The scourge of America’s economy isn't the success of the 1 percent—quite the opposite. The real problem is the government’s well-meaning but misguided attempt to reduce the payoffs for success. Four years ago, Edward Conard wrote a controversial bestseller, Unintended Consequences, which set the record straight on the financial crisis of 2008 and explained why U.S. growth was accelerating relative to other high-wage economies. He warned that loose monetary policy would produce neither growth nor inflation, that expansionary fiscal policy would have no lasting benefit on growth in the aftermath of the crisis, and that ill-advised attempts to rein in banking based on misplaced blame would slow an already weak recovery. Unfortunately, he was right. Now he’s back with another provocative argument: that our current obsession with income inequality is misguided and will only slow growth further. Using fact-based logic, Conard tracks the implications of an economy now constrained by both its capacity for risk-taking and by a shortage of properly trained talent—rather than by labor or capital, as was the case historically. He uses this fresh perspective to challenge the conclusions of liberal economists like Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz and the myths of “crony capitalism” more broadly. Instead, he argues that the growing wealth of most successful Americans is not to blame for the stagnating incomes of the middle and working classes. If anything, the success of the 1 percent has put upward pressure on employment and wages. Conard argues that high payoffs for success motivate talent to get the training and take the risks that gradually loosen the constraints to growth. Well-meaning attempts to decrease inequality through redistribution dull these incentives, gradually hurting not just the 1 percent but everyone else as well. Conard outlines a plan for growing middle- and working-class wages in an economy with a near infinite supply of labor that is shifting from capital-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-intensive, innovation-driven fields. He urges us to stop blaming the success of the 1 percent for slow wage growth and embrace the upside of inequality: faster growth and greater prosperity for everyone.

From the author of the #1 bestselling and Governor General’s Literary Award-winning The Ingenuity Gap – an essential addition to the bookshelf of every thinking person with a stake in our world and our civilization. This is a groundbreaking, essential book for our times. Thomas Homer-Dixon brings to bear his formidable understanding of the urgent problems that confront our world to clarify their scope and deep causes. The Upside of Down provides a vivid picture of the immense stresses that are simultaneously converging on our societies and threatening a breakdown that would profoundly shake civilization. It shows, too, how we can choose a better route into the future. With the immediacy that characterized his award-winning international bestseller, The Ingenuity Gap, Homer-Dixon takes us on a remarkable journey – from the fall of the Roman empire to the devastation of the 9/11 attacks in New York, from Toronto in the 2003 blackout to the ancient temples of Lebanon and the wildfires of California. Incorporating the newest findings from an astonishing array of disciplines, he argues that the great stresses our world is experiencing – global warming, energy scarcity, population imbalances, and widening gaps between rich and poor – can’t be looked at independently. As these stresses combine and converge, the risk of breakdown rises. The first signs are appearing in the wastelands of the Arctic, the mud-clogged streets of Gonaïves, Haiti, and the volatile regions of the Middle East and Asia. But while the consequences of denial in our more perilous world are dire, Homer-Dixon makes clear that we can use our emerging understanding of the complex systems in which we live to avoid catastrophic collapse in a way the Roman empire could not. This vitally important new book shows how, in the face of breakdown, we can still provide for the renewal of our global civilization. We are creating the conditions for catastrophe, but by understanding the underlying principles that make human and natural systems resilient – and by working together to put those principles into effect – we can still limit the severity of collapse and foster regeneration, innovation, and renewal.

America is in decline, and the rise of the East suggests a bleak future for the world's only superpower -- so goes the conventional wisdom. But what if the traditional measures of national status are no longer as important as they once were? What if America's well-being was assessed according to entirely different factors? In The Upside of Down, Charles Kenny argues that America's so-called decline is only relative to the newfound success of other countries. And there is tremendous upside to life in a wealthier world: Americans can benefit from better choices and cheaper prices offered by schools and hospitals in rising countries, and, without leaving home, avail themselves of the new inventions and products those countries will produce. The key to thriving in this world is to move past the jeremiads about America's deteriorating status and figure out how best to take advantage of its new role in a multipolar world. A refreshing antidote to prophecies of American decline, The Upside of Down offers a fresh and highly optimistic look at America's future in a wealthier world.

New edition with updated content In a world shaped by Covid-19 and characterised by fake news, manipulated feeds of information and divisive social-media agendas, it’s easy to believe that our time is the most challenging in human history. It’s just not true. It is a time of extraordinary opportunity. But only if you have the right mindset and attitude. Fear of the future breeds inaction and leads to strategic paralysis. Problem-solvers thrive in chaotic and uncertain times because they act to change their future. Winners recognise that in a world of growing uncertainty, you need to resort to actions on things you can control. A robust mindset is the one common characteristic Bruce Whitfield has identified in two decades of interrogating how South Africa’s billionaires and start-up mavericks think differently. They don’t ignore risk or hope that problems will go away. They constantly measure, manage, consider and weigh up opportunities in a tumultuous sea of uncertainty and find ways around obstacles. If, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller suggests, the stories we tell affect economic outcomes, then we need to tell different stories amidst the noise and haste of a rapidly evolving world.

