Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their morns? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime? These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life--from cheating and crime to sports and childrearing--and whose conclusions turn conventional wisdom on its head. Frealfonornics is a groundbreaking collaboration between Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, an award-winning author and journalist. They usually begin with a mountain of data and a simple question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics. Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and Dubner show that economics is, at root, t

Unrivaled in its unique combination of analytical rigor and accessibility, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach has garnered one of the broadest adoption lists in the market. Now appearing in its Sixth Edition, Professor Varian's hallmark text is better than ever, featuring new treatments of game theory and competitive strategy, and a variety of new illustrative examples. Modern, authoritative, and above all crafted by an outstanding teacher and scholar, Intermediate Microeconomics, Sixth Edition will expand students' analytic powers and strengthen their understanding of microeconomics. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Are there tangible benefits in flossing? Is it wrong to fake orgasms? What does the perfect online dating ad look like? Should we bother doing the ironing? Is it really impossible to buy the perfect Christmas gift? (Other than this book, of course.) Economists might not be the first people you would think of to give you advice on such diverse areas as parenting, the intricacies of etiquette or the dark arts of seduction. But for years bestselling author Tim Harford has been doing just that: answering the most challenging questions in his brilliant column, where he uses the tools of economics to give practical advice about everyday dilemmas, conundrums and concerns. From family rows and the stock market to buying socks or speed dating, you'll find within these pages a witty - and of course rational - explanation for almost everything you ever wanted to know about life.

Here at last is the long awaited sequel to the international bestselling phenomenon, Freakonomics. Steven Levitt, the original rogue economist, and Stephen Dubner have been working hard, uncovering the hidden side of even more controversial subjects, from charity to terrorism and prostitution. And with their inimitable style and wit, they will take us on another even more gripping journey of discovery. Superfreakonomics will once again transform the way we look at the world.

Unrivaled in its unique combination of analytical rigor and accessibility, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach has garnered one of the broadest adoption lists in the market. Now appearing in its Sixth Edition, Professor Varian's hallmark text is better than ever, featuring new treatments of game theory and competitive strategy, and a variety of new illustrative examples. Modern, authoritative, and above all crafted by an outstanding teacher and scholar, Intermediate Microeconomics, Sixth Edition will expand students' analytic powers and strengthen their understanding of microeconomics.

一般香港市民对国际金融行情、各地的汇率走势、股票市场波动相当熟悉，大概可称世界之冠。但另一方面，香港人对外国的历史、地理、政治、经济、社会和文化发展，认识却相当皮毛。 香港人工作忙碌，也会经常往外地旅游。但似乎旅游的目的首重消闲减压，对多了解外国的历史、地理、以至风土人情等却不愿多费神。相比之下，西方人旅游，相当高比例的游客会买一本书，认识一下旅游地各方面的情况。「认识东亚及东南亚系列」丛书便是填补这片空白，鼓励市民，特别是大专学生，多了解本港周边的亚洲国家。 这套刊书计划包括日本和其他东盟成员国。希望以浅白的文字，每一本书针对一个国家作概括的介绍，让大专学生、工商界人士、游客、以及有兴趣的读者，对该国有一初步的认识。

Writing performance appraisals is one of the most difficult and time-consuming tasks managers face. Perfect Phrases for Performance Reviews simplifies the job, providing a comprehensive collection of phrases that managers can use to describe employee performance, provide directions for improvement, and more. For example: Sets priorities well" Misses important deadlines" Thorough, reliable, and accurate" All managers and HR professionals will value the book for its: Hundreds of ready-to-use phrases, organized by job skill and performance level Tips for documenting performance issues and conducting face-to-face reviews Easily adapted performance review templates covering five performance levels.

