Business & Economics

Shortlist, 2024 Best in Business Book Awards, Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing

Today, every business is talking about digital transformation. With the acceleration of new technologies, every organization knows it must adapt to survive. But by their own admission, 70 percent of businesses are failing to transform. Across industries, established companies are held back by bureaucracy, inertia, and old ways of working. How can businesses break through to drive real change?

The Digital Transformation Roadmap provides every leader with the answer. Acclaimed author and C-suite advisor David L. Rogers argues that businesses must transform not just products and business models—they must transform the organization itself. Based on two decades of research and advising companies around the world, Rogers identifies the five biggest barriers to digital transformation: vision, priorities, experimentation, governance, and capabilities. He then shows how any business can evolve by heeding the lessons of companies such as Disney, Walmart, Mastercard, Air Liquide, and the New York Times Company.

The Digital Transformation Roadmap provides a practical blueprint for organizational change, illustrated with real-world case studies and step-by-step planning tools. Rogers shows every leader how to think beyond the churn of new technologies and rebuild their organization for a world of constant change.

Leaders remain skeptical about the power of organizational culture even though extensive research shows that it is crucial to business success. Can a manager really influence an organization’s culture, or do executives just try to impose a culture on their employees? Is the concept of culture too vague to measure objectively and improve? What happens to valuable employees who feel left out by the prevailing culture? Even if a “good” culture makes team members happy, does it actually affect the bottom line?

This essential book answers the biggest questions about organizational culture, offering research-backed insights for leaders on shaping and managing an environment that spurs achievement. The management experts Jennifer A. Chatman and Glenn R. Carroll—a psychologist and a sociologist—draw on social-scientific findings to evaluate and debunk common misconceptions. They show how research on culture empowers managers to identify what really matters and deploy it productively. Chatman and Carroll also provide actionable levers to build and maintain organizational culture, from crafting a culture that supports strategic objectives to ensuring that it can adapt as conditions change.

Making Organizational Culture Great features compelling examples from companies and nonprofits including Apple, Genentech, Disney, Ford, Netflix, Maersk, Google, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, and many others. A practical guide for current and aspiring leaders, this book reveals how to manage culture consistently, comprehensively, and coherently.

Leaders remain skeptical about the power of organizational culture even though extensive research shows that it is crucial to business success. Can a manager really influence an organization’s culture, or do executives just try to impose a culture on their employees? Is the concept of culture too vague to measure objectively and improve? What happens to valuable employees who feel left out by the prevailing culture? Even if a “good” culture makes team members happy, does it actually affect the bottom line?

This essential book answers the biggest questions about organizational culture, offering research-backed insights for leaders on shaping and managing an environment that spurs achievement. The management experts Jennifer A. Chatman and Glenn R. Carroll—a psychologist and a sociologist—draw on social-scientific findings to evaluate and debunk common misconceptions. They show how research on culture empowers managers to identify what really matters and deploy it productively. Chatman and Carroll also provide actionable levers to build and maintain organizational culture, from crafting a culture that supports strategic objectives to ensuring that it can adapt as conditions change.

Making Organizational Culture Great features compelling examples from companies and nonprofits including Apple, Genentech, Disney, Ford, Netflix, Maersk, Google, Cisco, Southwest Airlines, and many others. A practical guide for current and aspiring leaders, this book reveals how to manage culture consistently, comprehensively, and coherently.

One of the most pressing issues in development today is the employment challenge in low- and middle-income countries. As more young people enter the labor force—and as structural transformation unfolds amid deindustrialization, technological disruption, and global competition—the question of how to create sufficient decent jobs has become central to the economic future of the Global South. Although this is a shared challenge across developing regions, it is particularly acute in Africa, where rapid demographic change and urbanization are colliding with limited industrial expansion.

Bringing together leading international scholars, The Future of Work in Developing Countries examines the employment problem from multiple perspectives. Early chapters develop conceptual frameworks around corporations and the global hierarchy of production. Subsequent contributions investigate the dynamics of structural transformation, the role of firms in linking production and labor to surplus, and the design of industrial and technology policies. Later chapters turn to detailed case studies—especially from Africa—that illustrate the possibilities and limits of different growth paths, and comparative insights from Asia and Latin America provide further perspective.

By combining rigorous theoretical analysis with grounded empirical research, this book demonstrates that employment creation is not an automatic byproduct of growth but a political and institutional project. It offers fresh insights for scholars of development, political economy, and economic history, as well as for policy makers seeking strategies to promote inclusive transformation in Africa and beyond.

Healthcare is broken—but we can fix it. Our current system is plagued by staggering costs, inadequate outcomes, and pervasive inequities. How can we deliver long-overdue change and make this system work for everyone?

In this groundbreaking book, Halle Tecco provides an insider’s guide to transforming our healthcare system through innovation. Drawing from her extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, and professor, she delivers a practical roadmap for addressing the most pressing challenges. Combining personal narratives, compelling case studies, and actionable frameworks, Tecco explores how to identify opportunities for meaningful change and build sustainable, scalable solutions that align profit with purpose. She acknowledges the difficulties—such as regulatory hurdles, misaligned incentives, and resistance to change—but shows how entrepreneurs can turn obstacles into their competitive advantage.

Bridging the gap between Silicon Valley dynamism and healthcare’s evidence-based approach, Massively Better Healthcare offers a realistic yet optimistic view of what’s possible. Written for everyone from seasoned professionals to aspiring innovators, this book shares an inspiring and attainable vision of a better healthcare system and equips readers with the essential tools to succeed.

Many companies claim to prize innovation but struggle to support it in practice. CEOs call innovation their number-one priority in surveys, yet their employees say they are frequently frustrated in their efforts to create change. The biggest reason for this disconnect? Playing it safe. Leaders and organizations want to implement new ideas, but too often they are held back by the fear of failure, even though setbacks are intrinsic to the innovation process.

In No Fear, No Failure, Lorraine H. Marchand shows readers how to overcome the status quo that stifles creative thinking and to create a culture that encourages innovation. She provides a framework for sustained growth built on the “5 Cs”: Customer First, Culture, Collaboration, Change, and Chance. Drawing on more than 120 interviews with leaders across industries, real-world case studies, and firsthand experience, Marchand demonstrates how to spark lasting transformation. She shares field-tested strategies, tactics, and tools that practitioners can use to embed creativity within organizational cultures, leverage innovation to ensure better results, and future-proof a company for the long haul. Practical and inspiring, No Fear, No Failure is a step-by-step guide for organizations of every type and size to drive growth by fostering a culture of innovation.

To be successful as an investor, one needs a framework. And no investing framework works without numbers. Although quantitative methods can be intimidating, they provide a major boost to the quality of analysis. Written for readers without a technical background, Finding Value in Numbers is an engaging and practical guide to how thoughtful investors can use numbers—not just for the sake of crunching data but for making better decisions.

Using a value investing perspective, Ehsan Ehsani shows how to deploy quantitative tools to identify and analyze investment prospects, demystifying the math that points to overlooked opportunities in the stock market, other securities, and beyond. Numbers help us grasp what a company is worth and why: the quality of a business, the durability of its competitive edge, and the reasonableness of its price. Combining practical frameworks with real-world examples, Ehsani walks readers through key concepts that enable robust analysis while explaining how to spot red flags. Along the way, he reveals how a disciplined, numbers-based approach can support both conviction and patience—two traits every successful investor needs. Blending quantitative insight with timeless investing wisdom, Finding Value in Numbers is an essential book for aspiring and professional investors looking to hone their skills as well as curious readers drawn to the inner workings of markets.

The most powerful brands don’t just capture attention—they ignite change. Branding as a Cultural Force invites readers to reimagine branding as a force for good, one that shapes culture, sparks movements, and drives meaningful social impact.

Going beyond traditional branding, Robin Landa explores how companies play pivotal roles in shaping culture, advancing causes, and forging emotional connections with their audiences. While most branding guides focus on commercial success, this book emphasizes how brands can align with their audiences’ values to drive social transformation. Through real-world case studies and practical strategies, it reframes branding as a tool for influence, advocacy, and activism.

A standout feature of this book is a series of exclusive interviews with leading voices in branding, design, and advertising. These creative professionals share how they craft resonant campaigns, build cultural legacies, and stay grounded in core values, offering insights for building brands that stand for more than just profit.

Branding as a Cultural Force provides actionable guidance on telling authentic brand stories, aligning with consumer values, and creating shareworthy campaigns. With a distinctive focus on the intersection of brand purpose and cultural impact, this book challenges readers to rethink branding as a vehicle for systemic change.

Panels often suffer from lackluster, disorganized discussions despite the presence of qualified experts. Frequently, the fault lies with poorly prepared moderators who fail to manage the panel effectively, resulting in a frustrating experience for audiences, panelists, and organizers alike. A well-trained moderator is essential for ensuring a successful panel by preparing thoroughly and engaging both the panelists and the audience.

This book, written by an experienced moderator who has led panels of all sizes, offers a comprehensive start-to-finish guide to facilitating a panel. It covers everything from understanding the panel’s purpose and audience to selecting the right participants, conducting pre-panel preparation, and managing potential disruptions. Included are multiple checklists and sample documents to assist moderators throughout the process. The book also provides valuable insights for panelists, helping them improve their performance and contribute more effectively.

As panels become more prominent at conferences and events, the pressure to perform well has increased. A well-prepared and engaging panel provides exposure, resulting in opportunities for moderators and panelists to grow their brands and advance their careers. This essential book equips panel participants with the tools they need to excel and make a lasting impression.

Panels often suffer from lackluster, disorganized discussions despite the presence of qualified experts. Frequently, the fault lies with poorly prepared moderators who fail to manage the panel effectively, resulting in a frustrating experience for audiences, panelists, and organizers alike. A well-trained moderator is essential for ensuring a successful panel by preparing thoroughly and engaging both the panelists and the audience.

This book, written by an experienced moderator who has led panels of all sizes, offers a comprehensive start-to-finish guide to facilitating a panel. It covers everything from understanding the panel’s purpose and audience to selecting the right participants, conducting pre-panel preparation, and managing potential disruptions. Included are multiple checklists and sample documents to assist moderators throughout the process. The book also provides valuable insights for panelists, helping them improve their performance and contribute more effectively.

As panels become more prominent at conferences and events, the pressure to perform well has increased. A well-prepared and engaging panel provides exposure, resulting in opportunities for moderators and panelists to grow their brands and advance their careers. This essential book equips panel participants with the tools they need to excel and make a lasting impression.

One of the greatest challenges facing any start-up is “crossing the chasm”: bridging the gap between early adopters and mass-market buyers. Yet many promising businesses struggle even to reach the chasm. Often, founders leap in with money and a dream only to hit a wall. How can start-up founders diagnose and fix problems in order to arrive at this critical point?

Edward G. Amoroso provides an indispensable guide for start-ups looking to get off the ground and scale up to the next level. Getting to the chasm, as he illustrates through dozens of real-world case studies, requires long-term vision. Founders must focus on their core belief system—not simply what they do but why they are in business in the first place. Buyers connect with start-ups based on shared beliefs, and any founding team that does not understand this secret will struggle to build relationships with customers. Amoroso shares field-tested guidance for businesses in different spaces and stages on crafting a compelling message, understanding customers, benchmarking against competitors, and leveraging what makes a company irreplaceable. For founders, venture capital teams, private equity firms, investors, and readers with an interest in entrepreneurship, Reaching the Chasm is the roadmap for early-stage start-up success.

Chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy proceedings are commonly thought of as a tool to protect the broader economy from the failure of large firms, even though the biggest players reap the greatest rewards. In the conventional telling, modern corporate reorganization began in the 1890s, with J. P. Morgan leading a noble effort to protect bondholders from the depredations of corporate insiders. What does this story leave out, and how do the true origins of bankruptcy law shed light on its present-day uses and abuses?

To Protect Their Interests is a groundbreaking historical account of how corporate bankruptcy became what it is today—a forum for battles between well-heeled insiders. Stephen J. Lubben strips away the myths surrounding the history of corporate restructuring, showing that it emerged a decade before Morgan, when the robber baron Jay Gould strove to keep control of his railroad by working out a compromise with a handful of wealthy investors. The 1885 restructuring of Texas and Pacific Railway set the pattern for future corporate reorganizations: insider dealing, elite manipulation of the legal system, and judicial deference. Lubben traces the evolution of the bankruptcy system through a series of major cases involving companies such as W. T. Grant and Toys “R” Us, demonstrating that it has always been a way for the powerful to maintain power. Revealing the sordid origins of bankruptcy law, this book also considers the limited prospects for reform.

