The End of Growth

The End of Growth
Author: Richard Heinberg
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2012-07-09
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1905570511

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to drop, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable, natural limits. Richard Heinberg's latest landmark work goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three factors: Resource depletion; Environmental impacts, and; Crushing levels of debt. These converging limits will force us to re-evaluate cherished economic theories, and to reinvent money and commerce. The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth's budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding Gross Domestic Product.

The 4% Solution

The 4% Solution
Author: The Bush Institute
Publisher: Crown Currency
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-07-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0307986152

Foreword by President George W. Bush With contributions from world renowned economists and Nobel prizewinners, The 4% Solution is a blueprint for restoring America’s economic health The United States is reaching a pivotal point in its economic history. Millions of Americans owe more on their homes than they are worth, long-term unemployment is alarmingly high, and the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a sustainable growth rate of only 2.3%—a full percentage point below the average for the past sixty years. Unless a turnaround comes quickly, the United States could be mired in debt for years to come and millions of Americans will be pushed to the sidelines of the economy. The 4% Solution offers clear and unflinching ideas on how to revive America’s economy. It sets a positive economic goal and asks some of the top economic minds on how to achieve it. With a focus on removing government constraints, The 4% Solution defines the policies that will allow Americans to save, invest, and create the jobs that the United States needs. The 4% Solution draws on the best minds in the business, including five Nobel laureates: · Robert E. Lucas, Jr., on the history and future of economic growth · Gary S. Becker on why we need immigrants in order to grow · Edward Prescott on the cost (to growth) of the welfare state · Vernon Smith on why housing leads us into and out of recessions · Myron Scholes on why we need to innovate in order to grow the economy

The New Economy and Economic Growth in Europe and the US

The New Economy and Economic Growth in Europe and the US
Author: David B. Audretsch
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2002-04-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9783540431794

There are many issues relating to the new economy in Europe and the USA that are unexplored. Here, the authors present innovative theoretical and empirical analysis on Internet dynamics, productivity growth and organizational changes in selected OECD countries. New empirical findings related to telecommunications, Internet and growth also are presented. Based on the theoretical and empirical analyses, various policy options are developed. Policy measures, both at the regional and national levels, can stimulate structural change, knowledge diffusion and economic growth. Different governance strategies for the Internet and e-commerce are identified from a global perspective.

Fully Grown

Fully Grown
Author: Dietrich Vollrath
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2022-06-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226820041

Vollrath challenges our long-held assumption that growth is the best indicator of an economy’s health. Most economists would agree that a thriving economy is synonymous with GDP growth. The more we produce and consume, the higher our living standard and the more resources available to the public. This means that our current era, in which growth has slowed substantially from its postwar highs, has raised alarm bells. But should it? Is growth actually the best way to measure economic success—and does our slowdown indicate economic problems? The counterintuitive answer Dietrich Vollrath offers is: No. Looking at the same facts as other economists, he offers a radically different interpretation. Rather than a sign of economic failure, he argues, our current slowdown is, in fact, a sign of our widespread economic success. Our powerful economy has already supplied so much of the necessary stuff of modern life, brought us so much comfort, security, and luxury, that we have turned to new forms of production and consumption that increase our well-being but do not contribute to growth in GDP. In Fully Grown, Vollrath offers a powerful case to support that argument. He explores a number of important trends in the US economy: including a decrease in the number of workers relative to the population, a shift from a goods-driven economy to a services-driven one, and a decline in geographic mobility. In each case, he shows how their economic effects could be read as a sign of success, even though they each act as a brake of GDP growth. He also reveals what growth measurement can and cannot tell us—which factors are rightly correlated with economic success, which tell us nothing about significant changes in the economy, and which fall into a conspicuously gray area. Sure to be controversial, Fully Grown will reset the terms of economic debate and help us think anew about what a successful economy looks like.

After the New Economy

After the New Economy
Author: Doug Henwood
Publisher:
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2004
Genre: Corporations
ISBN: 9781920769185

Rarely a day went by in the dizzy 1990s without some will-paid pundit heralding the triumphant arrival of a New Economy. According to these financial mavens, an unprecedented technological and organisational revolution had extinguished the threat of recession forever. Though much of the rhetoric sounds ridiculous today, few analysts have explored how the New Economy moment emerged from deep within America's economic and ideological machinery - instead, they've preferred to treat it as an episode of mass delusion. Now, with customary irreverence and acuity, journalist Doug Henwood dissects the New Economy, arguing that the delirious optimism was actually a manic set of variations on ancient themes, all promoted from the highest of places. Claims of New Eras have plenty of historical precedents; in this latest act, our modern mythmakers held that technology would overturn hierarchies, democratising information and finance and leading inexorably to a virtual social revolution. But, as Henwood vividly demonstrates, the gap between rich and poor has never been so wide, wealth never so concentrated. lessthan-lustrous reality beneath the gloss of the 1990s boom.

