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Lectures de novembre

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Le fardeau de l’homme vert. Les États semblent désormais s’entendre sur le principe d’une action déterminée contre le réchauffement climatique, mais ils restent profondément divisés sur le partage des efforts entre pays avancés et pays en voie de développement. Il est essentiel de réaliser ce partage dans un esprit de justice, aussi bien pour des raisons morales que pour obtenir la participation de tous. Mais les conceptions de la justice sont nombreuses et controversées. Pour progresser dans les négociations sur le climat, il faudra mettre en œuvre une justice non pas idéale, mais acceptable, qui permettra de construire un compromis entre les différentes parties. Sur quelles bases ?

Les pays en voie de développement ont développé deux lignes d'argumentation sur ce sujet. La première concerne « la responsabilité historique » pour le stock de carbone émis jusqu’à aujourd’hui par les économies développées. Une approche s’inspirant de ce modèle aurait beaucoup d’avantages. . © Telos. La fin du roi dollar  Le dollar baisse, apparemment inexorablement. La Chine, suivie par la Russie et un cortège d’autres pays, demande une monnaie internationale de remplacement. Un rapport des Nations-Unies s’est emparé du sujet. En France on n’a pas oublié le « privilège exorbitant », dénoncé par de Gaulle. Approchons-nous de la fin du roi dollar ? Un certain nombre de gens pensent que la crise va donner un coup d’accélérateur à une évolution inéluctable.

Ce raisonnement est plausible. En premier lieu, il faudrait que la crise actuelle annonce vraiment le déclin des États-Unis et de leur monnaie. La deuxième question est celle de la faiblesse du dollar. À supposer que les États-Unis et le dollar soient durablement mal en point, y a-t-il une monnaie concurrente ? Qu’en est-il de la puissance en devenir qu’est la Chine ? C’est sans doute pour cela que ceux qui veulent détrôner le dollar défendent l’idée de développer les DTS, ces droits de tirages spéciaux émis par le FMI. . © Telos. Le grand général remporte des victoires faciles - Blogs Entrepri.

Technologies

Réforme de la Santé : l’exemple pionnier de San Francisco - Fran. San Francisco (Californie) – France USA Media Alors que la Chambre des représentants et le Sénat tentent de se mettre d’accord sur un texte de loi précis, la réforme du système d’assurance santé promise par Barack Obama semble désormais inéluctable. Gros plan sur la ville de San Francisco, pionnière dans l’idée d’une couverture santé universelle. Toute une vie, ou presque, sans couverture santé. Terry Levy en avait pris l’habitude. “Healthy San Francisco” existe depuis deux ans.

Mais de nombreux Américains, comme Terry, passent à travers les mailles du filet. En Californie, l’Etat le plus riche de l’Union, le problème est criant. Exactement le cas de Terry Levy. Le 2 juillet 2007, Healthy San Francisco est lancé en mode test, dans le quartier de Chinatown, dans deux centres de soins. Ce programme pionnier aux Etats-Unis a réclamé un gros effort financier aux institutions. Sur le papier, tout semble donc aller pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes. Un modèle à dupliquer ? New Approaches to New Markets: How C.K. Prahalad's Bottom of the. Five years ago, C.K. Prahalad published a book titled, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, in which he argues that multinational companies not only can make money selling to the world’s poorest, but also that undertaking such efforts is necessary as a way to close the growing gap between rich and poor countries. Key to his argument for targeting the world’s poorest is the sheer size of that market — an estimated four billion people.

How has Prahalad’s book — a revised, fifth-anniversary edition of which has just been published — affected the behavior of companies and the well-being of consumers in the years since its publication? Knowledge@Wharton checked in with the author for an update, including examples of specific companies that are implementing Bottom of the Pyramid strategies. Below is an edited transcript of the conversation. C.K. I also asked people to update the case studies that were in the original book.

And so it is for education. Knowledge@Wharton: One last question. Google Lets You Search World Bank Data | TechWatch | Fast Compan. Whether you think the World Bank is an engine of worldly improvement or a bunch of corrupt plutocrats, you'll probably still want to look at their exhaustive trove of data, which Google made available today. Google has mashed up its public data search with the World Bank's API (who knew?) And the result is this: a robust data system that capable of giving you real data-driven results to questions like "life expectancy in Brazil" or "energy use of Iceland.

