Economic Strategy

Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to - and approach for - overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy”.

At a time of frightening volatility, what is the average investor to do? The answer: Turn to Burton G. Malkiel's advice in his reassuring, authoritative, gimmick-free, and perennially best-selling guide to investing. Long established as the first book to purchase before starting a portfolio or 401(k), A Random Walk Down Wall Street now features new material on "tax-loss harvesting", the crown jewel of tax management; the current bitcoin bubble; and automated investment advisers; as well as a brand-new chapter on factor investing and risk parity.

In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee provides executives with a simple tool to cut through technological complexity and market uncertainties. The Value Stick, based on proven economic mechanics, is an extraordinarily powerful tool that helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen their firm's competitive advantage.

In The Dao of Capital, hedge fund manager and tail-hedging pioneer Mark Spitznagel - with one of the top returns on capital of the financial crisis, as well as over a career - takes us on a gripping, circuitous journey from the Chicago trading pits, over the coniferous boreal forests and canonical strategists from Warring States China to Napoleonic Europe to burgeoning industrial America, to the great economic thinkers of late 19th century Austria.

Strategy-to-performance gaps foster a culture of under-performance. Unrealistic plans create the expectation throughout the organisation that plans simply will not be fulfilled. This book shows how to overcome such failings and implement strategy effectively.

Clayton M. Christensen is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Michael E. Raynor is a director at Deloitte Research. Together, they outline an innovative plan that urges businesses to create disruption rather than fleeing from it. Named one of 2003's Best Business Books by Business Week, this book is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times best seller.

Richness or reach? For business leaders, it used to be a fundamental strategic tradeoff: focus on "rich information", customized products and services tailored to a niche market, or reach out to a broad, general market with watered-down information.

Work with data like a pro using this guide that breaks down how to organize, apply, and most importantly, understand what you are analyzing in order to become a true data ninja.

Liberty minded individuals and those who believe in the Constitution will find this near future dystopian novel to be right up their alley. Those who are looking to be more informed about the potential threats to America's financial stability will learn what to watch for and how to prepare themselves for an economic collapse. America is on the cusp of financial annihilation. Matt and Karen Bair face the challenges of Main Street during a full scale financial meltdown. Government borrowing and monetary creation have reached their limits.

In an audiobook that challenges everything you thought you knew, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne assert that tomorrow's leading companies will succeed, not by battling their rivals for market share in the bloody "red ocean" of a shrinking profit pool, but by creating "blue oceans" of untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.

Who really creates wealth in our world? And how do we decide the value of what they do? At the heart of today's financial and economic crisis is a problem hiding in plain sight. In modern capitalism, value extraction is rewarded more highly than value creation: the productive process that drives a healthy economy and society. From companies driven solely to maximise shareholder value to astronomically high prices of medicines justified through big pharma's 'value pricing', we misidentify taking with making, and have lost sight of what value really means.

Discretion, secrecy, and subtle strategy were the weapons of choice at Wall Street investment bank Lazard Frères & Co. For more than a century, the mystique and reputation of the "Great Men" who worked there allowed the firm to garner unimaginable profits, social cachet, and outsized influence in the halls of power. But in the mid-1980s, their titanic egos started getting in the way, and the Great Men of Lazard jeopardized all they had built.

The Stoics understood that if you can control your reactions and manage your emotions, you can achieve success. The same principles apply to our financial lives today. The only way to beat inflation and grow your wealth is by investing. Combining ancient wisdom with practical investment strategies drawn from analysis of the greatest investors of all time, The Stoic Path to Wealth will teach you how to cultivate an investing edge by managing your emotions and developing your unique skills and talents.

From Wall Street to Downing Street, the fantasy of an eventual 'return to normal' is still alive and well, nurtured by dangerously outdated theories. But the economic world as we know it - and the rules that govern it - are over. And few are prepared. Lawrence McDonald got a real-world education in market risk when, as a Lehman Brothers VP, he watched the firm ignore flashing warning signs before its collapse. Now, he unveils the predictive model he developed in the aftermath, outlining actionable trading ideas for a radically reshaped economy.

Africa's Business Revolution provides the inside story on business in Africa and its future growth prospects and helps executives understand and seize the opportunities for building profitable, sustainable enterprises.

This audiobook was created based on Michael Porter's landmark book Competitive Strategy. This was Mr. Porter's synopsis of his book for the Harvard Business Review.

What if you discovered a blueprint that could grow your brand’s reputation and loyalty, dramatically reduce customer-service issues, produce content and technology, and cement a powerful, lasting relationship between you and your customers? Harness the power of communities, both inside and outside of your organization, to drive value and revenue, activate your employees’ and customers’ talents, and create a highly engaged, loyal customer base.

Edited by three of the policymakers who led the government's response to the crisis, with chapters written by the teams tasked with finding policy solutions, this book provides a comprehensive accounting of the internal debates and controversies surrounding the measures that were taken to stabilize the financial system and the economy. Offering previously untold insight into the key choices (including rejected options) and a frank evaluation of successes and failures, this volume is both an important historical document and an indispensable guide for confronting future financial calamities.

Since the 19th century, people have claimed that the prosperity enjoyed by the First World was the result of its devotion to unconstrained economic freedoms. In his 2003 book Kicking Away the Ladder, South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang claims this was not the case and that, in fact, First World economic success was due to exactly the kinds of state intervention that traditional economic thinking consistently opposes today.

Few territories are as hotly contested as the western Pacific Ocean. Across the 1.5 million square mile expanse of the East and South China Sea, six countries lay overlapping claims that date back centuries. China, Vietnam, Korea and Indonesia assert their right to trade routes, deploying military garrisons to defend disputed territories while Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines resist their expansion.