The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 414 pages, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.I LOVE THESE GUYS''(Joseph Stiglitz) is an insanely great economist,'' so writes Paul R. Krugman, who should know. These two like to write books for the populace at large on the topic of macroeconomics. Krugman also likes to spout offon Sunday news shows like ''Meet the Press,'' and on all the cable news programs. You can see Krugman arguing with Bill O'Reilly on Meet the Press. From YouTube: ''Don't call me a liar, pal, that's what you do all the time,'' says O'Reilly; ''This is not your show, so you can't cut offmy mic,'' says Krugman. Judging by their expressions, I was glad Tim Russert (6- 3-) was there in the studio at the time to protect Krugman (5- 7-) (O'Reilly stands 6- 4-). Conservative pundits dislike both economists, but pretty much leave Stiglitz alone.Krugman makes it a point to stay out of government affairs. Stiglitz does just the opposite, and he sometimes gets burned. Stiglitz was part of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers and was Chief Economist for the World Bank. After much criticism of the way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted lending to developing countries, he was pretty much fired from the World Bank. Comparing the two, you would have to say that Stiglitz is more the bleeding heart, while Krugman says that what he dislikes most is the dishonesty he sees in political-economic discourse. Both are champions of the common man.Since Stiglitz can make the very valid claim for being ''an insanely great economist,'' most everything he says in his books should be taken seriously. There are some real gems in this book. I especially like the perspective he lends to some of the more peculiar things that happened before, during, and after the financial crisis. People hear about these things in the news from some announcer who makes them sound like just more news-bites, but they are, after all, unprecedented (and largely absurd). Take ''robo-signing'' for instance (page 198).WHAT GOES FOR NEWSRobo-signing was part of what happened during the foreclosure process after the massive numbers of defaults of subprime mortgages. Big banks intentionally did not follow mandated law. Apart from ignoring debtors' rights, an ensuing mess followed. Robo-signing was nothing less than a blatant attempt at rewriting property law, and resulted in lying to the courts about the state of each property's title, literally hundreds of times. No bank officer was charged with a crime. By contrast, the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s led to 829 individual convictions and 650 prison sentences. Nowadays the big banks just pay fines as part of settlements where they admit no guilt, and it's just part of doing business.Take algorithmic or ''flash'' trading in the stock exchanges (page 164). These are buys and sales made in nanoseconds on the basis of extracting information from the patterns of prices and trades. Nothing like real information gathered through market research on an industry, or on a firm in a certain industry, backs up these trades. But traders swear that ''price discovery'' is happening this way, and that all this backs up the efficient markets model. So on May 6, 2010 stock prices plummeted to a point where the Dow Jones temporarily lost 10% of its value. There are reasons to believe that these trades ''make markets not just more volatile but also less 'informative' '' (page 166). Still, the talk on the street is all about efficient markets (echoing Alan Greenspan's failures at the Federal Reserve).Take failed privatizations. When electric power in California was liberalized and Enron manipulated prices and public power to its advantage, this was a story about the company's accounting practices, not about privatizing something that had no business being privatized. …

The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future

The theory of the growth of the firm

Developments in methodologies, agglomeration, and a range of applied issues have characterized recent advances in regional and urban studies. Volume 5 concentrates on these developments while treating traditional subjects such as housing, the costs and benefits of cities, and policy issues beyond regional inequalities. Contributors make a habit of combining theory and empirics in each chapter, guiding research amid a trend in applied economics towards structural and quasi-experimental approaches. Clearly distinguished from the New Economic Geography covered by Volume 4, these articles feature an international approach that positions recent advances within the discipline of economics and society at large. * Editors are recognized as leaders and can attract an international list of contributors* Regional and urban studies interest economists in many subdisciplines, such as labor, development, and public economics* Table of contents combines theoretical and applied subjects, ensuring broad appeal to readers

Handbook of regional and urban economics

Critical evaluation of off-site construction research: a scientometric analysis

Off-site construction has gained more attention from both academia and industry during the last few years. Modular construction is one of the most efficient off-site construction methods. In this method, different parts (components) of a building are designed and fabricated off the construction site in factories as one or more modules, and then they are assembled on site to form the final product. Studies have shown that the modular building technique is applicable to different types of buildings, including residential, commercial, educational, and medical. Environmental performance is one of the most significant dimensions leading to sustainability. Since buildings account for a substantial portion of environmental burdens, the main focus of this study is on the environmental performance of modular facilities over their life cycle. This article also presents a comprehensive critical literature review on the benefits and challenges of the modular construction method, compared to its conventional counterpart. It is concluded that, on average, modular buildings have been shown to provide a better life cycle performance, for example a building׳s energy performance, among others. Further life cycle research, considering all the dimensions of sustainable construction, is recommended in order to develop a robust picture of the sustainability of modular construction.

