Digital library
Textbooks, references and open learning resources.
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Better Together: How We Build Economic, Political, And Environmental Sustainability
Fazil Acar · University of Leeds Open Books · 2025
This book explores how economic, political and environmental sustainability can be strengthened when individuals, institutions and societies work together. Part I traces the story of human progress, showing how freedom, innovation and shared prosperity have evolved side by side. Parts II and III examine how national economies and labour markets shape well-being, emphasising the importance of quality work, high-value production and fair opportunities. Part IV turns to money, finance and macro-economic policy, explaining how monetary systems, central banking and exchange-rate dynamics affect stability and equality. Part V extends this to global trade and investment, illustrating how economic interdependence requires political cooperation. Finally, Part VI focuses on sustainability itself, demonstrating why markets alone cannot safeguard the environment or social cohesion. Drawing on behavioural economics, institutional design and active citizenship, the book shows how integrated approaches can meet today’s most pressing challenges. Blending historical insight, economic theory and real-world examples, Better Together argues that we are strongest when we align our economic choices, political systems and environmental responsibilities. It offers an accessible and practical guide for students, policymakers and citizens seeking to build resilient, fair and sustainable societies.
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The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century
Tim Besley; Irene Bucelli; Andrés Velasco · LSE Press · 2025
A generation ago, the so-called Washington Consensus laid out a series of dos and don’ts for policymakers around the world. Today, that vision is recognised as having fallen short in a number of ways – particularly in its neglect of the social and institutional factors that are indispensable for achieving sustained growth and for building fairer and more cohesive societies. The immense challenges humanity faces are easy to list: climate change, pandemics, social inequalities, the far-reaching effects of the tech revolution and AI, a fragmenting world economy, and a wave of populism and political polarisation that has undermined support for liberal democracy in many countries. It is much harder to identify a set of new ideas – and policies – that will solve these seemingly intractable global problems. In this new world, political leaders and policymakers need guidance and principles that can assist when choosing among policy alternatives. To this end, the editors of this volume convened over 50 of the world’s leading economists and policy experts at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The London Consensus: Economic Principles for the 21st Century is the result of these exchanges. It is not intended as a one-size-fits-all set of economic remedies, but an exercise in assembling the best available evidence and ideas to foster dialogue, and ultimately to develop a set of principles that can address the urgent political, social and economic tasks ahead.
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Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies
Miliann Kang; Donovan Lessard; Laura Heston; Sonny Nordmarken · UMass Amherst · 2017
This textbook introduces key feminist concepts and analytical frameworks used in the interdisciplinary Women, Gender, Sexualities field. It unpacks the social construction of knowledge and categories of difference, processes and structures of power and inequality, with a focus on gendered labor in the global economy, and the historical development of feminist social movements. The book emphasizes feminist sociological approaches to analyzing structures of power, drawing heavily from empirical feminist research.
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Principles of Political Economy
Daniel Saros · Valparaiso University · 2019
This textbook is unique among economics textbooks. It contains many of the same topics as mainstream textbooks, but it includes and takes very seriously heterodox critiques and alternatives to the mainstream approach to economics. It includes a whole range of alternative theories, including Post-Keynesian, Austrian, Marxian, radical, feminist, institutionalist, and other approaches. The purpose is to teach students about alternative schools of economic thought but also to deepen their understanding of the dominant, neoclassical approach to economics. In this sense, it draws a great deal of inspiration from Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick’s Contending Economic Theories. Following Wolff and Resnick, an even broader objective is to teach students that economics is a discourse and that no single voice can rightfully claim to have a monopoly on the truth about economics.
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Sustaining the Commons
John Anderies; Marco Janssen · Arizona State University · 2016
This textbook discusses the main framework, concepts and applications of the work of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues for an undergraduate audience. We began teaching a course on collective and the commons in 2007 at Arizona State University. Initially we made use of Ostrom's classic book “Governing the Commons”, but this book was not written for an undergraduate audience. Moreover, many new insights have been developed since the 1990 publication of “Governing the Commons”. Therefore we decided to write our own textbook, which we have been using since the Spring of 2012. In this book you will learn about institutions–the rules and norms that guide the interactions among us. Those rules and norms can be found from traffic rules, rules in sports, regulations on when and where alcohol can be consumed, to constitutional rules that define who can become president of the United States of America. Rules and norms guide us to cooperative outcomes of so-called collective action problems. If we rely on voluntary contributions only to get anything done, this may not lead to the best results. But research also shows that coercion of people to comply to strict rules do not necessary lead to good outcomes. What combination of sticks and carrots is needed to be successful to solve collective action problems such as sustaining the commons? The book is based on the work of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues. Ostrom is best known as the 2009 co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons”. Elinor Ostrom was a professor at Indiana University since the mid 1960s, and a part-time research professor at Arizona State University since 2006. She was active in research and teaching until her death at the age of 78 on June 12, 2012.
