The Orange Path

Why don't more businesses use prediction markets?

Tyler Cowen
Marginal Revolution, March 2006
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/03/why_dont_busine.html

private businesses had not made a breakthrough with the use of idea futures.  It seems natural to let your employees bet on future business conditions, the success of product lines, or broader questions of corporate strategy.  Microsoft and Google and a few other companies have played with the idea, but it does not (yet?) seem to be taking off.  Why not?

The Chantelle Theory of Executive Pay

Chris Dillow
Stumbling and Mumbling, March 2006
http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2006/03/inequality_the_.html

there are sharply increasing returns to ability. This is why, say, Beyonce, earns millions more than singers who are only slightly less talented or beautiful than her...
[but]
consumers need some common culture, and their desire for idols leads them to converge sometimes upon people/cards of modest ability; think Chantelle
...
Are top-earning chief executives Beyonces or Chantelles?

How the Common Law protects the environment

Long before there was an Earth Day, people protected the quality of their air, streams, and land through common-law court cases. This approach was more successful than people usually think and offers an alternative to still more government regulation, say Roger E. Meiners and Bruce Yandle in a path-breaking new paper, "The Common Law: How It Protects the Environment."
Web link

Peter Bauer: 1915-2002

The Rat House

TechnoServe

"TechnoServe, at its core, is about growth. We help grow businesses and industries in the developing world. These growing enterprises generate more jobs, more income and thus more opportunities for poor people. We also grow local capacity so that, once our job is done, we can step away without breeding dependency"
Official website