Chapter 11 corporate bankruptcy proceedings are commonly thought of as a tool to protect the broader economy from the failure of large firms, even though the biggest players reap the greatest rewards. In the conventional telling, modern corporate reorganization began in the 1890s, with J. P. Morgan leading a noble effort to protect bondholders from the depredations of corporate insiders. What does this story leave out, and how do the true origins of bankruptcy law shed light on its present-day uses and abuses?

To Protect Their Interests is a groundbreaking historical account of how corporate bankruptcy became what it is today—a forum for battles between well-heeled insiders. Stephen J. Lubben strips away the myths surrounding the history of corporate restructuring, showing that it emerged a decade before Morgan, when the robber baron Jay Gould strove to keep control of his railroad by working out a compromise with a handful of wealthy investors. The 1885 restructuring of Texas and Pacific Railway set the pattern for future corporate reorganizations: insider dealing, elite manipulation of the legal system, and judicial deference. Lubben traces the evolution of the bankruptcy system through a series of major cases involving companies such as W. T. Grant and Toys “R” Us, demonstrating that it has always been a way for the powerful to maintain power. Revealing the sordid origins of bankruptcy law, this book also considers the limited prospects for reform.

Economic stagnation, financial crisis, and increasing inequality have provoked worldwide debate about the reshaping of the market economy. But few are willing to risk a reorientation of dominant ideas and a reform of entrenched structures. Right-wing populism has stepped into the void created by a failure to imagine structural alternatives. Tamara Lothian offers a deeper view showing the path to the reconstruction of the economy in the service of both growth and inclusion. She probes the institutional innovations that would reignite economic growth by democratizing the market. Progressives have traditionally focused only on the demand side of the economy, abandoning the supply side to conservatives. Law and the Wealth of Nations offers a progressive approach to the supply side of the economy and proposes innovation in our fundamental economic arrangements.

Lothian begins by exploring how finance can serve broad-based economic growth rather than serving only itself. She goes on to show how the reform of finance can lead into the democratization of the economy. How, she asks, can we ensure that the most advanced, knowledge-intensive practices of production spread throughout the economy rather than remaining in the hands of the entrepreneurial and technological elite? How can we anchor greater economic equality and empowerment in the way we organize the economy rather than just trying to diminish inequalities after the fact by progressive taxation and entitlements? How can we revise legal thought and economic theory to develop the intellectual equipment that these tasks require? Law and the Wealth of Nations will appeal to all who are searching for ways to think practically about change in our economic and political institutions.

Where are the next decade's greatest investment opportunities? Veteran investor Marko Dimitrijevic argues that they can be found in frontier markets, which account for seventy-one of the world's seventy-five fastest-growing economies and 19 percent of the world's GDP. Yet many investors ignore them. Fueled by new access to technology and information, frontier markets are emerging even faster than their predecessors, making them an essential component of a globally diversified portfolio.

In Frontier Investor, Dimitrijevic shows through colorful case studies, compelling charts, and fascinating travel anecdotes that it is not only possible but prudent to invest in these unfamiliar and undervalued options. Dimitrijevic explains how frontier markets such as Nigeria, Panama, and Bangladesh are poised to follow the similar paths of Chinese, Indian, and Russian markets, which were considered exotic two decades ago. He details a strategy for how and where to invest, directly or indirectly, to profit from frontier growth. Dimitrijevic covers the risks, political and otherwise, of these markets, the megatrends that promise exciting investment opportunities in the coming years, and the prospects for countries beyond the frontier, including Myanmar, Cuba, and even Iran. Rich with experience and insight, Frontier Investor opens up a whole new world—and worldview—to investors.

Economic stagnation, financial crisis, and increasing inequality have provoked worldwide debate about the reshaping of the market economy. But few are willing to risk a reorientation of dominant ideas and a reform of entrenched structures. Right-wing populism has stepped into the void created by a failure to imagine structural alternatives. Tamara Lothian offers a deeper view showing the path to the reconstruction of the economy in the service of both growth and inclusion. She probes the institutional innovations that would reignite economic growth by democratizing the market. Progressives have traditionally focused only on the demand side of the economy, abandoning the supply side to conservatives. Law and the Wealth of Nations offers a progressive approach to the supply side of the economy and proposes innovation in our fundamental economic arrangements.

Lothian begins by exploring how finance can serve broad-based economic growth rather than serving only itself. She goes on to show how the reform of finance can lead into the democratization of the economy. How, she asks, can we ensure that the most advanced, knowledge-intensive practices of production spread throughout the economy rather than remaining in the hands of the entrepreneurial and technological elite? How can we anchor greater economic equality and empowerment in the way we organize the economy rather than just trying to diminish inequalities after the fact by progressive taxation and entitlements? How can we revise legal thought and economic theory to develop the intellectual equipment that these tasks require? Law and the Wealth of Nations will appeal to all who are searching for ways to think practically about change in our economic and political institutions.

Facing especially wicked problems, social sector organizations are searching for powerful new methods to understand and address them. Design Thinking for the Greater Good goes in depth on both the how of using new tools and the why. As a way to reframe problems, ideate solutions, and iterate toward better answers, design thinking is already well established in the commercial world. Through ten stories of struggles and successes in fields such as health care, education, agriculture, transportation, social services, and security, the authors show how collaborative creativity can shake up even the most entrenched bureaucracies—and provide a practical roadmap for readers to implement these tools.

The design thinkers Jeanne Liedtka, Randy Salzman, and Daisy Azer explore how major agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the Transportation and Security Administration in the United States, as well as organizations in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom, have instituted principles of design thinking. In each case, these groups have used the tools of design thinking to reduce risk, manage change, use resources more effectively, bridge the communication gap between parties, and manage the competing demands of diverse stakeholders. Along the way, they have improved the quality of their products and enhanced the experiences of those they serve. These strategies are accessible to analytical and creative types alike, and their benefits extend throughout an organization. This book will help today's leaders and thinkers implement these practices in their own pursuit of creative solutions that are both innovative and achievable.

Meritocracy—advancing and rewarding people based on their talents and hard work—is a widely embraced ideal across education, business, and government. It drives modern talent management systems designed to attract, screen, and retain the most qualified and highest-performing individuals. But although meritocracy largely replaced patronage and favoritism linked to class, wealth, or family connections, today it has come under scrutiny for contributing to social inequalities and reinforcing systemic biases. Why did what was once heralded as a progressive solution to inherited privilege come to perpetuate unfairness and inequity? What can go wrong when organizations rely on merit as their guiding principle? How can today’s leaders address these failures?

In The Meritocracy Paradox, Emilio J. Castilla offers timely new answers to these fundamental questions. He analyzes the structure and culture of meritocracy inside organizations, providing real-world examples—from merit-based bonus systems in companies to admissions decisions at elite universities—to show how personal biases and other social barriers can undermine the values and outcomes these systems are meant to uphold. Castilla provides a practical, research-backed framework to help organizations achieve true fairness and opportunity for all. Drawing on successful data-based interventions, he presents concrete strategies for improving selection, hiring, evaluation, promotion, and compensation processes—revealing how motivated leaders can identify and correct shortcomings with cost-effective, targeted solutions that deliver proven results.

The Meritocracy Paradox is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand and improve the intersection of merit, fairness, and equal opportunity in contemporary organizations.

What do Warren Buffett and Friedrich Nietzsche have in common? Why does Baruch Spinoza’s understanding of irrational emotions help explain financial markets? How did Voltaire’s success in a bond lottery arbitrage shape his writing? Can David Hume teach an investor when to buck the consensus and when to heed it?

Exploring these questions and many others, Ethan A. Everett reveals the surprising lessons we can learn about investing from major philosophers. Demystifying ideas and texts that can often seem intimidating or irrelevant, he shows how philosophical concepts can be fruitfully applied to financial markets. Everett shares how philosophers’ insights have informed his development as an investor, and he considers how great investors have embodied philosophical wisdom in their own endeavors.

Inviting and engaging, The Investment Philosophers presents evergreen insights in language that is accessible to readers who are beginning their journeys in finance and philosophy. Ranging from the birth of modern securities markets in seventeenth-century Amsterdam to recent trends like meme stocks, this book shows why a philosophical perspective can prove invaluable to challenging common assumptions in finance.

The United States has long epitomized capitalism. From its enterprising shopkeepers, wildcat banks, violent slave plantations, huge industrial working class, and raucous commodities trade to its world-spanning multinationals, its massive factories, and the centripetal power of New York in the world of finance, America has come to symbolize capitalism for two centuries and more. But an understanding of the history of American capitalism is as elusive as it is urgent. What does it mean to make capitalism a subject of historical inquiry? What is its potential across multiple disciplines, alongside different methodologies, and in a range of geographic and chronological settings? And how does a focus on capitalism change our understanding of American history?

American Capitalism presents a sampling of cutting-edge research from prominent scholars. These broad-minded and rigorous essays venture new angles on finance, debt, and credit; women’s rights; slavery and political economy; the racialization of capitalism; labor beyond industrial wage workers; and the production of knowledge, including the idea of the economy, among other topics. Together, the essays suggest emerging themes in the field: a fascination with capitalism as it is made by political authority, how it is claimed and contested by participants, how it spreads across the globe, and how it can be reconceptualized without being universalized. A major statement for a wide-open field, this book demonstrates the breadth and scope of the work that the history of capitalism can provoke.

Everyone deserves to be able to retire with dignity, but this core feature of the social contract is in jeopardy. Companies have swerved away from pensions, and most of the workforce has woefully inadequate retirement savings. If we don’t act to fix this broken system, rates of impoverishment for senior citizens threaten to skyrocket, and tens of millions of Americans reaching retirement age in the coming decades will be forced to delay retirement and will experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living.

In Rescuing Retirement, Teresa Ghilarducci and Tony James offer a comprehensive yet simple plan to help workers save for retirement, increase retirement savings by earning higher returns, and guarantee lifelong income for everyone. Built on people’s own money in individual Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, the plan requires no new taxes, no more bureaucracy, and no increase in the deficit. Speaking to Americans’ growing anxiety about their ability to retire, Rescuing Retirement provides answers to anyone wanting to understand the growing movement to protect a period of life once considered a deserved time of rest and creativity and offers a practical guide to the future of secure retirement.

As consumers, our access to—and appetite for—information about what and how we buy continues to grow. Powered by social media, we scrutinize the companies behind familiar products and are disappointed when their actions do not meet our expectations. With citizens acting as 24/7 auditors of corporate behavior, one formerly trusted company after another has had their business disrupted with astonishing velocity. Control of the corporate narrative has shifted to engaged stakeholders in the new social landscape, requiring a radical change to company practices.

James Rubin and Barie Carmichael provide a strategic roadmap for businesses to navigate the new era, rebuild trust, and find their voice. Reset traces the global decline of trust in business at the same time that the public’s expectations for business’s role in society are rising. Today, businesses must bridge this widening gap, which requires strategic solutions anchored in a critical outside-in understanding of the stakeholder footprint of the business model. C-suite executives who proactively mitigate the negative social impacts inherent in their business models, strategies, and operations can find win-win solutions that not only benefit both their business and society, but also enable sustainable growth in the challenging new social landscape. Rubin and Carmichael offer case studies of reputations lost and found, suggesting fundamental strategies to mitigate risk and build the corporate brand. Reset is an essential guide to navigating the pitfalls and taking advantage of the opportunities of the reset.

Over roughly the past decade, oil and gas production in the United States has surged dramatically—thanks largely to technological advances such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “fracking.” This rapid increase has generated widespread debate, with proponents touting economic and energy-security benefits and opponents highlighting the environmental and social risks of increased oil and gas production. Despite the heated debate, neither side has a monopoly on the facts. In this book, Daniel Raimi gives a balanced and accessible view of oil and gas development, clearly and thoroughly explaining the key issues surrounding the shale revolution.

The Fracking Debate directly addresses the most common questions and concerns associated with fracking: What is fracking? Does fracking pollute the water supply? Will fracking make the United States energy independent? Does fracking cause earthquakes? How is fracking regulated? Is fracking good for the economy? Coupling a deep understanding of the scholarly research with lessons from his travels to every major U.S. oil- and gas-producing region, Raimi highlights stories of the people and communities affected by the shale revolution, for better and for worse. The Fracking Debate provides the evidence and context that have so frequently been missing from the national discussion of the future of oil and gas production, offering readers the tools to make sense of this critical issue.

