There is a strong view that economics is the academic discipline that best represents the claim of positive science among social sciences. Economics has undergone significant transformations after its emergence as a science. Despite all these transformations, the feature containing positive and normative elements has not changed. While economists from the political economy tradition focus on qualitative studies that relate to other social sciences, especially political science and history, a group of economists adopt the qualitative methods of natural sciences to analyze economic problems. There is a debate among economists on how to understand social reality and what kind of science the economy should be. Business is a discipline that has declared its relative independence from economics over time. Business is a research field that encompasses a wide range of areas ranging from organizational behavior of individuals to the firm’s production and marketing strategies. This book contains articles on essential topics related to these disciplines, which have an in- separable relationship between them. Academicians contributing to the book have produced works on current topics of discussion as well as key subjects that remain important in economics and management.
Management Accounting is part of the celebrations to mark CIMA’s 90th anniversary in 2009. It looks at the development of cost and management accounting from the founding of the Institute to today. It considers a number of immediate challenges to management accountants and surveys a range of issues and challenges that will likely affect management accounting thought and practice in the future. The authors examine the possibilities for accountants to widen their focus and become more familiar with the enterprise technology determining their organisations’ cost structures and with the effects of multiple production in various locations, such as economies or diseconomies of scale. Such change may require the alteration of traditional cost models used by accountants to become more nuanced. The book suggests how this may be accomplished and highlights the need for management accountants to work as part of management teams throughout the organisation as business partners rather than remain grounded in specialist information provision roles. Alnoor Bhimani is Professor of Management Accounting at the London School of Economics. He is also a Certified Management Accountant as well as an author of 15 books and over 100 articles. Michael Bromwich was CIMA’s Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science (1985 to 2006), now Emeritus. He is a Past President of CIMA (1987/88) and currently serves on CIMA’s Technical Committee. A unique survey of 90 years of CIMA research Analyses the research to determine future challenges for management accounting and business practices Charts the history of management accountancy and business practice over nearly 100 years
1. 1 Introduction This book was born out of our reaction to the way in which the usual texts cover the subject of the history of economic thought. In most of these texts, there is a tendency to emphasize the similarities and differences between all the important economists and form a repository of encyclopedic knowledge where one can study the seemingly important economic ideas. In this book, we argue that it is much more fruitful to focus on the essential ideas of each and every school of economic thought and relate them to present-day problems, than to engage into a sterile discussion of the ideas and the lives of the great economists of the past. Thus, although this book deals with the history of economic thought, it does not necessarily follow a historic (in the sense of the order of presentation) approach, but rather a logical one, that is to say it deals with the social conditions associated with the emergence of a school of economic thought, its evolution, and its contemporary in?uence. One cannot write a book on the history of economic thought without writing separate chapters on the major economists of the past, that is, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and J. M. Keynes. Of course these economists formed schools of economic thought, that is, the classical and the Keynesian.
The increases in global wealth and the developments in the field of health have led to decreases in mortality rates, increases in life expectancy, and decreases in fertility rate, leading to a population that is rapidly consisting more and more of older individuals. The demographic changes affect nearly all parts of society including economics, education, health, social security systems, socio-cultural activities, and more. Thus, it is essential to study the impacts that an aging population will have on society. The Handbook of Research on Economic and Social Impacts of Population Aging analyzes the economic and social impacts of population aging from a multidisciplinary perspective. Covering topics such as life expectancy, social welfare, health, social security, and more, this book is essential for social scientists, sociologists, demographers, economists, medical professionals, government officials, policymakers, professionals, researchers, managers, students, and academicians looking to understand the effects of an aging population on modern society.
Five leaders of business, television, education, government, and labor address themselves in this book to the problems concerning their fields and consequently concerning the entire American citizenry. With an eye on the past history of the United States, these men discuss the various problems of the present and future and how we are to cope with them using the lessons and values of the past, as well as recognizing new concepts and ideas that have arisen. Karl R. Bopp, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, concerns himself with the problem of eliminating unemployment of men and capital without resorting to total economic planning. Frank Stanton, former President of the Columbia Broadcasting System, asks who shall determine what the people see on television and whether there is an alternative to the public verdict of applause or rejection. Earl J. McGrath, former U. S. Commissioner of Higher Education, raises questions relating to the performance of students and teachers at all levels of our educational establishment. Who should go to college? What differences in curricula should be encouraged? What practices and conditions will produce those intellectual and moral qualities we desire in our citizenry? Milton Katz, former Director of International Legal Studies at Harvard University, discusses the problem of increasing public understanding of the government's conduct of foreign affairs. What is the proper mix of professionally trained public servants and talented political transients? How can public antipathy to expanding bureaucracy be overcome in the interest of raising the quality of our foreign affairs personnel. George W. Taylor, Professor of Industry at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of President Kennedy's Advisory Committee on Labor Management Relations, notes that the creative responses required to maintain the nation's economic equilibrium run deeply against the grain of our traditional thinking. How shall we respond to conflicts of private interests (labor and management) that pose threats to, or actually damage, the general welfare? Do we need institutional arrangements to defend the public interest when great economic powers collide, and, if so, what should be the role of government in these arrangements? These five men do not purport to know all of the answers to the great issues of our society. Implicit in their discussions is an invitation to the reader to enter into a dialogue with them, to examine his or her own ideas while scrutinizing theirs, to seek out further data, to confirm, to refute, or to modify. The State of the Nation: Retrospect and Prospect is an invaluable book for those interested in the problems of society. It is a summons to Americans to realize their responsibilities and privileges as citizens of a democracy in the permanent pursuit of perfection.