" (Below, some graphical comparisons of various nations' GDP.) While the data might be World Bank's, the interaction design is all Google. Clicking results lets you play with interactive charts which are fully embeddable, and can be created either statically or always-updating dynamic graphs. Query results are based on 17 indicators of "World Development" tracked by the World Bank. You can see those indicators here. Google says on its blog that the World Bank data program is in keeping with its intention to support fact-based debate. Can Lean Co-exist with Innovation? “Lean” has come to mean an integrated, end-to-end process viewpoint that combines the concepts of waste elimination, just-in-time inventory management, built-in quality, and worker involvement — supported by a cultural focus on problem solving.

Can such practical principles be applied to innovation, or would lean’s structure and discipline snuff out the creative spark that underlies the birth and development of great ideas? Can lean co-exist with innovation? According to experts at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Wharton faculty, lean and innovation can indeed complement each other, and it’s about time they came together.

Lean brings structure and predictability to innovation, and sharpens the distinction between idea generation and the development process, they say. Both share a common goal: to meet customer needs in a cost-effective manner. And lean can help empower researchers and reduce uncertainty in the innovation process itself.

Redefining the Individual and the Team. How Entrepreneurs Identify New Business Opportunities - Knowledg. A key question that all would-be entrepreneurs face is finding the business opportunity that is right for them. Should the new startup focus on introducing a new product or service based on an unmet need? Should the venture select an existing product or service from one market and offer it in another where it may not be available? Or should the firm bank on a tried and tested formula that has worked elsewhere, such as a franchise operation?

In the first of a series of podcasts for the Wharton-CERT Business Plan Competition, Raffi Amit, a professor of management at Wharton, discusses these questions and more with Knowledge@Wharton. An edited transcript of the conversation appears below: Knowledge@Wharton: Our guest today is Raffi Amit, professor of Management at Wharton. Amit: My pleasure. Knowledge@Wharton: The question that confronts anybody who is thinking of starting a new business or company is, how do you find the opportunity that’s right for you? Amit: Sure. La finance est-elle utile à la croissance  Suite aux réunions du G20, les régulateurs des marchés et institutions financières ont commencé à produire et tester des codes de conduite visant à freiner le taux de croissance des dettes émises par les institutions financières, que ce soit sous forme de crédits ou d’obligations. L’idée est de freiner la croissance de l’endettement des économies, grâce à des mécanismes incitatifs plus stricts que par le passé.

La nouvelle réglementation ne discrimine donc pas les activités financières « utiles socialement » et les autres, comme le souhaitait par exemple Paul Krugman. Pour comprendre la démarche des régulateurs, il faut rappeler comment la finance est utile à la croissance… et comment elle peut nuire à cette croissance. Rappelons d’abord ce que l’on sait sur l’utilité de la finance et les vertus de l’endettement croissant. D’autres études montrent que le développement des marchés et des acteurs financiers différents des banques augmente aussi la productivité de l’économie. . © Telos. Why Insider Trading Is Hard to Define, Prove and Prevent - Knowl. When federal prosecutors charged one of America’s wealthiest people with insider trading in October, the case against Raj Rajaratnam and his firm, Galleon Group hedge fund, seemed notable for the types of evidence gathering investigators claimed to have used on the six defendants: bugged conversations and inside informants.

Many allegations of insider trading are hobbled by weak evidence like suspicious stock trades just before key corporate announcements. Since the case broke in mid-October, it has widened. On November 5, 14 additional people were charged. Prosecutors described a network of conspirators who earned at least $60 million. They predicted even more arrests in coming weeks. “I think there are some libertarians who think we should allow it,” says Wharton finance professor Jeremy J. Siegel. Although studies indicate there are a good deal more insider trades than insider trading prosecutions, Siegel does not believe it’s a major force in the financial markets. The Art of Learning from a Colleague - Steven DeMaio - HarvardBu. By Steven DeMaio | 9:09 AM November 11, 2009 I have a colleague in publishing who works many miles from me and has a different but overlapping area of editorial expertise.

Recently, instead of doing a bit of freelance work for her independently and having her interpret it later, I suggested that, as an experiment, I do it live with her on the phone without either of us spending time in advance. Curious what the trial would yield, she agreed to it. On the call, with the faint sound of her breathing as backdrop, I started to ask myself the same questions aloud that I would have asked alone in silence, commenting explicitly on each choice I made. She simply recorded my work quietly at first, but as she quickly became comfortable with the process, she began querying me as I went along and thereby refining my work in real time, rather than after the fact as she normally does. Indeed, my best learning experiences are when I get to see how someone else’s mind works. Fit for the Holidays: Amazon Is Shaping Up and Shipping Out - Kn. For the past few weeks, Amazon watchers have seen a flurry of activity.