Nations and international organizations are increasingly using sanctions as a means to achieve their foreign policy aims. However, sanctions are ineffective if they are executed without a clear strategy responsive to the nature and changing behavior of the target. In The Art of Sanctions, Richard Nephew offers a much-needed practical framework for planning and applying sanctions that focuses not just on the initial sanctions strategy but also, crucially, on how to calibrate along the way and how to decide when sanctions have achieved maximum effectiveness.

Nephew—a leader in the design and implementation of sanctions on Iran—develops guidelines for interpreting targets’ responses to sanctions based on two critical factors: pain and resolve. The efficacy of sanctions lies in the application of pain against a target, but targets may have significant resolve to resist, tolerate, or overcome this pain. Understanding the interplay of pain and resolve is central to using sanctions both successfully and humanely. With attention to these two key variables, and to how they change over the course of a sanctions regime, policy makers can pinpoint when diplomatic intervention is likely to succeed or when escalation is necessary. Focusing on lessons learned from sanctions on both Iran and Iraq, Nephew provides policymakers with practical guidance on how to measure and respond to pain and resolve in the service of strong and successful sanctions regimes.

Over roughly the past decade, oil and gas production in the United States has surged dramatically—thanks largely to technological advances such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “fracking.” This rapid increase has generated widespread debate, with proponents touting economic and energy-security benefits and opponents highlighting the environmental and social risks of increased oil and gas production. Despite the heated debate, neither side has a monopoly on the facts. In this book, Daniel Raimi gives a balanced and accessible view of oil and gas development, clearly and thoroughly explaining the key issues surrounding the shale revolution.

The Fracking Debate directly addresses the most common questions and concerns associated with fracking: What is fracking? Does fracking pollute the water supply? Will fracking make the United States energy independent? Does fracking cause earthquakes? How is fracking regulated? Is fracking good for the economy? Coupling a deep understanding of the scholarly research with lessons from his travels to every major U.S. oil- and gas-producing region, Raimi highlights stories of the people and communities affected by the shale revolution, for better and for worse. The Fracking Debate provides the evidence and context that have so frequently been missing from the national discussion of the future of oil and gas production, offering readers the tools to make sense of this critical issue.

For all of their focus on asset prices, financial economists rarely ask if assets are priced ethically—that is, if their prices are compatible with the public good. Yet in a world facing major, possibly catastrophic problems—global warming, for instance, and growing inequality—it is now more important than ever that we allocate capital to projects that will benefit society as a whole, not just today but far into the future. In this book, Christian Gollier develops a powerful method for transforming our societal goals of collective prosperity into the cornerstone of our financial decision making.

Ethical Asset Valuation and the Good Society starts by stating transparent moral principles and, from these, derives simple rules that can be used to evaluate saving and investment decisions in terms of the public good. Rather than trying to explain observed asset prices, Gollier derives what these prices ought to be in order to direct capital toward socially desirable investments. He focuses especially on the two prices that drive most financial decisions—the price of time as reflected in the interest rate and the price of risk—and explores the role these play in our long-term planning. If investment projects in renewable energy could be financed at a lower interest rate than those linked to fossil fuels, for instance, the energy transition would be easier to accomplish. Building on criticism of the short-term thinking of financial markets, Gollier suggests ways to shift investment toward the future through the discounting of the valuation of assets and investments with long-term benefits. In this sophisticated but accessible work, Gollier builds a bridge between welfare economics and finance theory to provide a framework for ethical valuation capable of establishing what asset prices should be on the basis of our shared moral values.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have reached a transitional moment. Created as a way to direct excess wealth toward economic development and long-term financial returns, some countries are now seeing a decline in revenue from sources such as oil. Many SWFs are now facing a new challenge—how to spend sustainably without depleting the funds. Sovereign Wealth Funds in Resource Economies explains the fiscal rules and institutional structures that can make SWFs thrive, providing a practical and theoretical guide to their optimal use in resource-revenue management.

Khalid Alsweilem and Malan Rietveld put forward an institutional perspective of SWFs as quasi-independent political and economic entities charged with managing national resource wealth, examining both investment and disbursement strategies. They advance a systematic, rule-based approach, suggesting when to accumulate and when to begin countercyclical spending based on concrete case studies. More than a mere financial portfolio, SWFs must be embedded in a credible fiscal and institutional framework if they are to contribute to improved economic performance. Alsweilem and Rietveld consider the variety of relationships that exist between SWFs and their governments, exploring the legal and policy side of the institutional approach. Their rule-based description of SWFs, since it allows tailoring and adjustment and invokes rules of thumb and best practices, is intended to be widely applicable across the diverse spectrum of global SWFs. Bringing together the practitioner perspective and scholarly expertise, this book will be invaluable for global policy makers and scholars working with sovereign wealth funds.

The 2008 financial collapse, the expansion of corporate and private wealth, the influence of money in politics—many of Wall Street's contemporary trends can be traced back to the work of fourteen critical figures who wrote, and occasionally broke, the rules of American finance.

Edward Morris plots in absorbing detail Wall Street's transformation from a clubby enclave of financiers to a symbol of vast economic power. His book begins with J. Pierpont Morgan, who ruled the American banking system at the turn of the twentieth century, and ends with Sandy Weill, whose collapsing Citigroup required the largest taxpayer bailout in history. In between, Wall Streeters relates the triumphs and missteps of twelve other financial visionaries. From Charles Merrill, who founded Merrill Lynch and introduced the small investor to the American stock market; to Michael Milken, the so-called junk bond king; to Jack Bogle, whose index funds redefined the mutual fund business; to Myron Scholes, who laid the groundwork for derivative securities; and to Benjamin Graham, who wrote the book on securities analysis. Anyone interested in the modern institution of American finance will devour this history of some of its most important players.

The 2008 financial collapse, the expansion of corporate and private wealth, the influence of money in politics—many of Wall Street's contemporary trends can be traced back to the work of fourteen critical figures who wrote, and occasionally broke, the rules of American finance.

Edward Morris plots in absorbing detail Wall Street's transformation from a clubby enclave of financiers to a symbol of vast economic power. His book begins with J. Pierpont Morgan, who ruled the American banking system at the turn of the twentieth century, and ends with Sandy Weill, whose collapsing Citigroup required the largest taxpayer bailout in history. In between, Wall Streeters relates the triumphs and missteps of twelve other financial visionaries. From Charles Merrill, who founded Merrill Lynch and introduced the small investor to the American stock market; to Michael Milken, the so-called junk bond king; to Jack Bogle, whose index funds redefined the mutual fund business; to Myron Scholes, who laid the groundwork for derivative securities; and to Benjamin Graham, who wrote the book on securities analysis. Anyone interested in the modern institution of American finance will devour this history of some of its most important players.

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom"—a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management—allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.

Munger's system has steered his investments for forty years and has guided generations of successful investors. This book presents the essential steps of Munger's investing strategy, condensed here for the first time from interviews, speeches, writings, and shareholder letters, and paired with commentary from fund managers, value investors, and business-case historians. Derived from Ben Graham's value-investing system, Munger's approach is straightforward enough that ordinary investors can apply it to their portfolios. This book is not simply about investing. It is about cultivating mental models for your whole life, but especially for your investments.

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway's visionary vice chairman and Warren Buffett's indispensable financial partner, has outperformed market indexes again and again, and he believes any investor can do the same. His notion of "elementary, worldly wisdom"—a set of interdisciplinary mental models involving economics, business, psychology, ethics, and management—allows him to keep his emotions out of his investments and avoid the common pitfalls of bad judgment.

Munger's system has steered his investments for forty years and has guided generations of successful investors. This book presents the essential steps of Munger's investing strategy, condensed here for the first time from interviews, speeches, writings, and shareholder letters, and paired with commentary from fund managers, value investors, and business-case historians. Derived from Ben Graham's value-investing system, Munger's approach is straightforward enough that ordinary investors can apply it to their portfolios. This book is not simply about investing. It is about cultivating mental models for your whole life, but especially for your investments.

Life insurance—the promise of an insurer to pay a sum upon a person's death in exchange for a regular premium—is a bizarre enterprise. How can we monetize human life? Should we? What statistics do we use, what assumptions do we make, and what behavioral factors do we consider? First published in 1979, Morals and Markets Is a pathbreaking study exploring the development of life insurance in the United States. Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer combines economic history and a sociological perspective to advance a novel interpretation of the life insurance industry. The book pioneered a cultural approach to the analysis of morally controversial markets.

Zelizer begins in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the life insurance industry, a contentious chapter in the history of American business. Life insurance was stigmatized at first, denounced in newspapers and condemned by religious leaders as an immoral and sacrilegious gamble on human life. Over time, the business became a widely praised arrangement to secure a family's future. How did life insurance overcome cultural barriers? As Zelizer shows, the evolution of the industry in the United States matched evolving attitudes toward death, money, family relations, property, and personal legacy.

A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs shows how the insights of leading venture capitalists can teach readers to create a unique approach to building a successful business. Through profiles and interviews of figures such as Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital, Marc Andreesen and Ben Horowitz of Andreesen Horowitz, and Jenny Lee of GGV Capital, Tren Griffin draws out the fundamental lessons from their ideas and experiences. Entrepreneurs should learn from past successes but also be prepared to break new ground. While there are best practices, there is no single recipe they should follow. By better understanding the views and experiences of a wide range of successful venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, readers can discern which of many possible paths will lead to success.

With insight and verve, Griffin argues that innovation and best practices are discovered by the experimentation of entrepreneurs as they establish the evolutionary fitness of their business. The products and services created through this experimentation that have greater fitness survive, and less-fit products and services die. Entrepreneurs have always experimented when creating or altering a business. What is different today is the existence of modern tools and systems that allow experiments to be conducted more cheaply and rapidly than ever before. Griffin shows that listening to what the best venture capitalists have to say is invaluable for entrepreneurs. Their experiences, if studied carefully, teach bedrock methods and guiding principles for approaching business.

Life insurance—the promise of an insurer to pay a sum upon a person's death in exchange for a regular premium—is a bizarre enterprise. How can we monetize human life? Should we? What statistics do we use, what assumptions do we make, and what behavioral factors do we consider? First published in 1979, Morals and Markets Is a pathbreaking study exploring the development of life insurance in the United States. Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer combines economic history and a sociological perspective to advance a novel interpretation of the life insurance industry. The book pioneered a cultural approach to the analysis of morally controversial markets.

Zelizer begins in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of the life insurance industry, a contentious chapter in the history of American business. Life insurance was stigmatized at first, denounced in newspapers and condemned by religious leaders as an immoral and sacrilegious gamble on human life. Over time, the business became a widely praised arrangement to secure a family's future. How did life insurance overcome cultural barriers? As Zelizer shows, the evolution of the industry in the United States matched evolving attitudes toward death, money, family relations, property, and personal legacy.

Kosher USA follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system. It recounts how iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O tried to become kosher; the contentious debates among rabbis over the incorporation of modern science into Jewish law; how Manischewitz wine became the first kosher product to win over non-Jewish consumers (principally African Americans); the techniques used by Orthodox rabbinical organizations to embed kosher requirements into food manufacturing; and the difficulties encountered by kosher meat and other kosher foods that fell outside the American culinary consensus.

Kosher USA is filled with big personalities, rare archival finds, and surprising influences: the Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen, who made Coke kosher; the lay chemist and kosher-certification pioneer Abraham Goldstein; the kosher-meat magnate Harry Kassel; and the animal-rights advocate Temple Grandin, a strong supporter of shechita, or Jewish slaughtering practice. By exploring the complex encounter between ancient religious principles and modern industrial methods, Kosher USA adds a significant chapter to the story of Judaism's interaction with non-Jewish cultures and the history of modern Jewish American life as well as American foodways.

Kosher USA follows the fascinating journey of kosher food through the modern industrial food system. It recounts how iconic products such as Coca-Cola and Jell-O tried to become kosher; the contentious debates among rabbis over the incorporation of modern science into Jewish law; how Manischewitz wine became the first kosher product to win over non-Jewish consumers (principally African Americans); the techniques used by Orthodox rabbinical organizations to embed kosher requirements into food manufacturing; and the difficulties encountered by kosher meat and other kosher foods that fell outside the American culinary consensus.

