At an academic level, behaviour refers to, “…the actions of an organism or system, usually in relation to its environment, which includes the other organisms or systems around as well as the physical environment. It is the response of the organism or system to various stimuli or inputs, whether internal…
In July 2010, the Economist observed how non-profit organisations “…are commonly advised to become more like for-profit businesses. Management experts and consultants view them as horribly inefficient due to the absence of the concentrating power of the profit motive… [however] there has been barely any reciprocal pressure on for-profit firms…
In his 1817 book, “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation“, David Ricardo explained the principle of economic comparative advantage. He drew example from the production of wine and cloth in England and Portugal and explained, “In England it is very hard to produce wine, and only moderately difficult…
There is little doubt that taxation is an economically necessary and ethically valid part of society’s structure. “Taxes” stated Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. “…are the price of civilisation.” Many cite taxation as having four ‘key’ roles in society, The generation of revenue for the state to provide infrastructure, education, defence,…
In this interview, we speak to Professor Charles Wyplosz who is Professor of International Economics at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, where he is Director of the International Centre of Money and Banking Studies and an Independent Economic Advisor to the President of the European Commission. We discuss regional and global economic integration, looking at Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, alongside the concepts of free trade and globalisation, and the role of economic and political integration in future of world economics.
In April 2010, the Economist reported, ��One of the lessons from TV is to accept change and get ahead of it. Broadcasters� initial response to the appearance of programmes online was similar to the music industry�s reaction to file-sharing: call in the lawyers. But television firms soon banded together to…
“It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, “…it’s going to be a game changer.” When observing the media analysis of such rhetoric, you always see a mix of embrace and cynicism. The latter being the ‘mainstream’ news titles, and the former…
Professor Ronald Arkin is one of the world’s leading roboticists. In 2009, he published a book entitled “Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots” which (as one review quoted) is, “….the most serious attempt to date to set out how to build an ethical robot.” The review continues, “This timely book…
April 20 (Bloomberg) “Stranded flyers created a surge in demand for travel industry Web sites and remote conferencing services as a shutdown of many flights in Europe continued through a sixth day.” Nothing Broke… That’s Important. The eruption of Eyjafjallajokull really caught the world off-guard, and created the levels of…
In the fields of political science and economics, you will commonly see discussion of the “Principal-Agent Problem” (also known as agency dilemma) which deals with the outcomes of situations of conflicted interest, or asymmetric information, where (for example) an agent (such as an investment manager) acting for a principal (such…
On March 29th 2010, The Economist reported that, “When the trials of four Rio Tinto employees opened in Shanghai last week, their guilty pleas to the first of the charges, of bribe-taking, dampened hopes that the matter might be settled without any severe penalties. Even so, the harshness of sentences…
In a statement issued on March 22nd 2010, Human Rights Watch said, “Google’s decision to stop censoring its Chinese search engine is a strong step in favour of freedom of expression and information, and an indictment of the Chinese government’s insistence on censorship of the internet…” They continued, “China is…
On March 11, 2011 at 05:46 UTC, Japan was hit with a Magnitude 9.0 Mega-Quake (the fourth largest earthquake ever recorded) . To put the size of this quake in perspective, it was 8,000 times more powerful than the one which devastated Christchurch (New Zealand) in February 2011, and around…
In this interview, we speak to Sir Richard Feachem, who is Professor of Global Health at both the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley, and Director of the Global Health Group. Sir Feachem was also the founding Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which has saved over 4.9 million lives globally. We discuss the key issues facing health in the developed and developing world, strategies to eradicate some of the most prevalent conditions, and the future of global health.
Recent economic events have brought the concept of financial bubbles from academic texts to the forefront of economic and commercial thought. Whereas economies used to be slow laborious creatures, the globalisation of capital markets, and growth of technology within them, has increased the ‘speed’ of economies to a pace never…
“Just two days after Haiti’s earthquake, Leonel Fernández, the president of the neighbouring Dominican Republic, ordered a helicopter to fly him over the border for an unannounced visit. He was worried that his Haitian counterpart and friend, René Préval, was still incommunicado. What made this neighbourly gesture remarkable was that…
“[Shares in] Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest carmaker, fell in Tokyo as it expanded a U.S. recall by more than 1 million vehicles to 5.35 million, adding to concerns its reputation for quality may be permanently tarnished.” When you buy a car, you assume that everything is fine with…
As Foreign Policy Magazine reports, “Equatorial Guinea’s economy depends almost entirely on oil, which generated revenues last year of well over $4 billion, giving it a per capita annual income of $37,900, on par with Belgium.” While this has given the country’s ruler (Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo) an estimated net…
“The Federal Reserve Board sent its most explicit signal yet that the emergency supply of liquidity to financial markets is done and the most aggressive monetary policy easing in its 96-year history will eventually reverse.” – February 19th, Bloomberg. Citing “continued improvement in financial market conditions”, the US Federal Reserve…
As I write this, my Bloomberg feed shows that, “Euro-region leaders [have] ordered Greece to get the bloc’s highest budget deficit under control and said they are prepared to take “determined” action to staunch the worst crisis in the currency’s 11-year history.”, with the FT adding, “Under an agreement hammered…