Stochastic Limit Theory, published in 1994, has become a standard reference in its field. Now reissued in a new edition, offering updated and improved results and an extended range of topics, Davidson surveys asymptotic (large-sample) distribution theory with applications to econometrics, with particular emphasis on the problems of time dependence and heterogeneity. The book is designed to be useful on two levels. First, as a textbook and reference work, giving definitions of the relevant mathematical concepts, statements, and proofs of the important results from the probability literature, and numerous examples; and second, as an account of recent work in the field of particular interest to econometricians. It is virtually self-contained, with all but the most basic technical prerequisites being explained in their context; mathematical topics include measure theory, integration, metric spaces, and topology, with applications to random variables, and an extended treatment of conditional probability. Other subjects treated include: stochastic processes, mixing processes, martingales, mixingales, and near-epoch dependence; the weak and strong laws of large numbers; weak convergence; and central limit theorems for nonstationary and dependent processes. The functional central limit theorem and its ramifications are covered in detail, including an account of the theoretical underpinnings (the weak convergence of measures on metric spaces), Brownian motion, the multivariate invariance principle, and convergence to stochastic integrals. This material is of special relevance to the theory of cointegration. The new edition gives updated and improved versions of many of the results and extends the coverage of many topics, in particular the theory of convergence to alpha-stable limits of processes with infinite variance.

Many Christians have an impending sense of doom about our country and the world. But are their fears based on reality or myth? In this book Wright examines issues of concern to Christians, including poverty, sickness, sexual morality, the environment, and the global church. Did you know that global poverty has been cut in half over the last several decades? That infant deaths have decreased dramatically in recent years? That Christianity is a growing and influential force in Asia and Africa? Maybe the world isn't in a downward spiral after all. In an age of pessimism, this book offers good news to Christian readers looking for glimpses of hope.

Despite the growing importance of the global emerging market (GEM) for the world’s business, economies, and politics, it has received a relatively scant amount of academic attention in business and economics courses. This textbook is the first to focus on the GEM and its strategic and economic characteristics. The Global Emerging Market: Strategic Management and Economics describes the fundamental economic base and trends of the global marketplace (GMP) as well as business and management development for the conditions of emerging-market countries (EMCs). Focusing on the formation of a strategic mindset and the decision making process, it explains how to analyze the basic economic factors and the global order, especially in times of crisis. This text also explains how to classify countries related to this new market of tremendous opportunities. Furthermore, the book includes recommendations on how to develop entry and exit strategies for the GEM, work in it and create efficient management systems. Features include: Extensive tables, charts, and graphs illustrating the strategic considerations of the GMP and the GEM End-of-chapter study questions Practical examples based on the author’s involvement in the development of the GEM, from both sides of the international transactions This academic book is the ideal guide for current business leaders and students on how to make strategic, symmetric, and asymmetric time-sensitive decisions related to the GEM.

American exceptionalism -- Exceptionalism and "unthinkability" -- Manifest Destiny and the American occupation of Haiti -- The American occupation and Haiti's exceptionalism -- Imperial exceptionalism at the turn of the 20th century -- Dictatorship, democratization, and exceptionalism -- The diaspora and the transmogrification of exceptionalism -- Identity politics and modern exceptionalism.

Following the metaphor of “the world upside-down,” this essay collection highlights the importance of the humanities in addressing, along with the sciences, pressing challenges in today’s rapidly changing world. Crossing across a variety of disciplines, historical periods, and regions in the world, this volume represents a useful tool for humanities scholars and students exploring the key role of our disciplines in public debates about pressing issues, such as the refugee crisis, climate change denialism, environmental justice, racism, and the current worldwide crisis of democracy. It provides practical examples of how societies throughout the world have historically coped with unexpected and distressing changes in government, core values, axiomatic systems, assumptions, beliefs, ideology, or cultural constructions. The feeling of topsy-turvy consternation as a result of sudden, harrowing change, as is shown here, is not new; rather, it has simply evolved throughout time and space.

In the twenty-first century, the global community constantly strives to bring structure and order to the world through strategic means. From the highest levels of governments and militaries to multilateral institutions, NGOs, and corporations, a strategy for the future of a company, region, country, or even the world is tantamount to success. Yet few understand what strategy actually is and how it can be developed, planned, and implemented. Strategy for the Global Market combines a fundamental study of the theory of strategy with its practical applications to provide a new approach to the global emerging market. Due to the technological transformations in communications and transportation, and the birth and development of both the global community and the global marketplace over the past twenty years, the world’s population and corporations are in much closer contact with their counterparts across the globe than ever before. This has led to increasing competition and even rivalries. Understanding the strategic environment, as well as solving problems either through amicable means or conflict, requires the powerful instrument of strategy to remain efficient and to triumph. Features of this book include: Methodology and practical recommendations for all stages of developing and implementing strategy. A comprehensive guide with explanations and descriptions, for the preparation and orderly compilation of all necessary strategy documents. Real-world examples taken from corporate, government, and military strategizing practices in emerging market countries and the global marketplace. This book should be on the desk of every national, regional, and military leader, corporate executive, manager, and student of strategy.