The debt of poor countries causes terrorism, argues economist Hertz in this follow-up to The Silent Takeover. The first nine chapters give considerable anecdotal evidence of poverty, injustice and disease but fail to link them to indebtedness. Assuming that money borrowed by poor governments is stolen by elites, and that repayment comes from cutting social services to the poor, Hertz compares health-care budgets of countries to their debt service payments. The chapters fail to distinguish among types of debt: direct and indirect, internal and external, infrastructure and export financing, for example. Horror stories from the 1940s to the 1990s are mixed indiscriminately. Chapter 10 is the first mention of the terrorism link; the argument turns out to be little more than that misery causes terrorism. The following chapter is the first part that draws on Hertz's full strengths as an economist, where debt "is very complex stuff, conceptually and politically, and it takes us into difficult, alien terrain." She na

Drucker's vision of a "post-capitalist society"--one in which knowledge is the basic resource and nation-states compete with transnational, regional and tribal structures--is hardly original. What is new in this invigorating essay is his far-reaching analysis of the economic crisis of militarized, wasteful "megastates" like the United States and the former Soviet Union, which have failed to bring about a meaningful redistribution of income. Improving American productivity, he writes, will require investment in human resources and infrastructure (as Japan, Germany, Korea and Taiwan have done) and a drastic restructuring of organizations, including the elimination of most management layers. The federal goverment, Drucker asserts, should contract out tasks in the social sphere, confining itself to the role of policymaker. Among his other provocative proposals: jettison military aid to other countries; create a public audit agency to eliminate pork-barrel deals and special-interest politics; and hold schools acco

二零零四年六月一至三日，首届[泛珠三角区域合作与发展论坛]在香港、澳门和广州举行，并签署《泛珠三角区域合作框架协议》。[9+2]泛珠三角区域合作框架正式诞生。这一区域合作发展的新趋势势将对[9+2]地区乃至中国的未来发展产生深远影响。 香港亚太研究所与香港特别行政区政府中央政策组为凝聚专家和学者的智慧，充分探讨和交流[9+2]泛珠三角区域合作与发展的现状与未来走向，于二零零四年十二月在香港举办[泛珠三角 发展论坛]。 本书收录了在该论坛上宣读并经讨论和修订的十三篇论文，从各个省区以及泛珠三角的角度，对各地参与泛珠三角区域合作发展的基础、机遇、条件、定位与政策，以及各省区与香港的经贸关系及未来发展，进行综合评估与深入分析。

In today's high-pressure workplace, motivating all employees to consistently contribute their best can mean the difference between success and failure. Motivating Employees, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how. Learn to: Inspire employees to succeed Improve performance through coaching Minimize the impact of common de-motivators Create a fair and consistent reward system Turn negative experiences into positive, motivational opportunities The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

Successful management relies on identifying and promoting high-performing employees—and targeting underperformers for serious improvement. Evaluating Performance, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how. Learn to: Monitor day-to-day performance Conduct productive formal reviews Reward consistent, excellent performance through promotions Terminate underperforming employees Create a company-wide performance management system The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

Guanxi (gwan-shee), the Chinese term for the mutually beneficial relationships that are essential to success, tells the story of the juggernaut research lab that underpins Microsoft's developing relationship with China. The gripping narrative moves between Beijing and the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond,WA, and follows the lab's emergence as a centre of excellence for Chinese computer science. Microsoft has invested well over 100 million dollars and hired more than 400 of China's best and brightest; what was once an outpost is now at the very heart of software research, creating dramatic payoffs for both Microsoft and China.

What makes an employee great? According to Harris and Brannick, great employees are those who match the culture of the company they work for and whose personal values align with the organization’s core purpose. Finding & Keeping Great Employees identifies four basic organizational purposes—operational excellence, customer service, unleashing technology, and spirit. By focusing on one of these as their core purpose and using it to drive their selection and retention strategies, organizations will gain a long-term competitive advantage and create a workplace full of self-motivated employees who are highly purpose driven. Based on research into best practices at more than 250 companies, this breakthrough book shares how some of today’s most progressive organizations are doing just that—and shutting down the revolving door—by leveraging their core purpose and corporate culture to attract and retain great employees. Written in a crisp, reader-friendly style, with numerous examples and case st

The tenth edition of this market-leading text continues its tradition of providing a solid foundation of economic understanding for use in managerial decision making. It offers a practical treatment of economic theory and analysis in an intutive, calculus-based format. Its focus is on presenting those aspects of economic theory and analysis that are most relevant to students of business administration, and a wide variety of examples and simple numerical problems are used to illustrate the application of managerial economics to a vast assortment of practical situations. The nature of the decision process and the role that economic analysis plays in that process are emphasized throughout. This major revision is designed to maximize accessibility for a student audience with little or no background in economics, and no previous training in calculus.

