BOOKS
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Predatory Value Extraction: How the Looting of the Business Corporation Became the US Norm and How Sustainable Prosperity Can Be Restored by William Lazonick and Jang-sup Shin
This book explains how an ideology of corporate resource allocation known as “maximizing shareholder value” (MSV), that emerged in the 1980s and came to dominate strategic thinking in business schools and corporate boardrooms, undermined the social foundations of sustainable prosperity, resulting in employment instability, income inequity, and slow productivity growth. In explaining what happened to sustainable prosperity in the United States, it focuses on the growing imbalance between value creation and value extraction that reached to the extent of “predatory value extraction.” Based on “The Theory of Innovative Enterprise,” the book analyzes the value extracting mechanism by “value-extracting insiders,” i.e. corporate executives, “value-extracting enablers,” i.e. institutional investors, and “value-extracting outsiders,” i.e. hedge-fund activists. It concludes with policy suggestions to rebuild the U.S. corporate-governance regime for combating predatory value extraction and restoring sustainable prosperity.
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L’INDUSTRIE PHARMACEUTIQUE: Règles, acteurs et pouvoir The Pharmaceutical Industry: Rules, Actors and Power (La Documentation française, 2014) by Marie-Claude Bergouignan, Matthieu Montalban, Andy Smith, Erdem Sakinç
With its significant economic weight, pharmaceutical industry is confronted today with many difficulties. Increasing market share of generic drugs, even more restrictive regulations which limit market authorization or ongoing development of biotechnologies are only some of the challenges to face for an industry which downsizes today an important part of its workforce. This study proposes an overview of pharmaceutical industry, essentially the French one, from the angle of the globalization of the economies and the regulation of the market for pharmaceuticals.
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THE THIRD GLOBALIZATION – Can Wealthy Nations Stay Rich in the Twenty-First Century? (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Edited by Dan Breznitz and John Zysman Given the powerfully negative and ongoing impact of the Great Recession on western economies, the question of whether historically wealthy nations–the US, Western European countries, Japan–can stay wealthy has become an overriding concern for virtually every interested observer. Can their middle classes remain comfortable as more and more good and technically jobs disappear to other parts of the world? Can they support themselves as they devote more and more economic resources to an aging population base? In The Third Globalization, eminent political economists Dan Breznitz and John Zysman gather some of the discipline’s leading scholars to assess the prospects for growth and prosperity among advanced industrial nations.
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ECONOMICS FOR PEOPLE AND EARTH – The Auroville Case 1968-2008 (Auroville Social Research Centre, 2013)
by Henk Thomas and Manuel Thomas
This book is the result of 15 years of research on Auroville’s economy. It outlines the principles envisaged by its founders, traces its history over the past four decades, investigates the growth of employment opportunities, offers a window on its economic activities through case interviews, and analyses the performance of its commercial and services domains. It also gauges Auroville’s sustainability as a model of durable socio-economic development “for people and Earth”, and as an antidote for the all-pervading impact of global capitalism.
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THE ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE – DEBUNKING PUBLIC vs. PRIVATE SECTOR MYTHS (Anthem, 2013)by Mariana Mazzucato
This book debunks the myth of the State as a large bureaucratic organization that can at best facilitate the creative innovation which happens in the dynamic private sector. Analysing various case studies of innovation-led growth, it describes the opposite situation, whereby the private sector only becomes bold enough to invest after the courageous State has made the high-risk investments.The volume, which builds on the author’s work for a high-impact DEMOS report (substantially developed and extended), argues that in the history of modern capitalism, the State has generated economic activity that would not otherwise have happened, and has actively opened up new technologies and markets that private investors can later move into.
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THE ENTREPRENEURIAL STATE (DEMOS, 2011)by Mariana MazzucatoThe prevailing opinion on public spending is that the state must be cut back to make room for entrepreneurship and innovation, to prevent the public sector ‘crowding out’ the private sector. This draws on the belief that the private sector is dynamic, innovative and competitive, in contrast to the sluggish and bureaucratic public sector.
The Entrepreneurial State challenges this minimalist view of economic policy. It finds that successful economies result from government doing more than just creating the right conditions for growth. Instead, government has a key role to play in developing new technologies whose potential is not yet understood by the business community. State-funded organisations can be nimble and innovative, transforming economies forever — the algorithm behind Google was funded by a public sector National Science Foundation grant…
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La bataille des télécom: Vers une France numérique – The battle to build a digital France (Economica, 2011)by Marie CarpenterIn 1967, the French telecommunications administration had less than 4 million subscribers, all of them in France. Today, France Télécom Orange has 200 million clients throughout the world. How did this small state utility become one of the world’s global telecom operators?The transformation occurred over a period of decades but a major impetus was given by the program to provide “a telephone for all” in France in the 1970s. This initiative was launched and driven by the director general of the French telecommunication’s administration at the time, Gérard Théry. His memory of the decision to deploy the French telephone network throughout the country is one “driven by politics. It was a deliberate act of industrial policy, along with the Ariane rocket launch, nuclear power and the TGV fast-train network”. Two other major decisions taken at that time involved the complete digitalization of the telecommunications networks and the launch of the Minitel, the French telematics eco-system. France thus pioneered the era of the digital society.
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RUN OF THE RED QUEEN – Government, Innovation, Globalization, And Economic Growth in China (Yale University Press, 2011)by Dan Breznitz and Michael MurphreeFew observers are unimpressed by the economic ambition of China or by the nation’s remarkable rate of growth. But what does the future hold? This meticulously researched book closely examines the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese economic system to discover where the nation may be headed and what the Chinese experience reveals about emerging market economies. The authors find that contrary to popular belief, cutting edge innovation is not a prerequisite for sustained economic vitality—and that China is a perfect case in point…
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SUSTAINABLE PROSPERITY IN THE NEW ECONOMY?Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States (Upjohn Institute Press, 2009).by William LazonickOver the past three decades, the information and communication technology (ICT) industries have propelled the growth of the U.S.economy. In the process there has been a dramatic transformation in the dominant mode of business organization that characterizes ICT, as the “New Economy business model” (NEBM) has replaced the “Old Economy business model” (OEBM). And although NEBM has been central to the microelectronics revolution, it has also been a source of employment instability and inequity in the distribution of income. Lazonick explores the origins of the new era of employment insecurity and income inequality, and considers what governments, businesses, and individuals can do about it. He also asks whether the United States can refashion its high-tech business model to generate stable and equitable economic growth… |