepreneurial behavior of women and derive cognitive synthesis to enhance business performance, entrepreneurial mindset, and perceptual schema. Ananya Rajagopal currently holds a position of Research Professor at Universidad Anahuac, Mexico and has been conferred recognition of National Researcher Level-I by the Government of Mexico. She has published several papers in international journals of repute and contributed research works in international conferences and edited books

The yield of income tax varies automatically with movements in personal income as well as with discretionary changes in tax rates and allowances. In forecasting and for historical appraisal of fiscal policy there is a need to specify the automatic relationship between tax and income movements. In the former case this means specifying an accurate direct tax function in the forecasting model (i.e., identifying endogenous tax movements). From the descriptive, historical, point of view, it is possible to use such a function both to understand the 'built-in' properties of the budgetary system and, at the same time, to create a more complete picture of budgetary intervention than is given by the treatment of discretionary changes alone as indicators of fiscal policy. The latter procedure, which arises from the traditional British approach to budget-making (while not necessarily an inaccurate way of formulating policy), does tend to prevent an accurate picture of the complete Government intervention being formed by observers, and may result in expenditure, tax and monetary decisions being taken and analysed in a fragmented framework.