The poor, of course, have many unmet needs. It would be wonderful if business could satisfy all (or even most of) these needs and make a profit in the bargain. It would be a painless, even a profitable, way to solve the problem of poverty. That is the seductive appeal of the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ proposition popularized by C.K. Prahalad in his book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Unfortunately, this solution does not work. The consulting firm Monitor Group concluded, after an extensive survey, that there are very few examples of profitable businesses that market truly beneficial goods in low-income markets and operate at a large scale. The problem is that the market for selling to the poor is just too small, and the poor have very little purchasing power, which makes the market not all that attractive for companies.
Entrepreneurship in China
By most accounts, China is one of the most entrepreneurial countries on earth. According to the widely cited Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), published by Babson College, on a range of dimensions, such as fear of failures and entrepreneurial intentions, China ranks quite favorably among the group of nations surveyed by the GEM. China is not yet an innovative economy, in the opinion of GEM researchers, but it is an efficiency-driven economy that is a cut above factor-driven economies that are a norm among developing countries.
China in Africa: Think again
You think you know what China is doing in Africa. You’ve seen the headlines: the Chinese arrived in Africa a few years ago in a desperate search for oil. They set up a huge aid program targeting resource-rich, pariah states that would otherwise have to heed western concerns about governance. Their companies bring in all their own workers. It’s a great story. There’s just one problem: almost none of it is true.
Beyond Rising Sea Levels: Using the Insurance Asset to Manage Risk and Maximize Opportunity in the “Green” Economic Paradigm Shift
The green paradigm shift:
Climate change is causing much more than just rising sea levels. Climate change is changing the way we power a society that depends more heavily on power everyday; the way we transport ourselves; how we evaluate where we live and work; the way we interact with the environment; and the risk to which we are exposed in both our personal lives and in our businesses1. In other words, climate change is causing an inexorable change in the way we live, work and play by adding a new dimension of risk to our already complex environment. We need to re-think the ways we manage risk and leverage our assets to respond to these changes – including insurance.
Tax Havens, the Crisis of 2007 and Financial Regulations
By Ronen Palan
Tax havens have existed since early twentieth century, and are used primarily, but not exclusively, for tax evasion and avoidance. Tax havens are used, however, for other purposes as well. Since the early 1960s, all the premier tax havens of the world have developed financial centres known otherwise as Offshore Financial Centres (OFCs). It is estimated that about a quarter of all international lending and deposits originate in these OFCs. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) statistics of international assets and liabilities ranks the Cayman Islands as the fourth largest international financial centre in the world, while other well- known tax havens/OFCs such as Switzerland (7th), the Netherlands (8th), Ireland (9th), Singapore (10th), Luxembourg (11th), Bahamas (15th) and Jersey (19th).
Coming soon
EDITOR'S PICK OF THE WEEK