In mid-October, the world’s largest online retailer launched same-day shipping in seven major U.S. cities and expanded its free shipping offers in other parts of the world. It has also unveiled an easier-to-use online checkout system called PayPhrase and introduced virtual private cloud computing to enable corporate clients to connect their existing infrastructure to Amazon’s computer resources. Then there’s a new global marketing push for an upgraded version of the Kindle — the company’s much-talked-about e-book reader — so that customers around the world can use 3G wireless technology for faster downloading, among other things.

Amazon certainly isn’t fighting for survival like other companies that have been battered by the economic downturn. Of course, Amazon isn’t the only company vying for the wallets of today’s cost-conscious consumers. Amazon has been largely dismissive of the price war. Caught in a Web. The Lean Evolution: From Factory Floor to Service Centers -- and. In 2008, the University of North Carolina Health Care System faced a challenge: Length of stay per patient at this major nonprofit health system and academic medical center was longer than it needed it to be. If administrators could figure out how to cut the length of stay by an average of just 10% — without compromising patient health — the system could add tens of millions of dollars to its operating budget and, most important, provide care to more patients. Reducing UNC Health Care’s length of stay without affecting quality required analyzing every aspect of patient care, identifying inconsistencies and redundancies, and finding ways to improve the service, according to Jon Scholl, a partner and managing director at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

One step involved setting goals for shorter stays and putting a whiteboard in every room. “The nurse writes daily goals on the board,” says Scholl, who helped guide the health system through its successful initiative. A new way of looking at the world. IBM Furthers Investment In Business Analytics With Smart Analyti. During IBM’s Q3 earnings call a few weeks ago, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge highlighted business analytics as a sector where Big Blue is investing significant amounts of cash.

The company recently acquired data analytics company SPSS for $1.2 billion and business analytics firm RedPill. Tonight, IBM is unveiling a new internal analytics product that the company is touting as the “largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics in the world,” which launches internally with more than a petabyte of information.

Along with this internal product, IBM will launch a companion product for clients to build upon this cloud-based architecture, called IBM Smart Analytics Cloud. The internal product, dubbed Blue Insight, will provide 200,000 employees in IBM’s sales and development department with the ability to extract data and information to make decisions and gain further insight at the point of sale. How Murdoch Can Really Hurt Google And Shift The Balance Of Powe. I’ve mostly been a spectator in this whole Rupert Murdoch de-indexing his news sites from Google circus. First because I didn’t really believe he even knew what he was talking about (or how much traffic he’d lose), and more recently because Erick Schonfeld took the story here at TechCrunch. But suddenly this is a fascinating story to me for a bunch of reasons.

This may be less about the self destruction of traditional journalism and more about the search wars. Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who used to work for Murdoch’s Digital Chief Jonathan Miller when the two were at AOL, posted a video last week (embedded below) with a simple suggestion: Not only should Murdoch de-index from Google, but he should get Bing to pay him for the exclusive right to index it. TechCrunch Europe’s Mike Butcher has been sniffing down a similar trail. If other media companies joined Murdoch Google could actually find itself in a very difficult position, where Bing had content that Google didn’t. MakeMyTrip.com: Is eCommerce in India Finally Happening? GURGAON, INDIA– Back in 1995, Deep Kalra knew that India had burgeoning consumer promise. So he took a risk, quit his safe-but-boring banking job and joined AMF Bowling—an American company that was aiming to bring bowling alleys and billiard halls to India for the first time. It didn’t quite scratch his entrepreneurial itch: The hobby was ahead of its time for Indians.

He managed to open about 200 lanes, most of them in small centers. Worse, Kalra was in that business-man’s-limbo: The venture wasn’t really his own thing, but he had a remote boss back in America who didn’t give him much mentorship or guidance. So after four years, he headed back into the safe world of banking. And then, in 2000, with some money saved up, he decided to leave again and do things his way. Of course, that was a pretty crucial difference. But Kalra and two senior managers bought back their equity in the business and agreed to go without salaries for 18 months. Why does travel take off so fast? Kalra is smart. India is morphing into a global R&D hub, but can it ever take on.

A Local Revolution? What Kate Saw in Silicon Valley. Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy: For Global Finance, Global Reg.