From its inception, big business in the western industrialised world has been organised in national business communities. Central elements of these business communities are corporate board interlocks that constitute the notorious 'Old Boys Network'. This corporate elite connects the centres of corporate governance. In recent times, these networks of the corporate elite show signs of decline. He…
Key to China's plans to promote rural development is the de-marginalisation of the countryside through the incorporation of rural areas into the urban-based market-oriented financial system. For this reason, Chinese development planners have turned to microcredit -- i.e. the provision of small-scale loans to 'financially excluded' rural households -- as a means of increasing 'financial consciou…
Dwindling fish stocks, changing markets and often ill-advised government intervention have affected the lives of Dutch fishermen for decades. The author of this study has spent years among the fishermen of the Dutch island of Texel, and this book records the changes in their working lives, tracking the influence of national and international factors on the social and cultural structures of the …
As marketing specialists know all too well, our experience of products is prefigured by brands: trademarks that identify a product and differentiate it from its competitors. This process of branding has hitherto gained little academic discussion in the field of literary studies. Literary authors and the texts they produce, though, are constantly 'branded': from the early modern period onwards, …
With its emergence as a global power, China aspires to transform from *made in China* to *created in China*. Mobilised as a crucial source for solid growth and *soft power*, creativity has become part of the new China Dream. Boredom, Shanzhai, and Digitisation in the Time of Creative China engages with the imperative of creativity by aligning it to three interrelated phenomena: boredom, shanzha…
A system reset seems imminent. The world's financial system will need to find a new anchor before the year 2020. Since the beginning of the credit crisis, the US realized the dollar will lose its role as the world's reserve currency, and has been planning for a monetary reset. According to Willem Middelkoop, this reset will be designed to keep the US in the driver's seat, allowing the new monet…
When we look at all the challenges facing the world, including inequality, population migration, and climate change, we can see a role for development banking in nearly all of them. But will that role be played for good or ill? This book brings together two people who collectively draw on their forty-five years of experience in that world to argue that development banking can-and must-play a co…
Accountability, good government and public trust are intricately linked. Supreme Audit Institutions fulfil an exceptional role in the public domain, checking if governments spend their money properly. They are like 'watchdogs' for citizens and parliaments with the purpose of auditing public expenditure and examining the effectiveness of policies. They aim to strengthen the trustworthiness of go…
Aftershocks was written in the midst of the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Although it would be premature to presume to identify the repercussions of the crisis, it is clear that it will have profound aftershock effects in the political, economic, and social spheres. The book contains essays based on semi-structured interviews with leading scholars, European politicians and…
Advertising has played a central role in shaping the history of modern media. While often identified with American consumerism and the rise of the 'Information Society', motion picture advertising has been part of European visual culture since the late nineteenth century. With the global spread of ad agencies, moving image advertisements became a privileged cultural form to make people experien…