Mirage at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Poor people – at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) – represent a very attractive market opportunity. The ‘BOP proposition’ argues that selling to the poor can simultaneously be profitable and help eradicate poverty. This is at best a harmless illusion and potentially a dangerous delusion. This paper shows that the BOP argument is riddled with fallacies, and proposes an alternative perspective on how the private sector can help alleviate poverty. Rather than focusing on the poor as consumers, we need to view the poor as producers. The only way to alleviate poverty is to raise the real income of the poor.Poverty; Bottom of the pyramid; Selling to the poor; social responsibility

Mirage at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Poor people -- at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) -- represent a very attractive market opportunity. The ‘BOP proposition’ argues that selling to the poor can simultaneously be profitable and help eradicate poverty. This is at best a harmless illusion and potentially a dangerous delusion. This paper shows that the BOP argument is riddled with fallacies, and proposes an alternative perspective on how the private sector can help alleviate poverty. Rather than focusing on the poor as consumers, we need to view the poor as producers. The only way to alleviate poverty is to raise the real income of the poor.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57215/1/wp835 .pd

Climate Change and Economic Development: A Pragmatic Approach (Invited Lecture)

Two major problems promise to dominate economic and social policy during the twentyfirst century. These are global climate change and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Economists are facing these issues at a time when many of the standard tools of economic analysis for example, competitive general equilibrium and the theoretical system that supports it have fallen into disfavour in analysing global issues involving uncertainty and irreversibility. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for development economics. This paper first examines economic models of human development and climate change, drawing, where possible, on the situation in Pakistan. We then outline an approach to coping with climate change based on new perspectives in behavioural and development economics, and on the likely consequences of global warming for Pakistan. We focus on adaptation to climate change rather than on mitigation strategies.

Editorial: Perioperative care: who, when, and why?

No Abstrac

Ecofeminist Movements— from the North to the South

Ecofeminism grows from the idea that a woman’s ethics are closer to nature than a man’s and it revalue feminine traits. Women are seen in sync with nature, working in union with it, while men have a hierarchical relationship with nature in which their actions try to dominate it. This view poses the idea that men’s control over nature has created an ecological crisis in much of the world today. Ecofeminists look for non-violent solutions to world problems. They consider feminine values necessary for survival in the conditions of the world's patriarchy. And while ecofeminists may subscribe to liberal, radical, or Marxist/socialist thought, their main focus is on ecology—both of nature and human systems

Corporate Social Responsibility Does Not Avert the Tragedy of the Commons -- Case Study: Coca-Cola India

'Tragedy of the commons' is a powerful concept to analyze a variety of problems related to environmental sustainability. The commons problem can be solved if individuals behave altruistically. In the business context, this article studies the proposition that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can avert the tragedy of the commons by examining one case study in depth: Coca-Cola's bottling operations in Rajasthan, India. In spite of choosing a context favorable to the proposition, the results indicate that CSR does not avert the tragedy of the commons. To address the major environmental challenges, it is essential to develop regulatory regimes with appropriate incentives and ability to enforce sanctions.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100359/1/1210_Karnani.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100359/4/1210_Karnani_nov13.pd

The Italian musicarello : youth, gender, and modernization in postwar popular cinema

The musicarello was a popular Italian film cycle consisting of more than eighty musical films from 1959 through the 1960s, a period that coincided with Italy’s postwar industrialization. During the postwar economic boom, these musical films emerged as a new form of popular cinema that was unique from other Italian postwar genres because of their intended youth audience, and because of their reference to British and North American popular entertainment. The films were primarily star vehicles, promoting and augmenting the careers of emerging young popular musicians such as Mina, Rita Pavone, Caterina Caselli, Gianni Morandi, Adriano Celentano, and Little Tony. This dissertation details how these young stars and their musical film performances represented youth and their consumer and entertainment choices during Italy’s era of modernization and consumerism, and how the films offered empowering representations of marginal, queered, and liminal subjectivities for young Italians. Analyzed within this framework, I argue that the musicarello can be perceived as camp because it represented the way in which youth and gender are performative and fluctuating subjectivities. While there has been an increased attention on popular cinema in Italian film scholarship, there have been few studies on the musicarello in both Italian and English scholarship at large. In this extensive study of the musical films, my methodology consists of close text formal analysis and an engagement with American and Italian film scholarship, cultural studies, and gender/queer theories. My formal analyses focus on film narratives, character development, musical numbers, and star status, alongside my examination of recurring themes, narratives devices, and tropes within the cycle. With a heavy emphasis on socio-historical contextualization and youth culture, my project adds to current scholarship on 1960s Italian youth culture and mass media, thereby filling a void not only in Italian film studies, but also in studies on Italian youth representationFrench and Italia