Life cycle performance of modular buildings: A critical review

The purpose of this paper is to examine the features and tendency of cost indices in the global construction setting.,Data from 22 countries/regions are collected and analyzed using maximum variance formulation and Kendall rank correlation coefficient.,It is found that global construction cost indexes (CCIs) have commonly maintained a steady increase for decades, and the CCIs synchronize with each other. Overall synchronicity and synchronicity of different countries pairs have increased with time significantly.,The major limitation, however, is the availability of data: only 22 regions/countries are examined, the distribution of these regions/countries is imbalanced between different continents and various indices are adopted around the world, of which statistical methods are not same.,The implication is that a better perception of CCIs enables contractors to have a robust estimation for bidding prices and to improve the efficiency of construction projects management. The research findings also provide a useful reference for those countries that have not established construction cost indices databases to forecast the tendency of domestic construction industries.,This paper contributes to the overall body of knowledge by presenting the co-movement of global CCIs and measuring the changes of CCI synchronicity with time and in different countries pairs.

Synchronicity of global construction cost indexes

Factors influencing homeowners’ housing renovation decision-making: Towards a holistic understanding

Transport infrastructure (TI) plays a crucial role in socioeconomic development. The increase of TI inequality, an all-pervading phenomenon in both developed and developing countries, has been an obstacle to sustainable economic growth. The relationship between TI inequality and economic growth has attracted considerable interest over the past three decades. However, the relationship remains obscure, and people find it impossible to utilize to develop economies. This study collected a panel of empirical data from 1982 to 2015 from China to calculate the Gini coefficient and conduct the Granger causality test. The data analysis results show that TI inequality is not always conducive to economic growth. A softening TI inequality helps address the issues of uneven economic growth across regions in the long term. The short-term effects of improving TI inequality at the national level are reflected in the network effect. In addition, the “social filters” facilitate the region to absorb the economic benefits brought by the improvement of TI inequality. These findings offer a way to address the increase of TI inequality and shed light on the ways to improve transport investment from the perspective of economic growth.

/pdf/does-transport-infrastructure-inequality-matter-for-economic-1stnkud8vj.pdf

Does Transport Infrastructure Inequality Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from China

Bid riggers often are accused of colluding and violating competition law, but there are limited instruments with which antitrust authorities can detect them. In collusive bidding, bid rigge...

A Conceptual Framework for the Inclusion of Exogenous Factors into Collusive Bidding Price Decisions

Whether to bid on construction work is a traditional question that is often challenged in different economic situations. What will the decision factors be when contractors have to struggle to achieve growth in economic downturns? Since previous studies have not widely agreed with each other on this issue, this study aims to examine China’s construction engineering contractors in recent “bad” years. The research findings reveal that the cluster related to expected profitability, including terms of payment, reputation of the client regarding his/her commitment to making timely payments, original price estimated by the client, profit track record for similar projects, and contract type, were the most significant determinants. The bid/no-bid decision-making process comprises three modules, including the contractor’s strategies, the contractor’s competency for a project, and expected competition. These results suggest that competing for survival is the dominant position of contractors in making bid/no-bid decisions in economic downturns.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/5/1899/pdf

Kunhui Ye

Papers

Synchronicity of global construction cost indexes

Factors influencing homeowners’ housing renovation decision-making: Towards a holistic understanding

Does Transport Infrastructure Inequality Matter for Economic Growth? Evidence from China

A Conceptual Framework for the Inclusion of Exogenous Factors into Collusive Bidding Price Decisions

Will Bid/No-Bid Decision Factors for Construction Projects Be Different in Economic Downturns? A Chinese Study