Kosher USA is filled with big personalities, rare archival finds, and surprising influences: the Atlanta rabbi Tobias Geffen, who made Coke kosher; the lay chemist and kosher-certification pioneer Abraham Goldstein; the kosher-meat magnate Harry Kassel; and the animal-rights advocate Temple Grandin, a strong supporter of shechita, or Jewish slaughtering practice. By exploring the complex encounter between ancient religious principles and modern industrial methods, Kosher USA adds a significant chapter to the story of Judaism's interaction with non-Jewish cultures and the history of modern Jewish American life as well as American foodways.

Many of the world's major economies boast dominant international currencies. Not so for China. Its renminbi has lagged far behind the pound, the euro, and the dollar in global circulation—and for good reason. China has long privileged economic policies that have fueled development at the expense of the renminbi's growth, and it has become clear that the underpowered currency is threatening China's future. The nation's leaders now face the daunting task of strengthening the currency without losing control of the nation's economy or risking total collapse. How are they approaching this challenge?

In The People's Money, Paola Subacchi introduces readers to China's monetary system, mapping its evolution over the past century and, particularly, its transformation since Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Subacchi revisits the policies that fostered the country's economic rise while at the same time purposefully creating a currency of little use beyond China's borders. She shows the key to understanding China's economic predicament lies in past and future strategies for the renminbi. The financial turbulence following the global crisis of 2008, coupled with China's ambitions as a global creditor and chief economic power, has forced the nation to reckon with the limited international circulation of the renminbi. Increasing the currency's reach will play a major role in securing China's future.

Many of the world's major economies boast dominant international currencies. Not so for China. Its renminbi has lagged far behind the pound, the euro, and the dollar in global circulation—and for good reason. China has long privileged economic policies that have fueled development at the expense of the renminbi's growth, and it has become clear that the underpowered currency is threatening China's future. The nation's leaders now face the daunting task of strengthening the currency without losing control of the nation's economy or risking total collapse. How are they approaching this challenge?

In The People's Money, Paola Subacchi introduces readers to China's monetary system, mapping its evolution over the past century and, particularly, its transformation since Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Subacchi revisits the policies that fostered the country's economic rise while at the same time purposefully creating a currency of little use beyond China's borders. She shows the key to understanding China's economic predicament lies in past and future strategies for the renminbi. The financial turbulence following the global crisis of 2008, coupled with China's ambitions as a global creditor and chief economic power, has forced the nation to reckon with the limited international circulation of the renminbi. Increasing the currency's reach will play a major role in securing China's future.

In 1951, a new type of publication appeared on newsstands—the physique magazine produced by and for gay men. For many men growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, these magazines and their images and illustrations of nearly naked men, as well as articles, letters from readers, and advertisements, served as an initiation into gay culture. The publishers behind them were part of a wider world of “physique entrepreneurs”: men as well as women who ran photography studios, mail-order catalogs, pen-pal services, book clubs, and niche advertising for gay audiences. Such businesses have often been seen as peripheral to the gay political movement. In this book, David K. Johnson shows how gay commerce was not a byproduct but rather an important catalyst for the gay rights movement.

Offering a vivid look into the lives of physique entrepreneurs and their customers, and presenting a wealth of illustrations, Buying Gay explores the connections—and tensions—between the market and the movement. With circulation rates many times higher than the openly political “homophile” magazines, physique magazines were the largest gay media outlets of their time. This network of producers and consumers helped foster a gay community and upend censorship laws, paving the way for open expression. Physique entrepreneurs were at the center of legal struggles, especially against the U.S. Post Office, including the court victory that allowed full-frontal male nudity and open homoeroticism. Buying Gay reconceives the history of the gay rights movement and shows how consumer culture helped create community and a site for resistance.

In 1951, a new type of publication appeared on newsstands—the physique magazine produced by and for gay men. For many men growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, these magazines and their images and illustrations of nearly naked men, as well as articles, letters from readers, and advertisements, served as an initiation into gay culture. The publishers behind them were part of a wider world of “physique entrepreneurs”: men as well as women who ran photography studios, mail-order catalogs, pen-pal services, book clubs, and niche advertising for gay audiences. Such businesses have often been seen as peripheral to the gay political movement. In this book, David K. Johnson shows how gay commerce was not a byproduct but rather an important catalyst for the gay rights movement.

Offering a vivid look into the lives of physique entrepreneurs and their customers, and presenting a wealth of illustrations, Buying Gay explores the connections—and tensions—between the market and the movement. With circulation rates many times higher than the openly political “homophile” magazines, physique magazines were the largest gay media outlets of their time. This network of producers and consumers helped foster a gay community and upend censorship laws, paving the way for open expression. Physique entrepreneurs were at the center of legal struggles, especially against the U.S. Post Office, including the court victory that allowed full-frontal male nudity and open homoeroticism. Buying Gay reconceives the history of the gay rights movement and shows how consumer culture helped create community and a site for resistance.

Leadership is the habit of making good choices. Even in difficult and uncertain circumstances, the most effective leaders focus their attention and overcome entrenched patterns of behavior to push an organization to new heights of success. This capability is no fluke: the latest research on the brain shows that we can pinpoint the mental activity associated with it—and cultivate it for our benefit.

In this book, Art Kleiner, a strategy expert; Jeffrey Schwartz, a research psychiatrist; and Josie Thomson, an executive coach, give a transformative explanation of how cutting-edge neuroscience can help business leaders set a course toward better management. Mapping the functions of a manager onto established patterns of mental activity, they identify crucial brain circuits and their parallels in organizational culture. Strategic leaders, they show, play the role of wise advocates: able to go beyond day-to-day transactional behavior to a longer-term, broader perspective that articulates their organization’s deeper purpose. True leaders can play this influencer role in an organization because they have cultivated similar self-reflective habits in their own minds. Providing a powerful guide to decision strategies and their consequences, The Wise Advocate helps managers find their own inner voice and then make that voice ring out loud and clear, with a four-step program for practice and catalytic implications for management strategy, executive education, and business results.

From wood to coal to oil and gas, the sources of energy on which civilization depends have always changed as technology advances. Now renewables are overtaking fossil fuels, with wind and solar energy becoming cheaper and more competitive every year. Growth in renewable energy will further accelerate as electric vehicles become less expensive than traditional automobiles. Understanding the implications of the energy transition will prepare us for the many changes ahead.

This book is a primer for readers of all levels on the coming energy transition and its global consequences. Bruce Usher provides a concise yet comprehensive explanation for the extraordinary growth in wind and solar energy; the trajectory of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables; and the implications for industries, countries, and the climate. Written in a straightforward style with easy-to-understand visual aids, the book illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of renewable energy based on business fundamentals and analysis of the economic forces that have given renewables a tailwind. Usher dissects the winners and losers, illustrating how governments and businesses with a far-sighted approach will reap long-term benefits while others will trail behind. Alongside the business and finance case for renewable energy, he provides a timely illustration of the threat of catastrophic climate change and the perils of delay. A short and powerful guide to our energy present and future, this book makes it clear that, from both economic and environmental perspectives, there is no time to lose.

Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy.

Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

From wood to coal to oil and gas, the sources of energy on which civilization depends have always changed as technology advances. Now renewables are overtaking fossil fuels, with wind and solar energy becoming cheaper and more competitive every year. Growth in renewable energy will further accelerate as electric vehicles become less expensive than traditional automobiles. Understanding the implications of the energy transition will prepare us for the many changes ahead.

This book is a primer for readers of all levels on the coming energy transition and its global consequences. Bruce Usher provides a concise yet comprehensive explanation for the extraordinary growth in wind and solar energy; the trajectory of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables; and the implications for industries, countries, and the climate. Written in a straightforward style with easy-to-understand visual aids, the book illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of renewable energy based on business fundamentals and analysis of the economic forces that have given renewables a tailwind. Usher dissects the winners and losers, illustrating how governments and businesses with a far-sighted approach will reap long-term benefits while others will trail behind. Alongside the business and finance case for renewable energy, he provides a timely illustration of the threat of catastrophic climate change and the perils of delay. A short and powerful guide to our energy present and future, this book makes it clear that, from both economic and environmental perspectives, there is no time to lose.

Some of the worst corporate meltdowns over the past sixty years can be traced to passive directors who favored operational shortcuts over quality growth strategies. Thinking primarily about placating institutional investors, selective stockholders, proxy advisors, and corporate management, these inattentive and deferential board members have relied on short-term share price increases to sustain their companies long term. Driven by a desire for prosperity, not posterity, these actions can doom any company.

In The Activist Director, attorney Ira M. Millstein looks back at fifty years of counseling companies, nonprofits, and governments to actively govern their corporations and constituencies. From the threat of bankruptcy and the ConEd blackout of 1970s New York City, to the meltdown of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, to the turnaround of General Motors in the mid-1990s, Millstein takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of America's best-known corporations.

His solution lies at the top: a new breed of activist directors who partner with management and reject short-term outlooks, plan a future based on growth and innovation, and take responsibility for corporate organization, strategy, and efficiency. What questions should we ask of potential board members and how do we know they'll be active? Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation.

Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy.

Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

The CEO’s Boss, originally published in 2010, is the definitive guide to a productive working relationship between corporate boards and CEOs. Speaking to an era when company directors must monitor the actions and day-to-day operations of their CEO, William M. Klepper offers eight essential lessons to help boards operate more effectively in this bold and independent role. Since the publication of the first edition, Klepper has continued to develop and apply its lessons for a variety of businesses and settings.

In this second edition, Klepper renews the paradigm set forth in the first, with new case studies of companies such as Wells Fargo, BP, Hewlett-Packard, and Proctor & Gamble. Giving directors, executives, investors, and stakeholders the tools to make crucial relationships work, Klepper details the best techniques for selecting the right CEO, establishing a working relationship, and giving effective feedback. He affirms the importance of the social contract between directors and their CEOs, encourages directors to embrace their independence, and teaches executives to value tough love. He revisits the first edition’s case studies and derives new insights from how these companies followed—or failed to heed—the book’s precepts. He also takes a close look at the predictions he made almost ten years ago, providing new forecasts and integrating core knowledge to ensure that The CEO’s Boss remains essential in our ever-changing business landscape.

Some of the worst corporate meltdowns over the past sixty years can be traced to passive directors who favored operational shortcuts over quality growth strategies. Thinking primarily about placating institutional investors, selective stockholders, proxy advisors, and corporate management, these inattentive and deferential board members have relied on short-term share price increases to sustain their companies long term. Driven by a desire for prosperity, not posterity, these actions can doom any company.

In The Activist Director, attorney Ira M. Millstein looks back at fifty years of counseling companies, nonprofits, and governments to actively govern their corporations and constituencies. From the threat of bankruptcy and the ConEd blackout of 1970s New York City, to the meltdown of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, to the turnaround of General Motors in the mid-1990s, Millstein takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of America's best-known corporations.

His solution lies at the top: a new breed of activist directors who partner with management and reject short-term outlooks, plan a future based on growth and innovation, and take responsibility for corporate organization, strategy, and efficiency. What questions should we ask of potential board members and how do we know they'll be active? Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation.

The name elBulli is synonymous with creativity and innovation. Located in Catalonia, Spain, the three-star Michelin restaurant led the world to "molecular" or "techno-emotional" cooking and made creations, such as pine-nut marshmallows, rose-scented mozzarella, liquid olives, and melon caviar, into sensational reality. People traveled from all over the world—if they could secure a reservation during its six months of operation—to experience the wonder that chef Ferran Adrià and his team concocted in their test kitchen, never offering the same dish twice. Yet elBulli's business model proved unsustainable. The restaurant converted to a foundation in 2011, and is working hard on its next revolution. Will elBulli continue to innovate? What must an organization do to create something new?

Appetite for Innovation is an organizational analysis of elBulli and the nature of innovation. Pilar Opazo joined elBulli's inner circle as the restaurant transitioned from a for-profit business to its new organizational model. In this book, she compares this moment to the culture of change that first made elBulli famous, and then describes the novel forms of communication, idea mobilization, and embeddedness that continue to encourage the staff to focus and invent as a whole. She finds that the successful strategies employed by elBulli are similar to those required for innovation in art, music, business, and technology, proving the value of the elBulli model across organizations and industries.

Since the 1950s, Warren Buffett and his partners have backed some of the twentieth century's most profitable, trendsetting companies. But how did they know they were making the right investments? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and how can others replicate their approach?

