by Navi Radjou ; Jaideep Prabhu ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 10, 2015
A jargon-heavy book for professionals rather than general readers.
In textbook fashion, Radjou and Prabhu (Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth, 2012) elucidate six principles of frugal innovation.
In the preface, the authors define frugal innovation as “the ability to ‘do more with less’—that is, to create significantly more business and social value while minimising the use of diminishing resources such as energy, capital and time.” They recognize but minimize the challenges this entails: convincing business that developing cheaper, better products that last longer is not only good citizenship, but good strategy while educating consumers to adopt a different mindset, by means including “social pressure” and making “frugality aspirational.” Yet the authors insist that such changes are already well underway, that a disappearing middle class has placed a premium on value and durability and that environmental consciousness and business savvy now go hand in hand. “Consumers in the developed world are becoming not only more value conscious but more values conscious,” they write, and they proceed to offer case studies of how international corporations in industries ranging from cars to health care have benefitted from adapting to this changed mindset (profiled companies include Saatchi and Saatchi, Unilever and Aetna). The authors also discuss the transformation of consumers into “prosumers,” partners in the development process, and of the connectivity within the “Internet of Things.” The authors accept the growing dominance of “the so-called GAFAs (Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon)” as a given rather than any sort of cultural threat. There is no question that both consumer and corporate cultures are changing radically and significantly, though debate remains as to just where we are on the continuum and whether all of this change is for the good.
A jargon-heavy book for professionals rather than general readers.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61039-505-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2014
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by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 12, 2019
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
by Enrico Moretti ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 5, 2012
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's...
A fresh, provocative analysis of the debate on education and employment.
Up-and-coming economist Moretti (Economics/Univ. of California, Berkeley) takes issue with the “[w]idespread misconception…that the problem of inequality in the United States is all about the gap between the top one percent and the remaining 99 percent.” The most important aspect of inequality today, he writes, is the widening gap between the 45 million workers with college degrees and the 80 million without—a difference he claims affects every area of peoples' lives. The college-educated part of the population underpins the growth of America's economy of innovation in life sciences, information technology, media and other areas of globally leading research work. Moretti studies the relationship among geographic concentration, innovation and workplace education levels to identify the direct and indirect benefits. He shows that this clustering favors the promotion of self-feeding processes of growth, directly affecting wage levels, both in the innovative industries as well as the sectors that service them. Indirect benefits also accrue from knowledge and other spillovers, which accompany clustering in innovation hubs. Moretti presents research-based evidence supporting his view that the public and private economic benefits of education and research are such that increased federal subsidies would more than pay for themselves. The author fears the development of geographic segregation and Balkanization along education lines if these issues of long-term economic benefits are left inadequately addressed.
A welcome contribution from a newcomer who provides both a different view and balance in addressing one of the country's more profound problems.Pub Date: May 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-75011-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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