'Truly eye-opening ...There is almost no situation that Harford cannot dissect with his sharp economist's tools ...economics has never been this cool' NEW STATESMAN If humans are so clever, why do we smoke and gamble, or take drugs, or fall in love? Is this really rational behaviour? And how come your idiot boss is so overpaid? In fact, the behaviour of even the unlikeliest of individuals - prostitutes, drug addicts, racists and revolutionaries - complies with economic logic, taking into account future costs and benefits, even if we don't quite realise it. We are rational beings after all.

刚跨过世纪门坎的两岸三地华人社会是走向[治』还是走向『乱』？是趋向和谐安定还是冲突不稳？经济转型与亚洲金融危机的打击，是如何地冲击了原来的利益和资源分配格局？有没有造成新的矛盾？或者激化了旧的矛盾？社会冲突是纡缓了还是加剧了？危机是缓解了还是加深了？ 本书邀请了中国大陆、台湾和香港的学者，从社会阶层、阶级和社会流动的角度，为思考和解答这些问题提供了客观的数据和有用的线索。

It is in Books IV and V of The Wealth of Nations that AdamSmith offers his considered response to the French Physiocrats,perhaps the first great school of economic theorists, and assessesthe nature of the mercantile system, particularly the colonialrelationship with America, whose achievements could have been evenmore spectacular if conditions of free trade and economic union hadexisted. Even on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, Smithfamously predicted that America "will be one of the foremostnations of the world." It is also here that he develops the casefor a limited state role in economic planning, notably to combatmarket failure and induce efficiency in areas such as education,public works, justice, and defense. His pioneering analysis stillprovides many subtle and penetrating insights into one of today'smost vital and controversial policy debates. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Andrew Skinner

Drawing on the most comprehensive and reliable data from theChina Foundation Center， this research report presents systematicdepictions and analysises of today's Chinese foundations andprovides accurate evaluations of the statuses of different types ofChinese foundations measured by a rich list of key indicators， Widein coverage， broad in approach， conceptually clear and fluent， thisreport ranks as the first comprehensive overview of Chinesefoundations in the reform era. The topics covered include， but notlimited to，the quantitative changes of Chinese foundations in thepast three decades，the establishment history of these foundations，their geographical and administrative regional distributions，financial conditions， human resources，operating areas， socialfunctions， and working strategies and methods.

How can your name affect how well you do in life? What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common? Why do drug dealers live with their mothers? The answer: Freakonomics. It s at the heart of everything we do and the things that affect us daily: from sex to crime, parenting to politics, fat to cheating, fear to traffic jams. And we can use it to get to the heart of what s really happening under the surface of everyday life. This cult bestseller will show you how, by unravelling your life s secret codes, you can discover a totally new way of seeing the world.

Bread, cash, dosh, dough, loot. Call it what you like, it matters now more than ever. In "The Ascent of Money", Niall Ferguson shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fueled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash and today's meltdown, this is the story of boom and bust as it's never been told before. Whether you're scraping by or rolling in it, there's no better time to understand the ascent of money.

It is 2007 and three supertankers are ablaze in the Strait of Hormuz. World oil prices skyrocket. US Military Intelligence concludes that behind this catastrophe at the gateway to the Persian Gulf stands Iran, assisted by an expansionist China. Joined by new, young naval intelligence officer Lt. Jimmy Ramshawe, Admiral Arnold Morgan threatens the Iranian Navy with annihilation, deploying the US Navy to Hormuz along with the nuclear submarine, USS Shark, carrying two teams of Navy SEALS. With the US Navy distracted, China is able to unleash an attack on Taiwan, America's weak ally. The situation is critical as mutiny occurs onboard the USS Shark, jeopardising the entire operation by preventing the SEALS from assisting the increasingly desperate Taiwanese Air force- 作者简介 Patrick Robinson is the author of seven previous international bestselling thrillers: Nimitz Class, Kilo Class, H. M. S. Unseen, Seawolf, The Shark Mutiny, Barracuda 945 and Scimitar SL-2. He is also the author of several no