A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffett's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an experienced investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1958 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies like See's Candies, the Washington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. Accessing partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work well for all investors in companies big and small, domestic and global. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be the breadth of his expertise.

The name elBulli is synonymous with creativity and innovation. Located in Catalonia, Spain, the three-star Michelin restaurant led the world to "molecular" or "techno-emotional" cooking and made creations, such as pine-nut marshmallows, rose-scented mozzarella, liquid olives, and melon caviar, into sensational reality. People traveled from all over the world—if they could secure a reservation during its six months of operation—to experience the wonder that chef Ferran Adrià and his team concocted in their test kitchen, never offering the same dish twice. Yet elBulli's business model proved unsustainable. The restaurant converted to a foundation in 2011, and is working hard on its next revolution. Will elBulli continue to innovate? What must an organization do to create something new?

Appetite for Innovation is an organizational analysis of elBulli and the nature of innovation. Pilar Opazo joined elBulli's inner circle as the restaurant transitioned from a for-profit business to its new organizational model. In this book, she compares this moment to the culture of change that first made elBulli famous, and then describes the novel forms of communication, idea mobilization, and embeddedness that continue to encourage the staff to focus and invent as a whole. She finds that the successful strategies employed by elBulli are similar to those required for innovation in art, music, business, and technology, proving the value of the elBulli model across organizations and industries.

A fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered a uniquely engaged workforce and an enviable capacity for change. Yet the path hasn't always been easy. TechCo has confronted a number of challenges, and its experience reveals the essential elements of bureaucracy that remain even when a firm sets out to discard them. Through it all, TechCo serves as a powerful new model for how firms can navigate today's rapidly changing technological and cultural climate.

Catherine J. Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months. The Conversational Firm is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn't. She offers multiple lessons for anyone curious about the effect of social media on the corporate environment and adds depth to debates over the new generation of employees reared on social media: Millennials who carry their technological habits and expectations into the workplace.

Marshaling insights from cultural and economic sociology, organizational theory, economics, technology studies, and anthropology, The Conversational Firm offers a nuanced analysis of corporate communication, control, and culture in the social media age.

Since the 1950s, Warren Buffett and his partners have backed some of the twentieth century's most profitable, trendsetting companies. But how did they know they were making the right investments? What did Buffet and his partners look for in an up-and-coming company, and how can others replicate their approach?

A gift to Buffett followers who have long sought a pattern to the investor's success, Inside the Investments of Warren Buffett presents the most detailed analysis to date of Buffett's long-term investment portfolio. Yefei Lu, an experienced investor, starts with Buffett's interest in the Sanborn Map Company in 1958 and tracks nineteen more of his major investments in companies like See's Candies, the Washington Post, GEICO, Coca-Cola, US Air, Wells Fargo, and IBM. Accessing partnership letters, company documents, annual reports, third-party references, and other original sources, Lu pinpoints what is unique about Buffett's timing, instinct, use of outside knowledge, and postinvestment actions, and he identifies what could work well for all investors in companies big and small, domestic and global. His substantial chronology accounts for broader world events and fluctuations in the U.S. stock market, suggesting Buffett's most important trait may be the breadth of his expertise.

A fast-growing social media marketing company, TechCo encourages all of its employees to speak up. By promoting open dialogue across the corporate hierarchy, the firm has fostered a uniquely engaged workforce and an enviable capacity for change. Yet the path hasn't always been easy. TechCo has confronted a number of challenges, and its experience reveals the essential elements of bureaucracy that remain even when a firm sets out to discard them. Through it all, TechCo serves as a powerful new model for how firms can navigate today's rapidly changing technological and cultural climate.

Catherine J. Turco was embedded within TechCo for ten months. The Conversational Firm is her ethnographic analysis of what worked at the company and what didn't. She offers multiple lessons for anyone curious about the effect of social media on the corporate environment and adds depth to debates over the new generation of employees reared on social media: Millennials who carry their technological habits and expectations into the workplace.

Marshaling insights from cultural and economic sociology, organizational theory, economics, technology studies, and anthropology, The Conversational Firm offers a nuanced analysis of corporate communication, control, and culture in the social media age.

Merger Masters presents revealing profiles of monumentally successful merger investors based on exclusive interviews with some of the greatest minds to practice the art of arbitrage. Michael Price, John Paulson, Paul Singer, and others offer practical perspectives on how their backgrounds in the risk-conscious world of merger arbitrage helped them make their biggest deals. They share their insights on the discipline that underlies their fortunes, whether they practice the “plain vanilla” strategy of announced deals, the aggressive strategy of activist investment, or any strategy in between on the risk spectrum.

Merger Masters delves into the human side of risk arbitrage, exploring how top practitioners deal with the behavioral aspects of generating consistent profits from risk arbitrage. The book also includes perspectives from the other side of the mergers and acquisitions divide in the form of interviews with a trio of iconic CEOs: Bill Stiritz, Peter McCausland, and Paul Montrone. All three took advantage of M&A opportunities to help build long-term returns but often found themselves at odds with the short-term focus of Wall Street and merger investors. Told in lively, accessible prose, with bonus facts and figures for transaction junkies, Merger Masters is an incomparable set of stories with plenty of unfiltered lessons from the best managers of our time.

The U.S. stock market has been transformed over the last twenty-five years. Once a market in which human beings traded at human speeds, it is now an electronic market pervaded by algorithmic trading, conducted at speeds nearing that of light. High-frequency traders participate in a large portion of all transactions, and a significant minority of all trade occurs on alternative trading systems known as “dark pools.” These developments have been widely criticized, but there is no consensus on the best regulatory response to these dramatic changes.

The New Stock Market offers a comprehensive new look at how these markets work, how they fail, and how they should be regulated. Merritt B. Fox, Lawrence R. Glosten, and Gabriel V. Rauterberg describe stock markets’ institutions and regulatory architecture. They draw on the informational paradigm of microstructure economics to highlight the crucial role of information asymmetries and adverse selection in explaining market behavior, while examining a wide variety of developments in market practices and participants. The result is a compelling account of the stock market’s regulatory framework, fundamental institutions, and economic dynamics, combined with an assessment of its various controversies. The New Stock Market covers a wide range of issues including the practices of high-frequency traders, insider trading, manipulation, short selling, broker-dealer practices, and trading venue fees and rebates. The book illuminates both the existing regulatory structure of our equity trading markets and how we can improve it.

The year 1873 was one of financial crisis. A boom in railway construction had spurred a bull market—but when the boom turned to bust, transatlantic panic quickly became a worldwide economic downturn. In Transatlantic Speculations, Hannah Catherine Davies offers a new lens on the panics of 1873 and nineteenth-century globalization by exploring the ways in which contemporaries experienced a tumultuous period that profoundly challenged notions of economic and moral order.

Considering the financial crises of 1873 from the vantage points of Berlin, New York, and Vienna, Davies maps what she calls the dual “transatlantic speculations” of the 1870s: the financial speculation that led to these panics as well as the interpretative speculations that sprouted in their wake. Drawing on a wide variety of sources—including investment manuals, credit reports, business correspondence, newspapers, and legal treatises—she analyzes how investors were prompted to put their money into faraway enterprises, how journalists and bankers created and spread financial information and disinformation, how her subjects made and experienced financial flows, and how responses ranged from policy reform to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories when these flows suddenly were interrupted. Davies goes beyond national frames of analysis to explore international economic entanglement, using the panics’ interconnectedness to shed light on contemporary notions of the world economy. Blending cultural, intellectual, and legal history, Transatlantic Speculations gives vital transnational and comparative perspective on a crucial moment for financial markets, globalization, and capitalism.

Innovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City.

Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.

Joseph Stiglitz is one of the world’s greatest economists. He has made fundamental contributions to economic theory in areas such as inequality, the implications of imperfect and asymmetric information, and competition, and he has been a major figure in policy making, a leading public intellectual, and a remarkably influential teacher and mentor. This collection of essays influenced by Stiglitz’s work celebrates his career as a scholar and teacher and his aspiration to put economic knowledge in the service of creating a fairer world.

Toward a Just Society brings together a range of essays whose breadth reflects how Stiglitz has shaped modern economics. The contributions to this volume, all penned by high-profile authors who have been guided by or collaborated with Stiglitz over the last five decades, span microeconomics, macroeconomics, inequality, development, law and economics, and public policy. Touching on many of the central debates and discoveries of the field and providing insights on the directions that academic economics could take in the future, Toward a Just Society is an extraordinary celebration of the many paths Stiglitz has opened for economics, politics, and public life.

Innovation is often presented as being in the exclusive domain of the private sector. Yet despite widespread perceptions of public-sector inefficiency, government agencies have much to teach us about how technological and social advances occur. Improving governance at the municipal level is critical to the future of the twenty-first-century city, from environmental sustainability to education, economic development, public health, and beyond. In this age of acceleration and massive migration of people into cities around the world, this book explains how innovation from within city agencies and administrations makes urban systems smarter and shapes life in New York City.

Using a series of case studies, Smarter New York City describes the drivers and constraints behind urban innovation, including leadership and organization; networks and interagency collaboration; institutional context; technology and real-time data collection; responsiveness and decision making; and results and impact. Cases include residential organic-waste collection, an NYPD program that identifies the sound of gunshots in real time, and the Vision Zero attempt to end traffic casualties, among others. Challenging the usefulness of a tech-centric view of urban innovation, Smarter New York City brings together a multidisciplinary and integrated perspective to imagine new possibilities from within city agencies, with practical lessons for city officials, urban planners, policy makers, civil society, and potential private-sector partners.

Walmart is the largest employer in the world. It encompasses nearly 1 percent of the entire American workforce—young adults, parents, formerly incarcerated people, retirees. Walmart also presents one possible future of work—Walmartism—in which the arbitrary authority of managers mixes with a hyperrationalized, centrally controlled bureaucracy in ways that curtail workers’ ability to control their working conditions and their lives.

In Working for Respect, Adam Reich and Peter Bearman examine how workers make sense of their jobs at places like Walmart in order to consider the nature of contemporary low-wage work, as well as the obstacles and opportunities such workplaces present as sites of struggle for social and economic justice. They describe the life experiences that lead workers to Walmart and analyze the dynamics of the shop floor. As a part of the project, Reich and Bearman matched student activists with a nascent association of current and former Walmart associates: the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart). They follow the efforts of this new partnership, considering the formation of collective identity and the relationship between social ties and social change. They show why traditional unions have been unable to organize service-sector workers in places like Walmart and offer provocative suggestions for new strategies and directions. Drawing on a wide array of methods, including participant-observation, oral history, big data, and the analysis of social networks, Working for Respect is a sophisticated reconsideration of the modern workplace that makes important contributions to debates on labor and inequality and the centrality of the experience of work in a fair economy.

Walmart is the largest employer in the world. It encompasses nearly 1 percent of the entire American workforce—young adults, parents, formerly incarcerated people, retirees. Walmart also presents one possible future of work—Walmartism—in which the arbitrary authority of managers mixes with a hyperrationalized, centrally controlled bureaucracy in ways that curtail workers’ ability to control their working conditions and their lives.

In Working for Respect, Adam Reich and Peter Bearman examine how workers make sense of their jobs at places like Walmart in order to consider the nature of contemporary low-wage work, as well as the obstacles and opportunities such workplaces present as sites of struggle for social and economic justice. They describe the life experiences that lead workers to Walmart and analyze the dynamics of the shop floor. As a part of the project, Reich and Bearman matched student activists with a nascent association of current and former Walmart associates: the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart). They follow the efforts of this new partnership, considering the formation of collective identity and the relationship between social ties and social change. They show why traditional unions have been unable to organize service-sector workers in places like Walmart and offer provocative suggestions for new strategies and directions. Drawing on a wide array of methods, including participant-observation, oral history, big data, and the analysis of social networks, Working for Respect is a sophisticated reconsideration of the modern workplace that makes important contributions to debates on labor and inequality and the centrality of the experience of work in a fair economy.

Social Value Investing presents a new way to approach some of society’s most difficult and intractable challenges. Although many of our world’s problems may seem too great and too complex to solve — inequality, climate change, affordable housing, corruption, healthcare, food insecurity — solutions to these challenges do exist, and will be found through new partnerships bringing together leaders from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.