Retooling for Growth

Retooling for Growth
Author: Richard McGahey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 457
Release: 2008-07-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0815755570

A Brookings Institution Press and American Assembly publication Slow job growth, declining home values, a diminishing tax base, and concentrated poverty are but a few of the growing obstacles for well-established but struggling cities. Challenged by decades of globalization, technological change, and dramatic demographic shifts away from the urban core, these former industrial powerhouses, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, have been eclipsed by burgeoning American cities with a viable niche in the new economy. In Retooling for Growth, experts present new frameworks, cutting-edge analysis, and innovative policy solutions for the nation's government, business, civic, and community leaders to sculpt a sustainable and supportable economy for older industrial areas. The unique focus on rehabilitating weak market cities outlines ideas for reshaping the role of public agencies, the workforce, business organizations, and technology. Implementation of these measures addresses challenges such as fostering entrepreneurship, reducing poverty and inequality, and maintaining and augmenting the number of skilled professionals who reside and work in a community, among others. This collection of essays offers practical, achievable strategies for revitalizing industrial areas and building upon the potential of existing but overlooked resources of economic, physical, and cultural significance. In this important volume, leading authorities provide a thought-provoking analysis of healthy economic development practices for both public and private sectors.

Creating Wealth

Creating Wealth
Author: Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 155092477X

The power of local currencies Communities everywhere are challenged by issues such as health, elder and child care, housing, education, food security and the environment. On the surface, these problems appear to be rooted in economic crisis-forexample budget cuts have triggered reduced public services, soaring food prices have created food security concerns, and the subprime mortgage disaster has spawned record increases in foreclosures and homelessness. However if communities could match their unmet needs with their underutilized resources, many would find that while their economies may bestruggling when measured in traditional terms, they possess enough genuine wealth to allow all their inhabitants to enjoy a vastly improved quality of life. Creating Wealth demonstrates how a healthy society can beattained through developing new systems of exchange. Using creative initiatives such as time banks, systems of barter and exchange and local currencies, cities and towns can empower themselves and build vibrant, healthy, sustainable local economies. In addition to presenting many compelling case studies of successful alternative currencies in action, Creating Wealth also explores the different types of capital that communities have to draw on, including natural, built, social, human, institutional, cultural, technological, and financial. This book will appeal to community activists, city planners and other public officials, and anyone interested in developing strong local economies. Gwendolyn Hallsmith is the founder and director of Global Community Initiatives and the author of The Key to Sustainable Cities . Bernard Lietaer is the world's leading authority on complementary currencies and the author of The Future of Money .

Biodiesel

Biodiesel
Author: Greg Pahl
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2008-09-15
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 160358093X

For anyone who is trying to keep up with the extremely rapid developments in the biodiesel industry, the second edition of Biodiesel: Growing a New Energy Economy is an invaluable aid. The breathtaking speed with which biodiesel has gained acceptance in the marketplace in the past few years has been exceeded only by the proliferation of biodiesel production facilities around the United States--and the world--only to confront new social and environmental challenges and criticisms. The international survey of the biodiesel industry has been expanded from 40 to more than 80 countries, reflecting the spectacular growth of the industry around the world. This section also tracks the dramatic shifts in the fortunes of the industry that have taken place in some of these nations. The detailed chapters that cover the industry in the United States have also been substantially rewritten to keep abreast of its many new developments and explosive domestic growth. An expanded section on small-scale, local biodiesel production has been added to better represent this small but growing part of the industry. Another new section has been added to more fully explore the increasingly controversial issues of deforestation and food versus fuel, as well as GMO crops. The second edition concludes with updated views on where the industry is headed in the years to come from some of its key players.

Lower Ed

Lower Ed
Author: Tressie McMillan Cottom
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 162097102X

More than two million students are enrolled in for-profit colleges, from the small family-run operations to the behemoths brandished on billboards, subway ads, and late-night commercials. These schools have been around just as long as their bucolic not-for-profit counterparts, yet shockingly little is known about why they have expanded so rapidly in recent years—during the so-called Wall Street era of for-profit colleges. In Lower Ed Tressie McMillan Cottom—a bold and rising public scholar, herself once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges—expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry to show precisely how it is part and parcel of the growing inequality plaguing the country today. McMillan Cottom discloses the shrewd recruitment and marketing strategies that these schools deploy and explains how, despite the well-documented predatory practices of some and the campus closings of others, ending for-profit colleges won't end the vulnerabilities that made them the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century. And she doesn't stop there. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, McMillan Cottom delivers a comprehensive view of postsecondary for-profit education by illuminating the experiences of the everyday people behind the shareholder earnings, congressional battles, and student debt disasters. The relatable human stories in Lower Ed—from mothers struggling to pay for beauty school to working class guys seeking "good jobs" to accomplished professionals pursuing doctoral degrees—illustrate that the growth of for-profit colleges is inextricably linked to larger questions of race, gender, work, and the promise of opportunity in America. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed tells the story of the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of a for-profit education. It is a story about broken social contracts; about education transforming from a public interest to a private gain; and about all Americans and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.

Growing Out of the Plan

Growing Out of the Plan
Author: Barry Naughton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780521574624

This is a comprehensive study of China's economic reforms, from their beginnings at the end of 1978 through the completion of many of the initial reform measures during 1993. The features of Chinese reform that differ from the former USSR are highlighted.