World leaders have given the reduction of global poverty top priority. And yet it persists. Indeed, in many countries whose governments lack either the desire or the ability to act, poverty has worsened. This book, a Joint venture of a Harvard professor and an economist with the International Finance Corporation, argues that the solution lies in the creation of a new institution, the World Development Corporation (WDC), a partnership of multinational corporations (MNCs), international development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

In A Corporate Solution to Global Poverty, George Lodge and Craig Wilson assert that MNCs have the critical combination of capabilities required to build investment, grow economies, and create jobs in poor countries, and thus to reduce poverty. Furthermore, they contend, MNCs can do so profitably and thus sustainably. But they lack legitimacy, and risk can be high, and so a collective approach is better than one in which an individual company proceeds alone. Thus a UN-sponsored WDC, owned and managed by a dozen or so MNCs with NGD support, will make a marked difference.

At a time when big business has been demonized for destroying the environment, enjoying one-sided benefits from globalization, and deceiving investors, the book argues that MNCs have much to gain from becoming more effective in reducing global poverty. This is not a call for philanthropy. Lodge and Wilson believe that corporate support for the World Development Corporation will benefit not only the world’s poor but also company shareholders as a result of improved MNC legitimacy and stronger markets and profitability.”
ISBN: 0691122296
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

ISBN: 1857431669
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

FOR THE GREATER PART of recorded history the most successful and powerful states were autocracies; yet now the world is increasingly dominated by democracies. In A Free Nation Deep in Debt, James Macdonald provides a novel answer for how and why this political transformation occurred. The pressures of war finance led ancient states to store up treasure; and treasure accumulation invariably favored autocratic states. But when the art of public borrowing was developed by the city-states of medieval Italy as a democratic alternative to the treasure chest, the balance of power tipped. From that point on, the pressures of war favored states with the greatest public creditworthiness; and the most creditworthy states were invariably those in which the people who provided the money also controlled the government. Democracy had found a secret weapon and the era of the citizen-creditor was born. Macdonald unfolds this tale in a sweeping history that starts in biblical times, passes via medieval Italy to the wars and revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ends with the great bond drives that financed the two world wars.
ISBN: 0691126321
Publisher: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

ISBN: 8181160304
Publisher: MAXFORD BOOKS

ISBN: 9781682860052
Publisher: SYRAWOOD PUBLISHING HOUSE

ISBN: 1850436746
Publisher: I.B.TAURIS

ISBN: 0415700027
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

ISBN: 9840513362
Publisher: UNIVERSITIES PRESS

ISBN: 9781857433708
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

ISBN: 0262134608
Publisher: MIT PRESS