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Introduction to Economic Analysis
Preston McAfee; Tracy Lewis · Saylor Foundation · 2009
This book presents standard intermediate microeconomics material and some material that, in the authors' view, ought to be standard but is not. Introductory economics material is integrated. Standard mathematical tools, including calculus, are used throughout. The book easily serves as an intermediate microeconomics text, and can be used for a relatively sophisticated undergraduate who has not taken a basic university course in economics. The focus of this book is on the conceptual tools and not on fluff. As such, it reflects the approach actually adopted by the majority of economists for understanding economic activity. There are lots of models and equations, and no pictures of economists ;-) Economic analysis is used in many situations. When British Petroleum sets the price for Alaskan crude oil, it uses an estimated demand model, both for gasoline consumers and also for the refineries to which BP sells. Economic analysis was used by experts in the antitrust suit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice both to understand Microsoft's incentive to foreclose (eliminate from the market) rival Netscape and consumer behavior in the face of alleged foreclosure. Stock market analysts use economic models to forecast the profits of companies to predict the price of their stocks. When the government forecasts the budget deficit or considers a change in environmental regulations, it uses economic models. This book presents the building blocks of the models in common use by an army of economists thousands of times per day. This book, plus econometrics, provides most of the economic analysis tools to take upper division economics courses of any type.
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International Trade: Theory and Policy
Steve Suranovic · Saylor Foundation · 2010
International Trade: Theory and Policy is built on Steve Suranovic's belief that to understand the international economy, students need to learn how economic models are applied to real world problems. It is true what they say, that ”economists do it with models.“ That's because economic models provide insights about the world that are simply not obtainable solely by discussion of the issues. International Trade: Theory and Policy presents a variety of international trade models including the Ricardian model, the Heckscher-Ohlin model, and the monopolistic competition model. It includes trade policy analysis in both perfectly competitive and imperfectly competitive markets. The text also addresses current issues such as free trade area formation and administered protection policies. The models are developed, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model's assumptions influence its conclusions. But more importantly, each model and theory is connected to real world policy issues. The main purpose of the text is to provide a thorough grounding in the arguments concerning the age-old debate about free trade versus protectionism. This text has the following unique features: The text begins with an historical overview of trade policy issues to provide context for the theory. The text concludes with a detailed economic argument supporting free trade.The welfare analysis in the Ricardian, Heckscher-Ohlin and specific factors models emphasize the redistributive effects of free trade by calculating changes in real incomes.The trade policy chapter provides a comprehensive look at many more trade policies than are found in a printed textbook. A chapter about domestic policies contains an evaluation of domestic taxes and subsidies that are often ignored in traditional trade textbooks but are increasingly important as large countries complain more about each other's domestic agriculture policies and labor and en
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Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined
Ingrid Robeyns · Open Book Publishers · 2017
How do we evaluate ambiguous concepts such as wellbeing, freedom, and social justice? How do we develop policies that offer everyone the best chance to achieve what they want from life? The capability approach, a theoretical framework pioneered by the philosopher and economist Amartya Sen in the 1980s, has become an increasingly influential way to think about these issues. Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined is both an introduction to the capability approach and a thorough evaluation of the challenges and disputes that have engrossed the scholars who have developed it. Ingrid Robeyns offers her own illuminating and rigorously interdisciplinary interpretation, arguing that by appreciating the distinction between the general capability approach and more specific capability theories or applications we can create a powerful and flexible tool for use in a variety of academic disciplines and fields of policymaking. This book provides an original and comprehensive account that will appeal to scholars of the capability approach, new readers looking for an interdisciplinary introduction, and those interested in theories of justice, human rights, basic needs, and the human development approach.
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Business Finance
Sagarika Mishra; Hoa Nguyen · Deakin University · 2023
Developed for an international cohort, this text is designed to explain business finance concepts in an easily understood manner without overwhelming students with too much content.
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Fundamentals of Finance
Annette Nguyen · Deakin University · 2024
This textbook is designed to serve as an additional resource for the course "Fundamentals of Finance." It provides an introduction to the field of finance, encompassing a broad range of key topics. These include the time value of money, bond and equity valuations, risk and returns, and various sources of capital. This book aims to enhance the learning experience by offering a thorough understanding of these fundamental financial principles.
