Entrepreneurial strategies for sustainable development

Indice: Entrepreneurship and economic growth. On the nature of entrepreneurship. Strategic entrepreneurship. Sustainable development and entrepreneurship

Islamic private equity: what is new?

The current paper analyzes similarities and differences between conventional and Islamic private equity (PE). Despite the financial subprime crisis and the lack of liquidities in financial markets, PE still play an important role in financing growing unlisted firms all over the world. However, conventional PE and Islamic PE display different features. First, Islamic PE funds have less investments opportunities and cannot diversify their projects across activities and sectors mainly because of the Shari’ah compliance criterion. For instance, the PE funds is composed of the managers team, the Shari’ah supervision board SSB and the supervision compliance officer SCO. Second, the choice of PE partnerships depends on the target’s performance, the Islamic scholars’ school and the religiosity degree of the country where they operate, and the SSB policy. Third, they bear varied and different risks from their conventional counterparts. As a consequence, Islamic PE financing is expensive and still not very competitive. Fourth, to overcome and mitigate risks, conventional PE funds can issue convertible securities and abandon prematurely bad quality projects. In contrast, Islamic PE funds are actively involved in the project only in specific cases and cannot exit prematurely the target but can sell gradually their stocks to cover their equity. Finally, financial modes vary according to the degree of involvement of the PE fund in the project and the pre-agreed arrangements between the entrepreneur and the PE fund.Islamic Private Equity, venture capital, PLS

Managing precarity? Civil society groups and donor retreat in the Eastern Caribbean

Money is a crucial, yet contested aspect of global development. This article focuses on the monetary flows connected to civil society organisations (CSOs). CSOs have traditionally been conceptualised at the bottom of vertical aid chains, exemplifying their dependence on international donors. The retreat of traditional donors from regions such as the Caribbean has the potential to alter the way CSOs operate and their engagement in development activities. Based on empirical research with CSOs in Barbados and Grenada this paper explores the perceived impact of donor withdrawal from the region and discusses three key strategies civil society groups employ in this context. The paper argues that despite feeling increasingly vulnerable, civil society groups are responding by continuing to creatively draw on diverse social, emotional and financial resources to manage this precarity. However, some of these efforts add to the insecurity felt by civil society groups further increasing their fragility. This paper then aims to add to the body of work that is re-evaluating different aspects of global development finance in changing financial times

Local Control of Nineteenth Century Public Policy and the Ethnic Working Class in New England\u27s Mill Towns

This essay, using census material, newspaper reports, and other primary sources, examines the impact of local control of public policy on ethnic working class in nineteenth century New England. Research on New England\u27s ethnic groups often focuses on large textile centers dominated by outside interests such as Fall River, Massachusetts or Manchester, New Hampshire. Corporate interests in these cities displayed a disproportionate influence of public policy often serving corporate, not public, interests. The focus of this study, Fitchburg and Worcester, Massachusetts, exhibited well diversified economies controlled by local interests. Local control led public policy in a direction more beneficial to the local population, particularly the ethnic working class. As a result these two cities saw significantly more ethnic cooperation in all facets of life and much less ethnic tension which was so prevalent in the textile cities

Man and Machine: Questions of Risk, Trust and Accountability in Today's AI Technology

Artificial Intelligence began as a field probing some of the most fundamental questions of science - the nature of intelligence and the design of intelligent artifacts. But it has grown into a discipline that is deeply entwined with commerce and society. Today's AI technology, such as expert systems and intelligent assistants, pose some difficult questions of risk, trust and accountability. In this paper, we present these concerns, examining them in the context of historical developments that have shaped the nature and direction of AI research. We also suggest the exploration and further development of two paradigms, human intelligence-machine cooperation, and a sociological view of intelligence, which might help address some of these concerns.Comment: Preprin

Lessons of Occupy: Towards a Consequential Socialist Politics for the 99 Percent

This research uses the Occupy Movement as a springboard to discuss contemporary political struggles in Canada. Drawing on the recent experiences of Occupy activists, the author discusses the limitations of non-hierarchical, consensus and prefigurative strategies within social movements. In particular, I suggest that such practices, which are meant to challenge routine social inequalities, actually tend to reproduce them. I then ask how those who are exploited within capitalism can consciously and collectively push contemporary struggle in a socialist direction. Drawing on the works of Marx and Marxist theorists, the paper examines how an understanding of class, capital and hegemony are significant to the contemporary social justice agenda. Thus, insights from the empirical experiences of the Occupy movement are used to explore the broader question of how it is possible to bring about revolutionary transformation to a world capitalist system that is in crisis

Industry growth and capital allocation: Does having a market- or bank-based system matter?.

[Dataset available: http://hdl.handle.net/10411/12979]

Macroeconomics for a Modern Economy

Nobel Prize Lecture, December 8, 2006Macroeconomics;