In their new book, Howard W. Buffett and William B. Eimicke present a five-point management framework for developing and measuring the success of such partnerships. Inspired by value investing — one of history’s most successful investment paradigms — this framework provides tools to maximize collaborative efficiency and positive social impact, so that major public programs can deliver innovative, inclusive, and long-lasting solutions. It also offers practical insights for any private sector CEO, public sector administrator, or nonprofit manager hoping to build successful cross-sector collaborations.

Social Value Investing tells the compelling stories of cross-sector partnerships from around the world — Central Park and the High Line in New York City, community-led economic development in Afghanistan, and improved public services in cities across Brazil. Drawing on lessons and observations from a broad selections of collaborations, this book combines real life stories with detailed analysis, resulting in a blueprint for effective, sustainable partnerships that serve the public interest. Readers also gain access to original, academic case material and professionally produced video documentaries for every major partnerships profiled — bringing to life the people and stories in a way that few other business or management books have done.

Social Value Investing presents a new way to approach some of society’s most difficult and intractable challenges. Although many of our world’s problems may seem too great and too complex to solve — inequality, climate change, affordable housing, corruption, healthcare, food insecurity — solutions to these challenges do exist, and will be found through new partnerships bringing together leaders from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors.

In their new book, Howard W. Buffett and William B. Eimicke present a five-point management framework for developing and measuring the success of such partnerships. Inspired by value investing — one of history’s most successful investment paradigms — this framework provides tools to maximize collaborative efficiency and positive social impact, so that major public programs can deliver innovative, inclusive, and long-lasting solutions. It also offers practical insights for any private sector CEO, public sector administrator, or nonprofit manager hoping to build successful cross-sector collaborations.

Social Value Investing tells the compelling stories of cross-sector partnerships from around the world — Central Park and the High Line in New York City, community-led economic development in Afghanistan, and improved public services in cities across Brazil. Drawing on lessons and observations from a broad selections of collaborations, this book combines real life stories with detailed analysis, resulting in a blueprint for effective, sustainable partnerships that serve the public interest. Readers also gain access to original, academic case material and professionally produced video documentaries for every major partnerships profiled — bringing to life the people and stories in a way that few other business or management books have done.

While serving as the first Treasury Secretary from 1789 to 1795, Alexander Hamilton engineered a financial revolution. Hamilton established the Treasury debt market, the dollar, and a central bank, while strategically prompting private entrepreneurs to establish securities markets and stock exchanges and encouraging state governments to charter a number of commercial banks and other business corporations. Yet despite a recent surge of interest in Hamilton, U.S. financial modernization has not been fully recognized as one of his greatest achievements.

This book traces the development of Hamilton's financial thinking, policies, and actions through a selection of his writings. The financial historians and Hamilton experts Richard Sylla and David J. Cowen provide commentary that demonstrates the impact Hamilton had on the modern economic system, guiding readers through Hamilton's distinguished career. The book showcases Hamilton’s thoughts on the nation's founding, the need for a strong central government, confronting problems such as a depreciating paper currency and weak public credit, and the architecture of the financial system. His great state papers on public credit, the national bank, the mint, and manufactures instructed reform of the nation’s finances and jumpstarted economic growth. Hamilton practiced what he preached: he played a key role in the founding of three banks and a manufacturing corporation, and his deft political maneuvering and economic savvy saved the fledgling republic's economy during the country's first full-blown financial crisis in 1792. Sylla and Cowen center Hamilton's writings on finance among his most important accomplishments, making his brilliance as an economic policy maker accessible to all interested in this Founding Father's legacy.

While serving as the first Treasury Secretary from 1789 to 1795, Alexander Hamilton engineered a financial revolution. Hamilton established the Treasury debt market, the dollar, and a central bank, while strategically prompting private entrepreneurs to establish securities markets and stock exchanges and encouraging state governments to charter a number of commercial banks and other business corporations. Yet despite a recent surge of interest in Hamilton, U.S. financial modernization has not been fully recognized as one of his greatest achievements.

This book traces the development of Hamilton's financial thinking, policies, and actions through a selection of his writings. The financial historians and Hamilton experts Richard Sylla and David J. Cowen provide commentary that demonstrates the impact Hamilton had on the modern economic system, guiding readers through Hamilton's distinguished career. The book showcases Hamilton’s thoughts on the nation's founding, the need for a strong central government, confronting problems such as a depreciating paper currency and weak public credit, and the architecture of the financial system. His great state papers on public credit, the national bank, the mint, and manufactures instructed reform of the nation’s finances and jumpstarted economic growth. Hamilton practiced what he preached: he played a key role in the founding of three banks and a manufacturing corporation, and his deft political maneuvering and economic savvy saved the fledgling republic's economy during the country's first full-blown financial crisis in 1792. Sylla and Cowen center Hamilton's writings on finance among his most important accomplishments, making his brilliance as an economic policy maker accessible to all interested in this Founding Father's legacy.

Chopped in salads, scooped up in salsa, slathered on pizza and pasta, squeezed onto burgers and fries, and filling aisles with roma, cherry, beefsteak, on-the-vine, and heirloom: where would American food, fast and slow, high and low, be without the tomato? The tomato represents the best and worst of American cuisine: though the plastic-looking corporate tomato is the hallmark of industrial agriculture, the tomato’s history also encompasses farmers’ markets and home gardens. Garden Variety illuminates American culinary culture from 1800 to the present, challenging a simple story of mass-produced homogeneity and demonstrating the persistence of diverse food cultures throughout modern America.

John Hoenig explores the path by which, over the last two centuries, the tomato went from a rare seasonal crop to America’s favorite vegetable. He pays particular attention to the noncorporate tomato. During the twentieth century, as food production, processing, and distribution became increasingly centralized, the tomato remained king of the vegetable garden and, in recent years, has become the centerpiece of alternative food cultures. Reading seed catalogs, menus, and cookbooks, and following the efforts of cooks and housewives to find new ways to prepare and preserve tomatoes, Hoenig challenges the extent to which branding, advertising, and marketing dominated twentieth-century American life. He emphasizes the importance of tomatoes to numerous immigrant groups and their influence on the development of American food cultures. Garden Variety highlights the limits on corporations’ ability to shape what we eat, inviting us to rethink the history of our foodways and to take the opportunity to expand the palate of American cuisine.

Investors are tempted daily by misleading or incomplete information. They may make a lucky bet, realize a sizable profit, and find themselves full of confidence. Their next high-stakes gamble might backfire, not only hitting them in the balance sheet but also taking a mental and emotional toll. Even veteran investors can be caught off guard: a news item may suddenly cause havoc for an industry they’ve invested in; crowd mentality among fellow investors may skew the market; a CEO may turn out to be unprepared to effectively guide a company. How can one stay focused in such a volatile profession? If you can’t trust your past successes to plan and predict, how can you avoid risky situations in the future?

In Big Money Thinks Small, veteran fund manager Joel Tillinghast shows investors how to avoid making these mistakes. He offers a set of simple but crucial steps to successful investing, including:
· Know yourself, how you arrive at decisions, and how you might be susceptible to self-deception.
· Make decisions based on your own expertise, and do not invest in what you don’t understand.
· Select only trustworthy and capable colleagues and collaborators.
· Learn how to identify and avoid investments with inherent flaws.
· Always search for bargains, and never forget that the first responsibility of an investor is to identify mispriced stocks.

Patience and methodical planning will pay far greater dividends than flashy investments. Tillinghast teaches readers how to learn from their mistakes—and his own, giving investors the tools to ask the right questions in any situation and to think objectively and generatively about portfolio management.

In the 1960s and ’70s, a diverse range of storefronts—including head shops, African American bookstores, feminist businesses, and organic grocers—brought the work of the New Left, Black Power, feminism, environmentalism, and other movements into the marketplace. Through shared ownership, limited growth, and democratic workplaces, these activist entrepreneurs offered alternatives to conventional profit-driven corporate business models. By the middle of the 1970s, thousands of these enterprises operated across the United States—but only a handful survive today. Some, such as Whole Foods Market, have abandoned their quest for collective political change in favor of maximizing profits.

Vividly portraying the struggles, successes, and sacrifices of these unlikely entrepreneurs, From Head Shops to Whole Foods writes a new history of social movements and capitalism by showing how activists embraced small businesses in a way few historians have considered. The book challenges the widespread but mistaken idea that activism and political dissent are inherently antithetical to participation in the marketplace. Joshua Clark Davis uncovers the historical roots of contemporary interest in ethical consumption, social enterprise, buying local, and mission-driven business, while also showing how today’s companies have adopted the language—but not often the mission—of liberation and social change.

Many in the United States feel that the nation’s current level of economic inequality is unfair and that capitalism is not working for 90% of the population. Yet some inequality is inevitable. The question is: What level of inequality is fair? Mainstream economics has offered little guidance on fairness and the ideal distribution of income. Political philosophy, meanwhile, has much to say about fairness yet relies on qualitative theories that cannot be verified by empirical data. To address inequality, we need to know what the goal is—and for this, we need a quantitative, testable theory of fairness for free-market capitalism.

How Much Inequality Is Fair? synthesizes concepts from economics, political philosophy, game theory, information theory, statistical mechanics, and systems engineering into a mathematical framework for a fair free-market society. The key to this framework is the insight that maximizing fairness means maximizing entropy, which makes it possible to determine the fairest possible level of pay inequality. The framework therefore provides a moral justification for capitalism in mathematical terms. Venkat Venkatasubramanian also compares his theory’s predictions to actual inequality data from various countries—showing, for instance, that Scandinavia has near-ideal fairness, while the United States is markedly unfair—and discusses the theory’s implications for tax policy, social programs, and executive compensation.

Investors are tempted daily by misleading or incomplete information. They may make a lucky bet, realize a sizable profit, and find themselves full of confidence. Their next high-stakes gamble might backfire, not only hitting them in the balance sheet but also taking a mental and emotional toll. Even veteran investors can be caught off guard: a news item may suddenly cause havoc for an industry they’ve invested in; crowd mentality among fellow investors may skew the market; a CEO may turn out to be unprepared to effectively guide a company. How can one stay focused in such a volatile profession? If you can’t trust your past successes to plan and predict, how can you avoid risky situations in the future?

In Big Money Thinks Small, veteran fund manager Joel Tillinghast shows investors how to avoid making these mistakes. He offers a set of simple but crucial steps to successful investing, including:
· Know yourself, how you arrive at decisions, and how you might be susceptible to self-deception.
· Make decisions based on your own expertise, and do not invest in what you don’t understand.
· Select only trustworthy and capable colleagues and collaborators.
· Learn how to identify and avoid investments with inherent flaws.
· Always search for bargains, and never forget that the first responsibility of an investor is to identify mispriced stocks.

Patience and methodical planning will pay far greater dividends than flashy investments. Tillinghast teaches readers how to learn from their mistakes—and his own, giving investors the tools to ask the right questions in any situation and to think objectively and generatively about portfolio management.

A seminal work in health economics first published in 1972, Michael Grossman's The Demand for Health introduced a new theoretical model for determining the health status of the population. His work uniquely synthesized economic and public health knowledge and has catalyzed a vastly influential body of health economics literature. It is well past time to bring this important work back into print.

Grossman bases his approach on Gary S. Becker's household production function model and his theory of investment in human capital. Consumers demand health, which can include illness-free days in a given year or life expectancy, and then produce it through the input of medical care services, diet, other market goods and services, and time. Grossman also treats health and knowledge as equal parts of the durable stock of human capital. Consumers therefore have an incentive to invest in health to increase their earnings in the future. From here, Grossman examines complementarities between health capital and other forms of human capital, the most important of which is knowledge capital earned through schooling and its effect on the efficiency of production. He concludes that the rate of return on investing in health by increasing education may exceed the rate of return on investing in health through greater medical care. Higher income may not lead to better health outcomes, as wealth enables the consumption of goods and services with adverse health effects. These are some of the major revelations of Grossman's model, findings that have great relevance as we struggle to understand the links between poverty, education, structural disadvantages, and health.

A seminal work in health economics first published in 1972, Michael Grossman's The Demand for Health introduced a new theoretical model for determining the health status of the population. His work uniquely synthesized economic and public health knowledge and has catalyzed a vastly influential body of health economics literature. It is well past time to bring this important work back into print.