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Liquidity, Markets and Trading in Action
Deniz Ozenbas ; Michael Pagano; Robert Schwartz ; Bruce Weber · Springer · 2022
This open access book addresses four standard business school subjects: microeconomics, macroeconomics, finance and information systems as they relate to trading, liquidity, and market structure. It provides a detailed examination of the impact of trading costs and other impediments of trading that the authors call “frictions”. It also presents an interactive simulation model of equity market trading, TraderEx, that enables students to implement trading decisions in different market scenarios and structures. Addressing these topics shines a bright light on how a real-world financial market operates, and the simulation provides students with an experiential learning opportunity that is informative and fun. Each of the chapters is designed so that it can be used as a stand-alone module in an existing economics, finance, or information science course. Instructor resources such as discussion questions, Powerpoint slides and TraderEx exercises are available online.
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An Introduction to Cooperation and Mutualism
Michael Boland · University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing · 2017
This textbook introduces readers to the idea of cooperation and mutualism. Cooperatives and mutuals are participatory organizations in which members participate in control and governance, receive economic benefits through patronage refunds or net income, and become owners through equity. These mutual-benefit organizations exist alongside non-profit organizations and investor-benefit organizations through the global economy.
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Good Corporation, Bad Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy
Guillermo Jimenez; Elizabeth Pulos · Open SUNY · 2016
This textbook provides an innovative, internationally oriented approach to the teaching of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. Drawing on case studies involving companies and countries around the world, the textbook explores the social, ethical, and business dynamics underlying CSR in such areas as global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food production, free trade and fair trade, anti-sweatshop and living-wage movements, organic foods and textiles, ethical marketing practices and codes, corporate speech and lobbying, and social enterprise. The book is designed to encourage students and instructors to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices by stimulating a class debate based on each case study.
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Fundamentals of Global Strategy
Cornelis de Kluyver · Saylor Foundation · 2012
The globalization of the competitive landscape has forced companies to fundamentally rethink their strategies. Whereas once only a few industries such as oil could be labeled truly global, today many—from pharmaceuticals to aircraft to computers—have become global in scale and scope. As a consequence, creating a global competitive advantage has become a key strategic issue for many companies, and students need to possess an understanding of the impact of global strategies on a business. Crafting a global strategy requires making decisions about which strategy elements can and should be globalized and to what extent, and de Kluyver's Fundamentals of Global Strategy can help you illuminate these facts to your students. Fundamentals of Global Strategy poses the following questions for your students to analyze: What markets and/or regions should a company compete in and why? To what degree can and should products and services be standardized? Is it advantageous to adopt a more or less uniform market positioning worldwide? What value-added activities should it keep in-house, outsource, or relocate for competitive advantage? How can competitive responses be most effectively coordinated on a global basis?
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Politische und ökonomische Rahmenbedingungen des Sozial- und Gesundheitswesens in der Schweiz
Konstantin Kehl · Springer · 2023
Das Buch bietet eine kompakte Einführung in die zentralen politischen und ökonomischen Begriffe, Konzepte und Diskurse des schweizerischen Sozial- und Gesundheitswesens. Es spannt den Bogen von den demokratischen Grundsätzen und Eigenheiten des politischen Systems, über die Sozialhilfe, Sozialversicherungen sowie ökonomischen Strukturmerkmale des Gesundheits- und Sozialwesens, bis hin zu Fragen sozialer Ungleichheit und sozialer Gerechtigkeit. Es legt besonderes Augenmerk auf aktuelle Beispiele und Trends, welche professionelles Handeln sowie ein zukunftsweisendes Management beeinflussen.
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Gestión estratégica del talento humano alineado al desarrollo organizacional
César Andrés Guerrero-Velástegui; Ibett Mariela Jácome-Lara; Fernando Neptalí Terán-Guerrero; Edisson Andrés Frias-Pérez · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2025
El presente libro tiene como propósito brindar a estudiantes y profesionales una base conceptual y metodológica para comprender la gestión estratégica del talento humano en las organizaciones actuales. Analiza las características modernas de la gestión de personal y su impacto en las relaciones laborales, utilizando modelos y métodos funcionales para diagnosticar, planificar y controlar el talento humano. Se explora la gestión de recursos humanos desde una perspectiva estratégica, resaltando la importancia del liderazgo y el trabajo en equipo. Se presentan herramientas tecnológicas, como el Mapa de Beer, para mejorar la planificación y control del talento humano, además, se detallan estrategias para la optimización de plantillas y la toma de decisiones con análisis avanzados como el modelo de Markov. En un mundo globalizado, las ventajas competitivas no residen solo en los recursos materiales, financieros o técnicos, sino en la formación y gestión del talento humano. Por ello, este libro busca desarrollar un enfoque sistemático y estratégico que permita diagnosticar, predecir y gestionar eficazmente el talento humano, potenciando el crecimiento organizacional a través del desarrollo del capital humano.
