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

Globalization has created an international market that allows construction companies transcend traditional national boundaries and conduct business overseas. With new opportunities being brought to contractors, competition also grows exponentially in this market. Diversification is frequently adopted by these contractors as a strategy by the contractors for either growth, or risk management, or both in this competitive environment. However, the pattern of diversification has not been well measured, mapped, and analyzed. The aim of this research is to develop a Diversify Index (DI) and examine international contractors’ diversification pattern. The data is from the Top 225 International Contractors’ reports ranked by ENR (Engineering News-Record) from 1995 to 2014. Distributions of the DI were explored first and then case studies were used to investigate the specific diversification strategies adopted by the top international contractors. It is discovered that a downward trend of DI with subsequent changes in rankings expresses that larger contractors increasingly adopt various diversification strategies in international competition. The results provide valuable sights on the relationship between the competitive success and their diversification strategies as well as the tendency of diversification strategies adopted by top international contractors in different regions.

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How Do Top Construction Companies Diversify in the International Construction Market

In the international construction industry, Angola Mode is an effective approach for Chinese construction firms to finance construction projects in Africa. This approach was devised by the China Export-Import Bank with the intention for the replacement of infrastructure with oils. An Angola Mode-Based project is composed of a number of stakeholders including the Chinese Government, Angolan Government, owners of Angola, Chinese contractors, China Export-Import Bank, and Chinese oil companies. A close cooperation between these stakeholders can guarantee the success of project construction. The study aims to recognize the stakeholders involved and analyze the interaction between various stakeholders of Angola Mode projects from the perspective of business processes and cash flow. The relationships between different stakeholders are detected in line with the theory of game theory, and the game path relation chain is concluded as the result. The research findings can help derive some strategies for Chinese construction firms to make sure that the Angola Mode can be run fluently.

Game Relationships between the Stakeholders of Angola Mode-Based Construction Projects

A comparative study was conducted to gain the perception of competition rule in the construction industry. A 4-category and 34-item market competition perception criteria were identified via qualitative approach - content analysis. This paper reviewed 217 bid documents and administrated 500 questionnaires to collect the opinions among both clients and contractors in China. It is found that the perception difference of the market competition rules between clients and contractors from the highest to the lowest were economic part, comprehensive part, commercial part and technical part. Moreover, clients and contractors had the largest perception difference in wage payment guarantee measures for peasant workers. This study contributes to an understanding of perceptions of competition rule in China. It may help to formulate guidelines to manage the unreasonable factors in market competition rules and improve construction market efficiency.

Perceptions of Market Competition: What is the Difference between Contractors and Clients?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been widely accepted as essential for sustainable development and, with the occurrence of such disasters as food quality scandals and building collapses, its importance has been increasingly recognised in China over the past decade. At the same time, despite property development being frequently linked in the mass media with unaffordable housing prices, bribery, and poor construction quality, many large developers have instituted programmes to improve their CSR presence. However, the perceptions of property development organisations of what CSR means to them are as yet unclear. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to better understand the way CSR is seemingly perceived by property developers in China. This is undertaken by analysing CSR disclosure and prioritising information from CSR corporate reports by developers in the housing sector. Three attributes of CSR disclosure information type, responsibility type, and stakeholder type are used to construct an analytical framework for testing of 44 published company reports by content analysis. The findings indicate a greater emphasis on management approaches and ethical responsibilities than commercial goals, with industry and ownership differences pointing to the need to be recognised by the public and future decision-makers.

Chinese perceptions of corporate social responsibility: an analysis of annual reports in the housing sector (Chinese perceptions of corporate social responsibility)

In recent years, the international construction market has witnessed the growing eminence of construction professional services (CPS) while the traditional contracting sector remains strong. Today, it is not uncommon to see a design firm taking over the work of a traditional main contractor, or vice versa, of overseeing the delivery of a project. Much has been said about the nexus between the two business sectors in the international market, but little has been done to articulate it using empirical evidence. This study examines the nexus between contracting and CPS businesses by offering and testing lead-lag effects between the two in the international market. A longitudinal panel data composed of 23 top international contractors and CPS firms from the Engineering News-Record's top lists over the past 12 years was adopted. Surprisingly, it is found that CPS business does not have a significant positive causal effect on contracting, and vice versa. CPS and contracting subsidiaries in the same company do not necessarily form a consortium to undertake the same project; rather, they often collaborate with other CPS or contracting counterparts to undertake projects. The research provides fresh insights to the diversification strategies adopted by international contracting and CPS firms.

Kunhui Ye

Papers

How Do Top Construction Companies Diversify in the International Construction Market

Game Relationships between the Stakeholders of Angola Mode-Based Construction Projects

Perceptions of Market Competition: What is the Difference between Contractors and Clients?

Chinese perceptions of corporate social responsibility: an analysis of annual reports in the housing sector (Chinese perceptions of corporate social responsibility)

Why Do They Acquire Each Other? Nexus between International Contracting and Construction Professional Service Businesses