Grossman bases his approach on Gary S. Becker's household production function model and his theory of investment in human capital. Consumers demand health, which can include illness-free days in a given year or life expectancy, and then produce it through the input of medical care services, diet, other market goods and services, and time. Grossman also treats health and knowledge as equal parts of the durable stock of human capital. Consumers therefore have an incentive to invest in health to increase their earnings in the future. From here, Grossman examines complementarities between health capital and other forms of human capital, the most important of which is knowledge capital earned through schooling and its effect on the efficiency of production. He concludes that the rate of return on investing in health by increasing education may exceed the rate of return on investing in health through greater medical care. Higher income may not lead to better health outcomes, as wealth enables the consumption of goods and services with adverse health effects. These are some of the major revelations of Grossman's model, findings that have great relevance as we struggle to understand the links between poverty, education, structural disadvantages, and health.

In the 1960s and ’70s, a diverse range of storefronts—including head shops, African American bookstores, feminist businesses, and organic grocers—brought the work of the New Left, Black Power, feminism, environmentalism, and other movements into the marketplace. Through shared ownership, limited growth, and democratic workplaces, these activist entrepreneurs offered alternatives to conventional profit-driven corporate business models. By the middle of the 1970s, thousands of these enterprises operated across the United States—but only a handful survive today. Some, such as Whole Foods Market, have abandoned their quest for collective political change in favor of maximizing profits.

Vividly portraying the struggles, successes, and sacrifices of these unlikely entrepreneurs, From Head Shops to Whole Foods writes a new history of social movements and capitalism by showing how activists embraced small businesses in a way few historians have considered. The book challenges the widespread but mistaken idea that activism and political dissent are inherently antithetical to participation in the marketplace. Joshua Clark Davis uncovers the historical roots of contemporary interest in ethical consumption, social enterprise, buying local, and mission-driven business, while also showing how today’s companies have adopted the language—but not often the mission—of liberation and social change.

In this concise yet comprehensive history, Heinz D. Kurz traces the long arc of economic thought from its emergence in ancient Greece to its systematic presentation among the classical thinkers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to the influential work of scholars such as Paul Samuelson and Kenneth J. Arrow. With a keen eye for how economic insights are acquired, lost, and reborn, Kurz focuses on the dynamic individuals who give old ideas new life and the historical events that provoke different approaches and theories.

Over the course of this journey, Kurz explains what Adam Smith meant by the "invisible hand"; how Karl Marx's "law of motion" works in capitalist economies; the roots of the Austrian economists' emphasis on the problems of information, incomplete knowledge, and uncertainty; John Maynard Keynes's principle of effective demand and economic stabilization; and the insights and challenges offered by growth theory, welfare economics, game theory, and more. He concludes with a deft summation of world economists' major concerns today and their critical relation to world events.

Many in the United States feel that the nation’s current level of economic inequality is unfair and that capitalism is not working for 90% of the population. Yet some inequality is inevitable. The question is: What level of inequality is fair? Mainstream economics has offered little guidance on fairness and the ideal distribution of income. Political philosophy, meanwhile, has much to say about fairness yet relies on qualitative theories that cannot be verified by empirical data. To address inequality, we need to know what the goal is—and for this, we need a quantitative, testable theory of fairness for free-market capitalism.

How Much Inequality Is Fair? synthesizes concepts from economics, political philosophy, game theory, information theory, statistical mechanics, and systems engineering into a mathematical framework for a fair free-market society. The key to this framework is the insight that maximizing fairness means maximizing entropy, which makes it possible to determine the fairest possible level of pay inequality. The framework therefore provides a moral justification for capitalism in mathematical terms. Venkat Venkatasubramanian also compares his theory’s predictions to actual inequality data from various countries—showing, for instance, that Scandinavia has near-ideal fairness, while the United States is markedly unfair—and discusses the theory’s implications for tax policy, social programs, and executive compensation.

This collection of Michael Grossman’s most important papers adds essential background and depth to his work on economic determinants of public health. Each of the book’s four sections includes an introduction that contextualizes the issues and addresses the larger stakes of his work. An afterword discusses the significance of Grossman’s approach for subsequent research on health economics, as well as the work others have done to advance and extend his innovative perspective.

Determinants of Health explains how the economic choices people make influence health and health behaviors. It begins with a section on the theoretical underpinnings and empirical results of Grossman’s groundbreaking health economics model, first introduced in the 1970s, followed by essays on the relationship between health and schooling; determinants of infant health, with a special emphasis on public policies and programs; and the economics of unhealthy behaviors. Grossman treats health as a form of human capital. He shows that public policies and programs that determine the price and availability of key inputs have critical effects on outcomes ranging from birth weight and infant mortality to cigarette smoking, alcohol abuse, illegal drug use, and obesity. Grossman’s approach has led to a major stream of literature in the field, sparking contributions by the world’s leading health economists, including Joseph Newhouse, Jonathan Gruber, Amy Finkelstein, Michael Greenstone, and David Cutler. His clarity on the role that economics play in people’s good and bad health choices is immensely valuable to the debate over how we legislate and spend on health.

In this concise yet comprehensive history, Heinz D. Kurz traces the long arc of economic thought from its emergence in ancient Greece to its systematic presentation among the classical thinkers of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to the influential work of scholars such as Paul Samuelson and Kenneth J. Arrow. With a keen eye for how economic insights are acquired, lost, and reborn, Kurz focuses on the dynamic individuals who give old ideas new life and the historical events that provoke different approaches and theories.

Over the course of this journey, Kurz explains what Adam Smith meant by the "invisible hand"; how Karl Marx's "law of motion" works in capitalist economies; the roots of the Austrian economists' emphasis on the problems of information, incomplete knowledge, and uncertainty; John Maynard Keynes's principle of effective demand and economic stabilization; and the insights and challenges offered by growth theory, welfare economics, game theory, and more. He concludes with a deft summation of world economists' major concerns today and their critical relation to world events.

Investing—the commitment of resources to achieve a return—affects individuals, families, companies, and nations, and has done so throughout history. Yet until the sixteenth century, investing was a privilege of only the elite classes. The story behind the democratization of investing is bound up with some of history's most epic events. It is also a tale rich with lessons for professional and everyday investors who hope to make wiser choices.

This entertaining history doubles as a sophisticated account of the opportunities and challenges facing the modern investor. It follows the rise of funded retirement; the evolution of investment vehicles and techniques; investment misdeeds and regulatory reform; government economic policy; the development of investment theory; and the emergence of new investment structures. Norton Reamer and Jesse Downing map these trends and profile the battle between low cost index and exchange-traded funds, on the one hand, and the higher-fee hedge funds and private equity, on the other. By helping us understand this history and its legacy of risk, Reamer and Downing hope to better educate readers about the individual and societal impact of investing and ultimately level the playing field.

Investing—the commitment of resources to achieve a return—affects individuals, families, companies, and nations, and has done so throughout history. Yet until the sixteenth century, investing was a privilege of only the elite classes. The story behind the democratization of investing is bound up with some of history's most epic events. It is also a tale rich with lessons for professional and everyday investors who hope to make wiser choices.

This entertaining history doubles as a sophisticated account of the opportunities and challenges facing the modern investor. It follows the rise of funded retirement; the evolution of investment vehicles and techniques; investment misdeeds and regulatory reform; government economic policy; the development of investment theory; and the emergence of new investment structures. Norton Reamer and Jesse Downing map these trends and profile the battle between low cost index and exchange-traded funds, on the one hand, and the higher-fee hedge funds and private equity, on the other. By helping us understand this history and its legacy of risk, Reamer and Downing hope to better educate readers about the individual and societal impact of investing and ultimately level the playing field.

Flashes of insight—the "Eureka!" moments that produce new and useful ideas in a single thought—are behind some of the world's most creative and practical innovations. This book shows how to cultivate more and better flashes of insight by harnessing the science and practice of the "seventh sense."

Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, Asian philosophy, and military strategy, William Duggan illustrates the power of the seventh sense to help readers aspire to and achieve more in their personal and professional lives. His examples include Gandhi, Joan of Arc, Starbucks founder Howard Shultz, and executives and students he has taught in his classes. His book presents specific steps in the form of three practical tools to help prepare the mind, see and seize opportunity, and follow through on one's resolution. Based on Duggan's perennially popular Columbia Business School course, this book teaches the mental skills and discipline that power the seventh sense.

Great leaders aspire to manage “by design”—with a sense of purpose and foresight. But too few leaders incorporate the proven practices and principles of the design disciplines. Lessons learned from the world of design, when applied to management, can turn leaders into collaborative, creative, deliberate, and accountable visionaries. Design thinking loosens the mind and activates innovation. It creates the conditions for employees to thrive and for all kinds of businesses to succeed.

In Designed Leadership, the strategic-design scholar and urban-systems designer Moura Quayle shares her plan for integrating design and leadership, translating processes, principles, and practices from years of experience into tools of change for professional leaders. Quayle describes the key concepts of designed leadership, such as “make values explicit” and “learn from natural systems,” showing how strategic design can spur individual creativity and harness collective energy. For managers at any level, Designed Leadership uses original visuals and field-tested examples to teach the kind of thinking, theorizing, and practicing that result in long-lasting high performance in the workplace and beyond.

Great leaders aspire to manage “by design”—with a sense of purpose and foresight. But too few leaders incorporate the proven practices and principles of the design disciplines. Lessons learned from the world of design, when applied to management, can turn leaders into collaborative, creative, deliberate, and accountable visionaries. Design thinking loosens the mind and activates innovation. It creates the conditions for employees to thrive and for all kinds of businesses to succeed.

In Designed Leadership, the strategic-design scholar and urban-systems designer Moura Quayle shares her plan for integrating design and leadership, translating processes, principles, and practices from years of experience into tools of change for professional leaders. Quayle describes the key concepts of designed leadership, such as “make values explicit” and “learn from natural systems,” showing how strategic design can spur individual creativity and harness collective energy. For managers at any level, Designed Leadership uses original visuals and field-tested examples to teach the kind of thinking, theorizing, and practicing that result in long-lasting high performance in the workplace and beyond.

Over the past decade, software companies have increasingly monopolized the flow of venture capital, starving support for scientific research and its transformative discoveries. New medicines, cheaper and faster personal computers, and other life-changing developments all stem from investment in science. In the past, these funds led to steam engines, light bulbs, microprocessors, 3D printers, and even the Internet. In Venture Investing in Science, the venture capitalist Douglas W. Jamison and the investment author Stephen R. Waite directly link financial support to revolutionary advancements in physics, computers, chemistry, and biology and make a passionate case for continued investing in science to meet the global challenges of our time.

Clean air and water, cures for intractable diseases, greener public transportation, cheaper and faster communication technologies—these are some of the rich opportunities awaiting venture capital investment today. Jamison and Waite focus on how early-stage companies specializing in commercializing transformative technologies based on deep science have been shunned by venture capitalists, and how the development of such companies have been hampered by structural changes in capital markets and government regulation over the past decade. The authors argue that reinvigorating science-based technological innovation is crucial to reactivating the economic dynamism that lifts living standards and fuels prosperity over time.

Flashes of insight—the "Eureka!" moments that produce new and useful ideas in a single thought—are behind some of the world's most creative and practical innovations. This book shows how to cultivate more and better flashes of insight by harnessing the science and practice of the "seventh sense."

Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, Asian philosophy, and military strategy, William Duggan illustrates the power of the seventh sense to help readers aspire to and achieve more in their personal and professional lives. His examples include Gandhi, Joan of Arc, Starbucks founder Howard Shultz, and executives and students he has taught in his classes. His book presents specific steps in the form of three practical tools to help prepare the mind, see and seize opportunity, and follow through on one's resolution. Based on Duggan's perennially popular Columbia Business School course, this book teaches the mental skills and discipline that power the seventh sense.

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) can be effective tools for national resources revenue management. These state-owned investments, funded by commodity exports, foreign exchange reserves, or other national assets, are adaptable to the challenges posed by financial shocks and have been successfully employed in an increasing number of countries. The number of SWFs continues to grow, with the largest funds managing trillions of dollars in assets among them. However, given the significant variations among SWFs, it can be difficult to compare funds that differ in size, scope, and mandate. This book provides a sorely needed practical look at how these funds work—and how they should work.

The New Frontiers of Sovereign Investment combines the insights and experience of academic economists and practitioners from several funds to survey a diverse financial landscape and establish the challenging topical questions facing a broad range of SWFs today: Should they serve both economic development and financial returns, and how? Will responsible investment enhance long-term returns? How can fiscal rules for SWFs be improved to meet emerging economic challenges? The book considers these questions as they apply to both long-established and newer SWFs. Featuring contributions from sovereign wealth practitioners from Alberta's AIMCo, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, as well as analysis by scholars at the forefront of sovereign investment, this volume provides timely and much-needed information on these rapidly evolving institutions.

