Ford Library

Schumpeter, Joseph A. Can capitalism survive? : creative destruction and the future of the global economy. Harper Perennial, 2009.

A role of economists is to provide economic analysis of recessions such as the current one created by the financial crisis and provide strategies for restoring economic growth and prosperity.

Leading up to the current recession, The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to make housing more affordable, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac developed a federal program enabling people to qualify for homes that ordinarily would not.

Subsequently, people purchased homes they could not afford and some lost their jobs due to the recession. Wall Street banks invested too heavily in risky loans rather than diversifying, accumulating toxic assets leading to tremendous losses.

Hayek goes as far to say that central banking destabilizes the economy. In the recent recession, government intervention led to inflation, over building, a housing bubble, and then economic indicators became unrealistic.

In addition to the destabilized housing market, the financial crisis had a ripple effect on travel, retail, the automobile and oil industries, and led to significant number of lost jobs.

Can Capitalism Survive? is excerpted from Joseph Schumpeter’s 1942 classic Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. This is where he proposed business cycles are caused by technological innovation, referred to as creative destruction. In Capitalist economies, markets eliminate obsolete technologies and utilize innovations to create new avenues for economic growth. (more…)

Kiernan, Matthew J. Investing in a sustainable world : why GREEN is the new color of money on Wall Street. Wiley, 2009.

Krosinsky, Cary and Nick Robins, eds. Sustainable investing : the art of long-term performance. Earthscan, 2008.

Traditionally, ethical and socially responsible investing has been driven by personal values. While this approach has been successful in some sectors in the U.S. and the U.K., the mainstream institutional marketplace has been out of reach. But now, research by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors shows that companies with superior positioning on sustainability issues achieved superior financial returns. Two new books discuss how both Wall Street and Main Street are now interested in investing in ethical, social and green companies to attain long term financial performance.

In Investing in a Sustainable World, Innovest founder and CEO Matthew J. Kiernan makes the business case for integrating environmental and social considerations into investment decisions. He presents conceptual and practical tools to help investors realize environmental, social and financial objectives at the same time. (more…)

The end of the Bernie Madoff story has yet to be written, but books are already rolling off the presses, including five books in the month of August alone.

Here is a list of titles just purchased by the Ford Library last week.

• Betrayal: The life and lies of Bernie Madoff
  by Andrew Kirtzman
  Written like a novel, this book is the most readable of the lot, and gives readers an inside look at Madoff, his family and the investors.
• Too Good to be True: The rise and fall of Bernie Madoff
  by Erin Arvedlund
  A well researched book by an investigative journalist, who first warned investors about Madoff in Barrons in 2001, providing the clear explanations about how hedge funds and Madoff’s scam worked.
• Madoff with the Money
  by Jerry Oppenheimer
  A portrait of Madoff as a flawed man, as revealed through anecdotes from his family, friends and business associates.
• Catastrophe: The story of Bernard L. Madoff, the man who swindled the world
  by Deborah and Gerald Strober
  One of the first books about Madoff,  published by two historians in March 2009, is a chronicle of the weeks immediately before and after Madoff’s arrest.
• Bernard Madoff: Masterminding a billion dollar fraud
  by Filiquarian Publishing, LLC
  A summary of news articles about the Madoff scandal.

Tip: If any of these books are currently checked out, you can recall them by clicking the “Get this Title” text in the catalog record when you follow the links above. More about recalls …

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.

The Director’s Picks

Fuqua School Dean Blair Sheppard asked Ford Library Director, Meg Trauner to select 5 recent business books that should “be on his nightstand”.

Click the titles below for information on location and availability.

• The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria
  – Optimistic view of a world no longer dominated by the U.S.
  – Also available as an audiobook.
• What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis
  – Control is out. Connection is in.
  – Also available as an audiobook.
  – Read the full review.
• How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
  – Based on new research in neuroscience.
  – Read the full review.
• Imagining India: the idea of a renewed nation by Nandan Nilekani
  – Cultural intelligence on how India operates.
• Fool’s Gold: How the bold dream of a small tribe at J.P. Morgan was corrupted by Wall Street greed and unleashed a catastrophe by Gillian Tett
  – Gripping narrative and education on derivatives.
  – Read the full review.

Lowenstein, Roger. While America aged : how pension debts ruined General Motors, stopped the NYC subways, bankrupted San Diego, and loom as the next financial crisis. Penguin Press, 2008.

My sister is a salaried engineer for a company that was spun off from General Motors. She emailed recently:

Yesterday a man in sales with 25 years, and a reputation of being a very hard worker, was “let go.” The rumor is there will be 52 more salaried people let go between now and the end of next week. Interestingly, we found out that they just hired 11 salaried people. People hired after 1995 do not get the same retirement benefits as those of us hired before 1995. They are firing people who have been here a long time and replacing them with hirees with fewer retirement benefits.”

Using three case studies, this new book in the Ford Library discusses the pension crisis that is looming over American industry. Author Roger Lowenstein begins in Detroit in the 1940’s, where the UAW bargained for pensions in labor contracts. General Motors complied because promises for future benefits did not incur costs in the present. Pension and health care costs for retirees would not come due until many years in the future. Over time, the union’s success brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy as the number of retirees grew, the benefits grew and those promises came due.

