In the West are the 'haves', while much of the rest of the world are the 'have-nots'. The extent of inequality today is unprecedented. Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary and historical examples, Why Nations Fail looks at the root of the problems facing some nations. Economists and scientists have offered useful insights into the reasons for certain aspects of poverty, such as Jeffrey Sachs (it's geography and the weather), and Jared Diamond (it's technology and species). But most theories ignore the incentives and institutions that populations need to invest and prosper: they need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it - and the key to ensuring these incentives is sound institutions. Incentives and institutions are what separate the have and have-nots. Based on fifteen years of research, and stepping boldly into the territory of Ian Morris's Why the West Rules - For Now, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson blend economics, politics, history and current affairs to provide a new, persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty. And, perhaps most importantly, they provide a pragmatic basis for the hope that those mired in poverty can be placed on the path to prosperity.

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Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Service-dominant logic continues its evolution, facilitated by an active community of scholars throughout the world. Along its evolutionary path, there has been increased recognition of the need for a crisper and more precise delineation of the foundational premises and specification of the axioms of S-D logic. It also has become apparent that a limitation of the current foundational premises/axioms is the absence of a clearly articulated specification of the mechanisms of (often massive-scale) coordination and cooperation involved in the cocreation of value through markets and, more broadly, in society. This is especially important because markets are even more about cooperation than about the competition that is more frequently discussed. To alleviate this limitation and facilitate a better understanding of cooperation (and coordination), an eleventh foundational premise (fifth axiom) is introduced, focusing on the role of institutions and institutional arrangements in systems of value cocreation: service ecosystems. Literature on institutions across multiple social disciplines, including marketing, is briefly reviewed and offered as further support for this fifth axiom.

Institutions and axioms: an extension and update of service-dominant logic

I show that undervaluation of the currency (a high real exchange rate) stimulates economic growth. This is true particularly for developing countries. This finding is robust to using different measures of the real exchange rate and different estimation techniques. I also provide some evidence that the operative channel is the size of the tradable sector (especially industry). These results suggest that tradables suffer disproportionately from the government or market failures that keep poor countries from converging toward countries with higher incomes. I present two categories of explanations for why this may be so, the first focusing on institutional weaknesses, and the second on product-market failures. A formal model elucidates the linkages between the real exchange rate and the rate of economic growth.

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The Real Exchange Rate and Economic Growth

We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of developing-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) in comparison with developed-country MNEs. Developing-country MNEs tend to be less competitive than their developed-country counterparts, partly because they suffer the disadvantage of operating in home countries with underdeveloped institutions. We argue that this disadvantage can become an advantage when both types of MNE operate in countries with “difficult” governance conditions, because developing-country MNEs are used to operating in such conditions. The empirical analysis shows that, although developing-country MNEs rarely appear among the largest MNEs in the world, they are more prevalent among the largest foreign firms in the least developed countries (LDCs), especially in LDCs with poorer regulatory quality and lower control of corruption.

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Transforming disadvantages into advantages: developing-country MNEs in the least developed countries

A growing body of empirical work measuring different types of cultural traits has shown that culture matters for a variety of economic outcomes. This paper focuses on one specific aspect of the relevance of culture: its relationship to institutions. We review work with a theoretical, empirical, and historical bent to assess the presence of a two-way causal effect between culture and institutions. ( JEL D02, D72, I32, J12, Z13)

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/114123/1/dp9246.pdf

Culture and Institutions

Why are some countries much richer than others? This technical note proposes a framework to begin answering this question. The first part identifies inefficient institutions as the root cause of the economic differences between societies. The second part analyzes how these institutions change. And the final part suggests how lessons from this institutional framework can be applied.

Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance

Approximately 65% to 85% of mergers fail. That’s a startling statistic. While there are myriad reasons why mergers are not successful, in many cases the reason is simple: a failure to develop and execute an appropriate postmerger integration (PMI) strategy. Clues to successful PMIs can be gleaned from the 15% to 35% of mergers that do succeed; this note contains some tips and best practices distilled from those successes. Because every company and every merger is different, this collection of practices is by no means exhaustive. Instead, its purpose is to serve as a starting point for the creation of a well-tailored strategy for a firm planning to undertake the assimilation of an acquisition into a new, combined entity.

Note on Postmerger Integration

Lars Hallberg is preparing for a meeting with the executive management of Sandvik Tooling, a world leader in metal cutting tools. The purpose of the meeting is to review the Coromant Recycling Concept (CRC), a global recycling program for Coromant, the leading brand of Sandvik Tooling. The case is an opportunity to evaluate a global recycling program, including its value to the company from business and environmental perspective, the match between the reverse and forward supply chain as well as decisions regarding keeping recycling in house or outsourcing it.

Sandvik Coromant Recycling Concept

This simple case enables students to examine a supply chain coordination problem in the context of a two-level supply chain with a retailer and a supplier. The case examines a retailer’s decision about its optimal order quantity from his supplier and the difference between this decentralized decision and the coordinated decision achieved when the retailer and the supplier are part of the same company. The case then asks students to find the optimal supply chain contracts that will coordinate the supply chain. This case can be used to teach the newsvendor model and supply chain coordination and contracts in courses focusing on supply chain management or in operations management courses that include a supply chain module. It can be used together with "Note on Optimal Ordering Strategies and Supply Chain Coordination" (UVA-OM-1371).

Victor Abiad

Papers

Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance

Note on Postmerger Integration

Sandvik Coromant Recycling Concept

Passover in Costa Rica