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Gestión Inteligente Sinergias en la Administración
Jazmina Mariela Macias-Loor; Alberto Efraín Prado-Chinga; Evelyn Eugenia Alcívar-Soria · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2024
El libro abarca once capítulos que exploran diversos aspectos de la administración y la organización empresarial en contextos tanto públicos como privados. Inicia con el análisis de la burocracia y las asociaciones dentro de estructuras organizacionales, seguido por una discusión sobre la razón instrumental en la toma de decisiones. Posteriormente, se aborda el desarrollo sostenible y la justicia social, así como la cultura organizacional en asociaciones culturales. Otros capítulos profundizan en la responsabilidad social corporativa en Ecuador, las capacidades administrativas en el sector público, y la formalización del comercio de mariscos. También se analizan factores de motivación y deserción estudiantil, así como estrategias para mejorar la atención al cliente en instituciones públicas. Finaliza con un estudio sobre los "spin-offs" y su rol en la innovación y sostenibilidad en Ecuador.
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Integrando IA en los Nuevos Paradigmas de las Ciencias Económicas y Gestión Empresarial
José Rafael Díaz-Avelino; César Iván Casanova-Villalba; César Estuardo Carrillo-Barragán; María Gabriela Cueva-Jiménez · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2024
El libro aborda la integración de la inteligencia artificial (IA) en diferentes áreas de las ciencias económicas y la gestión empresarial, explorando sus impactos y beneficios. En la introducción, se destaca cómo la transformación digital redefine las estrategias organizacionales y fomenta la innovación continua, mejorando la capacidad de respuesta a las demandas del mercado. Metodológicamente, se utilizan estudios de caso y análisis de datos para ilustrar la aplicación de la IA. Los resultados muestran que, en la contabilidad, la IA automatiza tareas repetitivas, reduce errores y mejora la precisión, permitiendo a los profesionales centrarse en actividades estratégicas. En el ámbito financiero, los algoritmos de trading inteligente aumentan la velocidad y precisión de las transacciones, mejorando la competitividad y la liquidez del mercado. La gestión de riesgos se beneficia de modelos predictivos que anticipan posibles amenazas, mientras que el cumplimiento normativo se fortalece mediante el monitoreo automatizado. En términos de desarrollo sostenible, la IA optimiza la distribución de recursos y mejora la eficiencia energética, contribuyendo a políticas más verdes y equitativas. La conclusión resalta la necesidad de un enfoque ético y transparente en la implementación de IA, para asegurar decisiones justas y responsables.
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Una ventana abierta hacia la calidad total en un mundo globalizado
Carlos Flores-Murillo; Karles Hoffmann-Jaramillo; Alida Vallejo-López; Ana Santamaría-Robles · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2024
En la actualidad, los países de todo el mundo, se encuentran en constante desarrollo de sus empresas, cada una de las cuales, se encuentra en pugna por lograr los más altos estándares de calidad, eficacia y eficiencia, con el fin de posicionarse en las preferencias del público. En un mundo globalizado diversos factores influyen en la competitividad empresarial, la calidad es un valor agregado que da realce a cada entidad, empresa u organización en la prestación de sus servicios. Es fundamental entender que la calidad no solo implica la entrega de un producto o servicio que cumpla con ciertas especificaciones técnicas, sino también brindar una experiencia positiva al cliente. Los cambios en el esquema empresarial mundial, requieren cada vez mayores exigencias para obtener productos de calidad. Alcanzar la máxima productividad y eficiencia en la empresa contribuye a generar éxito y mayores utilidades en la organización. La productividad puede ser vista como un indicador de excelencia y competitividad en el mercado. Todos los sectores de las cadenas productivas deben prestar servicios de calidad ya que impactan directamente en la sociedad e impulsan el crecimiento económico y comercial de un país.
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Normas Internacionales de Información Financiera, su Aplicación Financiera, Contable y Tributaria
Cecilia Navarrete-Zambrano · Editorial Grupo AEA · 2024
El libro se centra en las Normas Internacionales de Información Financiera (NIIF) y su relevancia en el ámbito financiero, contable y tributario. Estas normas buscan garantizar que la información financiera presentada en los estados financieros sea comparable, transparente y de alta calidad, ayudando a los inversores y otros usuarios a tomar decisiones económicas informadas. El libro aborda diversos temas relacionados con las NIIF y NIC, como el marco conceptual para la información financiera, la presentación de estados financieros, instrumentos financieros, arrendamientos, inventarios, estado de flujo de efectivo, impuestos diferidos, propiedad, planta y equipo, entre otros. Es una herramienta esencial para profesionales y estudiantes en el campo de la contabilidad y finanzas que buscan comprender y aplicarlas en su trabajo diario.