Traditional economic theory studies idealized markets in which prices alone can guide efficient allocation, with no need for central organization. Such models build from Adam Smith’s famous concept of an invisible hand, which guides markets and renders regulation or interference largely unnecessary. Yet for many markets, prices alone are not enough to guide feasible and efficient outcomes, and regulation alone is not enough, either. Consider air traffic control at major airports. While prices could encourage airlines to take off and land at less congested times, prices alone do just part of the job; an air traffic control system is still indispensable to avoid disastrous consequences. With just an air traffic controller, however, limited resources can be wasted or poorly used. What’s needed in this and many other real-world cases is an auction system that can effectively reveal prices while still maintaining enough direct control to ensure that complex constraints are satisfied.

In Discovering Prices, Paul Milgrom—the world’s most frequently cited academic expert on auction design—describes how auctions can be used to discover prices and guide efficient resource allocations, even when resources are diverse, constraints are critical, and market-clearing prices may not even exist. Economists have long understood that externalities and market power both necessitate market organization. In this book, Milgrom introduces complex constraints as another reason for market design. Both lively and technical, Milgrom roots his new theories in real-world examples (including the ambitious U.S. incentive auction of radio frequencies, whose design he led) and provides economists with crucial new tools for dealing with the world’s growing complex resource-allocation problems.

Traditional economic theory studies idealized markets in which prices alone can guide efficient allocation, with no need for central organization. Such models build from Adam Smith’s famous concept of an invisible hand, which guides markets and renders regulation or interference largely unnecessary. Yet for many markets, prices alone are not enough to guide feasible and efficient outcomes, and regulation alone is not enough, either. Consider air traffic control at major airports. While prices could encourage airlines to take off and land at less congested times, prices alone do just part of the job; an air traffic control system is still indispensable to avoid disastrous consequences. With just an air traffic controller, however, limited resources can be wasted or poorly used. What’s needed in this and many other real-world cases is an auction system that can effectively reveal prices while still maintaining enough direct control to ensure that complex constraints are satisfied.

In Discovering Prices, Paul Milgrom—the world’s most frequently cited academic expert on auction design—describes how auctions can be used to discover prices and guide efficient resource allocations, even when resources are diverse, constraints are critical, and market-clearing prices may not even exist. Economists have long understood that externalities and market power both necessitate market organization. In this book, Milgrom introduces complex constraints as another reason for market design. Both lively and technical, Milgrom roots his new theories in real-world examples (including the ambitious U.S. incentive auction of radio frequencies, whose design he led) and provides economists with crucial new tools for dealing with the world’s growing complex resource-allocation problems.

Today, all it takes is one organizational misstep to sink a company's reputation. Social media can be a strict ethical enforcer, with the power to convince thousands to boycott products and services. Executives are stuck on appeasing stakeholders—shareholders, employees, and consumers—but they ignore shapeholders, regulators, the media, and social and political activists who have no stake in a company but will work hard to curb what they see as bad business practices. And they do so at their own peril.

In Shapeholders: Business Success in the Age of Activism, former congressman, Fortune 500 executive, and university president Mark Kennedy argues that shapeholders, as much as stakeholders, have significant power to determine a company's risks and opportunities, if not its survival. Many international, multi-billion-dollar corporations fail to anticipate activism, and they flounder on first contact. Kennedy zeroes in on the different languages that shapeholders and companies speak and their contrasting metrics for what constitutes acceptable business practice. Executives, he argues, must be visionaries who find profitable—and probable—collaborations to diffuse political tensions. Kennedy's decision matrix helps corporations align their business practices with shapeholder interests, anticipate their demands, and assess changing moral standards so that together they can plan a profitable route forward.

As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations.

Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.

Businesses often find themselves trapped in a competitive dogfight, scratching and clawing for market share with products consumers view as largely undifferentiated. Conventional wisdom suggests that dogfights are to be expected as marketplaces mature, giving rise to the notion that there are "bad" industries where it is unlikely that any company can succeed.

But there are notable exceptions in which enlightened executives have changed the rules to grasp the holy grail of business: long-term profitable growth. Rather than joining the dogfights raging within their industry, companies such as Apple, FedEx, and Starbucks have chosen to become metaphorical cats, continuously renewing their distinctive strategies to compete on their own terms.

In If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat, Leonard Sherman draws on four decades of experience in management consulting, venture capital, and teaching business strategy at Columbia Business School to share practical advice on two of the most vexing issues facing business executives: why is it so hard to achieve long-term profitable growth, and what can companies do to break away from the pack?

Sherman takes the reader on a provocative journey through the building blocks of business strategy by challenging conventional wisdom on a number of questions that will redefine management best practices:

-What should be the overarching purpose of your business?
-Do you really know what your strategy is?
-Is there such a thing as a bad industry?
-Where do great ideas come from and how do I find them?
-What makes products meaningfully different?
-What makes and breaks great brands?
-How and when should I disrupt my own company?
-What are the imperatives to achieving long-term profitable growth?

Filled with dozens of illustrative examples of inspiring successes and dispiriting falls from grace, this book provides deep insights on how to become the cat in a dogfight, whether you are a CEO, mid-level manager, aspiring business school student, or curious observer interested in achieving sustained profitable growth.

As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations.

Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.

Businesses often find themselves trapped in a competitive dogfight, scratching and clawing for market share with products consumers view as largely undifferentiated. Conventional wisdom suggests that dogfights are to be expected as marketplaces mature, giving rise to the notion that there are "bad" industries where it is unlikely that any company can succeed.

But there are notable exceptions in which enlightened executives have changed the rules to grasp the holy grail of business: long-term profitable growth. Rather than joining the dogfights raging within their industry, companies such as Apple, FedEx, and Starbucks have chosen to become metaphorical cats, continuously renewing their distinctive strategies to compete on their own terms.

In If You're in a Dogfight, Become a Cat, Leonard Sherman draws on four decades of experience in management consulting, venture capital, and teaching business strategy at Columbia Business School to share practical advice on two of the most vexing issues facing business executives: why is it so hard to achieve long-term profitable growth, and what can companies do to break away from the pack?

Sherman takes the reader on a provocative journey through the building blocks of business strategy by challenging conventional wisdom on a number of questions that will redefine management best practices:

-What should be the overarching purpose of your business?
-Do you really know what your strategy is?
-Is there such a thing as a bad industry?
-Where do great ideas come from and how do I find them?
-What makes products meaningfully different?
-What makes and breaks great brands?
-How and when should I disrupt my own company?
-What are the imperatives to achieving long-term profitable growth?

Filled with dozens of illustrative examples of inspiring successes and dispiriting falls from grace, this book provides deep insights on how to become the cat in a dogfight, whether you are a CEO, mid-level manager, aspiring business school student, or curious observer interested in achieving sustained profitable growth.

How can a company that has never turned a profit have a multibillion dollar valuation? Why do some start-ups attract large investments while others do not? Aswath Damodaran, finance professor and experienced investor, argues that the power of story drives corporate value, adding substance to numbers and persuading even cautious investors to take risks. In business, there are the storytellers who spin compelling narratives and the number-crunchers who construct meaningful models and accounts. Both are essential to success, but only by combining the two, Damodaran argues, can a business deliver and sustain value.

Through a range of case studies, Narrative and Numbers describes how storytellers can better incorporate and narrate numbers and how number-crunchers can calculate more imaginative models that withstand scrutiny. Damodaran considers Uber's debut and how narrative is key to understanding different valuations. He investigates why Twitter and Facebook were valued in the billions of dollars at their public offerings, and why one (Twitter) has stagnated while the other (Facebook) has grown. Damodaran also looks at more established business models such as Apple and Amazon to demonstrate how a company's history can both enrich and constrain its narrative. And through Vale, a global Brazil-based mining company, he shows the influence of external narrative, and how country, commodity, and currency can shape a company's story. Narrative and Numbers reveals the benefits, challenges, and pitfalls of weaving narratives around numbers and how one can best test a story's plausibility.

The past thirty years have seen dozens of otherwise successful investors try to improve education through the application of market principles. They have funneled billions of dollars into alternative schools, online education, and textbook publishing, and they have, with surprising regularity, lost their shirts.

In Class Clowns, professor and investment banker Jonathan A. Knee dissects what drives investors' efforts to improve education and why they consistently fail. Knee takes readers inside four spectacular financial failures in education: Rupert Murdoch's billion-dollar effort to reshape elementary education through technology; the unhappy investors—including hedge fund titan John Paulson—who lost billions in textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin; the abandonment of Knowledge Universe, Michael Milken's twenty-year mission to revolutionize the global education industry; and a look at Chris Whittle, founder of EdisonLearning and a pioneer of large-scale transformational educational ventures, who continues to attract investment despite decades of financial and operational disappointment.

Although deep belief in the curative powers of the market drove these initiatives, it was the investors' failure to appreciate market structure that doomed them. Knee asks: What makes a good education business? By contrasting rare successes, he finds a dozen broad lessons at the heart of these cautionary case studies. Class Clowns offers an important guide for public policy makers and guardrails for future investors, as well as an intelligent exposé for activists and teachers frustrated with the repeated underperformance of these attempts to shake up education.

Featuring interviews with topflight scholars discussing their work and that of their colleagues, this retrospective of the first hundred years of Columbia Business School recounts the role of the preeminent institution in transforming education, industry, and global society. From its early years as the birthplace of value investing to its seminal influence on Warren Buffett and Benjamin Graham, the school has been a profound incubator of ideas and talent, determining the direction of American business.

In ten chapters, each representing a single subject of the school's research, senior faculty members recount the collaborative efforts and innovative approaches that led to revolutionary business methods in fields like finance, economics, and accounting. They describe the pioneering work that helped create new quantitative and stochastic tools to enhance corporate decision making, and they revisit the groundbreaking twentieth-century marketing and management paradigms that continue to affect the fundamentals of global business. The volume profiles several prominent centers and programs that have helped the school adapt to recent advancements in international business, entrepreneurship, and social enterprise. Columbia Business School has long offered its diverse students access to the best leaders and thinkers in the industry. This book not only reflects on these relationships but also imagines what might be accomplished in the next hundred years.

In the decades since Geoffrey Heal began his field-defining work in environmental economics, one central question has animated his research: "Can we save our environment and grow our economy?" This issue has become only more urgent in recent years with the threat of climate change, the accelerating loss of ecosystems, and the rapid industrialization of the developing world. Reflecting on a lifetime of experience not only as a leading voice in the field, but as a green entrepreneur, activist, and advisor to governments and global organizations, Heal clearly and passionately demonstrates that the only way to achieve long-term economic growth is to protect our environment.

Writing both to those conversant in economics and to those encountering these ideas for the first time, Heal begins with familiar concepts, like the tragedy of the commons and unregulated pollution, to demonstrate the underlying tensions that have compromised our planet, damaging and in many cases devastating our natural world. Such destruction has dire consequences not only for us and the environment but also for businesses, which often vastly underestimate their reliance on unpriced natural benefits like pollination, the water cycle, marine and forest ecosystems, and more. After painting a stark and unsettling picture of our current quandary, Heal outlines simple solutions that have already proven effective in conserving nature and boosting economic growth. In order to ensure a prosperous future for humanity, we must understand how environment and economy interact and how they can work in harmony—lest we permanently harm both.

Suffocating smog regularly envelops Chinese metropolises from Beijing to Shanghai, clouding the future prospect of China's growth sustainability. Air pollutants do not discriminate between the rich and the poor, the politician and the "average Joe." They put everyone's health and economic prosperity at risk, creating future costs that are difficult to calculate. Yet many people, including some in China, are concerned that addressing environmental challenges will jeopardize economic growth.

In The Economics of Air Pollution in China, leading Chinese economist Ma Jun makes the case that the trade-off between growth and environment is not inevitable. In his ambitious proposal to tackle severe air pollution and drastically reduce the level of so-called PM 2.5 particles—microscopic pollutants that lodge deeply in lungs—Ma Jun argues that in targeting pollution, China has a real opportunity to undertake significant structural economic reforms that would support long-term growth. Rooted in rigorous analyses and evidence-based projections, Ma Jun's "big bang" proposal aims to mitigate pollution and facilitate a transition to a greener and more sustainable growth model.