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In this essay, we summarize the main features of Yunus' economic thought and discuss whether it is possible to conclude, as seems straightforward according to Yunus (1997), that microfinance is good for the poor and that it exemplifies a typical activity of social enterprise. To do this, we review some of the contents of the 2006 World Bank/Brookings Institution conference on microfinance as summarized by Barr et al. (2007).

Access to finance and sound banking institutions are two critical elements in any attempt to promote economic development in least‐developed countries. Nevertheless, only in recent years have existing relations between financial liberalization, banking practices and the economic performance of emerging market economies been investigated in depth. In this review essay, prompted by a recent book, "Finance for Development" by Barbara Stallings, we discuss some important issues in this promising field of applied research.

In this paper, we study screening efficiency of networks as organizations in comparison with polyarchies and hierarchies. Firstly, we briefly characterize these organizational architectures, then we rank them in the case of infinitely many and finitely many decisional units. As we show and discuss, networks are more efficient than polyarchies and hierarchical architectures with good initial choice portfolios. In opposition, whether Type II errors are very likely to occur, a hierarchy preforms better than polyarchies and networks. Finally, we illustrate how these organizations perform when a budget constraint has to be fulfilled.

In this paper, we study oligopolistic competition between closed and open source softwares. By intersecting existing economic contributions on open source, we propose a two stage game with perfect information and product di¤eretiation in which producers firstly set softwares quality, then they determine prices (constrained at zero for open source programs). In doing this, we explicitly model lock-in e¤ects, network externality components of software quality as well as knowledge accumulation in software use and implementation. With respect to a monopolistic benchmark case, we argue that in duopoly a pro- prietary sofware producer facing an open source software will reduce its selling price whether: (i) its network of users is larger than open sources one and its consumers are largely experienced on its program, (ii) it has a small network of un-skilled consumers. In opposition, after open source softwares emergence, proprietary software price does augment if proprietary software users form a large, but poorly skilled network. Fur- thermore, we show that, in all above cases, proprietary software quality increases because of the existence of a open source alternative to a previouisly monopolistic program. Finally, by modeling knowledge accumulation processes through di¤erence equations, we show that the ratio between closed and open source programs opportunity costs of software learning and deployment plays a crucial role in shaping market outcomes. Until an open source software remains too complex and technical for unskilled or time-scarse users, a shared market solution in which both softwares are adopted is predicted. In contrast, if opportunity costs in learning and understanding open source programs are remarkably low, or at least equal to opportunity costs of a closed source software, then a open source dominance outcome (i.e. all software are open ones) phases out.

By starting from two recent books by Brookings, in this review we briefly argue for institutions: building processes aimed to provide rules, norms and standards for the collective governance of financial markets.

Starting from Amartya Sen's works on rational behaviour, in this essay a contextually-embedded choice theory is presented. Using concepts and tools from poset mathematics, we show how to inject in rational choice theory cultural and social effects. Specifically, we define some choice super-structures seen as choice sets' transformations imposed by accepted external consistency of choice requirements. As we will argue, these applications can be of some help in explaining preference changes within different contexts of choice. Hence, using the same analytical framework, some well-known results about maximizing and optimizing behaviour may be confirmed as well as some insights on intransitive choices phase out.

In this note, we provide a multistage game form whichmay be used for managing aggressive flows which may cause network congestion or monopolisation. The mechanism here presented attains economic effciency, technical effciency and other desirable properties.

In this paper competition between two network firms is analysed under two alternative regulatory regimes: a global connectivity regulation (GCR) and an efficient component pricing regulation (ECPRe). Whereas a GCR imposes a full quality of reciprocal interconnection, firms will choose vertical product differentiation in order to lower price competition, while under a ECPRe they will choose the maximum level of services quality and a global degradation of connectivity. Hence firms' decisions about whether or not vertically differentiate products seems to be, at least partially, related to regulatory rules imposed on the market.

In this paper, we provide a very simple model to shed light on the issue of managed competition in mixed quasi-markets (i.e. regulated markets in which social and for-proÖt Örms coexist). In doing this, we consider the literature on mixed oligopolies as a reasonable reference point and try to enrich it with the idea of quasi-market. Firstly, our results show that social Örms serve the relatively richer portion of the population. Only relatively poor consumers buy units of service from the proÖt-oriented Örm. Secondly, the socially-preferable form of managed competition is to introduce coproduction practices and, hence, to raise proÖt-oriented Örmís production costs. The diffusion of coproduction paradigms ensures maximal service quality and eliminates mark-up from the market.

On-line content delivery and vertical alliances between conduit and content providers are nowadays crucial issues in digital markets. In this paper, we discuss and compare a push and a pull model for on-line content delivery in the case of non-zero marginal cost for network transits because of network services for content delivery (like data caching). Under both models, we show that rationales for vertical strategic integration between conduit and content providers phase out in successive monopolies and Bertrand duopolies.

We compare two different redistributive policies specifically designed to alleviate poverty. The first one is inspired to the idea of participation income, the second focused on the introduction of a negative income tax. Briefly characterizing an economy with workers and non-workers and using income as evaluation space for poverty, we determine optimality conditions of both measures under a flat rate labor income tax. Finally, we emphasize a necessary condition for these measures to mitigate poverty.

We rationalize several facts emerging from the recent empirical research on cooperatives owned by workers (workers' firms, WF) as: the concern of WFs for employment; the interplay between membership and workplace safeguard within WFs; the different reaction to shocks between WFs and profit-making firms. We do so by means of a new model of WFs short-run behavior in mixed duopoly. We consider an industry in which a WF competes with a profit maximizing company and we innovate with respect to the conventional Illyrian objective function. We then reconcile the literature on labor-concerned maximands in competitive markets and the one dealing with WFs in oligopolistic markets under the Illyrian maximand.