Lowenstein also discusses two other cases, transport workers in New York City, whose union led a strike in 2005 that brought the city to a standstill, and the pension crisis in San Diego, sparked by city officials who doled out benefits to city workers but declined to impose higher taxes. The final chapter in the book suggests changes in the ways corporations, unions and the government manage benefits, paying for them in the present, instead of charging them to a future generation.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

Last night PBS aired a Frontline documentary on the cascade of financial catastrophe that begin with the rumors of Bear Stearns’ imminent failure and ended the passage of the $700 billion bailout plan. Producer/director Michael Kirk says, “How did it all go so bad so quickly? Who is responsible? How effective has the response from Washington and Wall Street been? Those are the questions at the heart of Inside the Meltdown“.

In addition to hosting the entire documentary for free on its web site, PBS also has additional interviews with Alan Greenberg, Paul Krugman, Sheila Bair, Martin Feldstein, and others.

When markets collide : investment strategies for the age of global economic change by Mohamed A. El-Erian. McGraw-Hill, 2008.

This book is about the fundamental changes that are occurring in global economic and financial systems. Existing financial infrastructures and systems are under pressure. Economic power is shifting from mature to emerging financial markets. Global growth is now influenced by former debtor nations that are building unforeseen wealth and facing unusual challenges. For investors, the transformation in the global economy has significant consequences.

Author El-Erian, CIO of PIMCO and former CEO of Harvard Management Company presents a diagnosis of the present financial turmoil and offers explicit investment advice to readers on how to exploit new opportunities and minimize exposure to changing patterns of risk.

El-Erian sees four trends: 1) Realignment in global growth 2) Return of inflation 3) Structured finance has diminished the barriers to entry 4) The transfer of wealth. He recommends that firms retool risk management and pay more attention to the middle and back-office activities that are less glamorous. He recommends that investors invest more internationally and less in the US.

This lucid explanation of the credit crisis won the 2008 Financial Times and the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year awards.

© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business. All rights reserved.

UPDATE: This database subscription was canceled in December 2010 due to cost and licensing issues. Contact a reference librarian for help identifying alternative resources.

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The Ford Library has started off the Spring Semester by adding lots of great new books. Come check out our New Books section for even more titles than are shown here. We add many new ones every month on a wide variety of business and related topics. (Click on any of the titles below to check availability or to place a hold.)

Business Trends & Events

• From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession by Rakesh Khurana
• World Event Trading: How to Analyze and Profit from Today’s Headlines by Andrew Busch
• Trading Catalysts: How Events Move Markets and Create Trading Opportunities by Robert I. Webb
• Coming Attractions?: Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment by Philip E. Meza
• Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace by Bruce Barry
• The Secrets of Economic Indicators: Hidden Clues to Future Economic Opportunities by Bernard Baumohl

Finance

• The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America’s Top Traders Jack D. Schwager
• Building Financial Models with Microsoft Excel: A Guide for Business Professionals by K. Scott Proctor
• Forecasting Expected Returned in the Financial Markers by Stephen Satchel

The Environment, Nature, and Natural Resources:

• Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine M. Benyus
• Cut Carbon, Grow Profits: Business Strategies for Managing Climate Change and
  Sustainability edited by Dr. Kenny Tang CFA and Ruth Yeoh
• The Commonwealth of Life: Economics for a Flourishing Earth, 2nd Edition by Peter G. Brown
• Terra Incognita: A Navigation Aid for Energy Leaders by Christopher E.H. Ross
  and Lane E. Sloan

Leadership & Ethics*:

• The Moral Leader: Challenges, Insights, and Tools by Sandra J. Sucher
• What Really Matters: Service, Leadership, People, and Values by John Pepper
• Ethics and Business: An Introduction by Kevin Gibson
• The Sentinel CEO: Perspectives on Security, Risk, and Leadership in a Post- 9/11
  World by William G. Parrett
• The Leadership Experience by Richard L. Daft
• Radical Trust: How Today’s Great Leaders Convert People to Partners by Joe Healey
• Leadership Communication by Deborah J. Barrett

* Many leadership and ethics titles are part of the library’s Dorothea F. Peterjohn Leadership Collection

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Ford Library will be replacing our old DSWindows DataStream software with an updated version of the same tool called DataStream Advance.

Advance offers numerous improvements over DSWindows DataStream:

• a better search tool for locating mnemonics and data
• better and easier to use Help and data definition files
• mnemonics are pulled dynamically from Datastream’s remote servers (no more manual code updates!)
• search output can go directly to Excel instead of CSV files
• search output is configured for user’s personal network drive (no more USB drives needed!)

DataStream Advance is already installed on the 3 workstations nearest the printers in the Library Database Room, and is ready for users to try out.

The Advance user interface is quite different from the old DSWindows interface, and we strongly recommend that users take a look at Advance’s built-in tutorials. NYU has also created an excellent tutorial for Advance.

DSWindows will remain available until January 31st after which time we’ll remove it from all workstations in the Database Room.

Please let us know if you have questions, or need help with DataStream Advance.

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