Local capital market development responds to the need to reduce the risk of financial crises that result from an excessive reliance on external borrowing -- for example, to avoid foreign exchange risk, reduce contagion, and decrease short-term external borrowing. In fact, as financial crises dwarf the role of financial intermediation, the problems of asymmetric information become even more severe, leading to greater public mistrust of financial institutions. The contributors in Focus on Capital tackle various aspects of developing Latin American capital markets. Macroeconomic and structural policies, accounting practices and standards, bond market development, market infrastructure, derivatives markets, corporate governance, ethics, human capital, and regional integration all play a role. One of the shortcomings of many strategies for capital market development -- more important than getting the sequencing wrong -- is failing to understand the links between the various components and the need for an overall strategy as well as plans for each component. Focus on Capital analyzes the status of the markets in Latin America and identifies the technical, political, and financial challenges to building vibrant capital markets and increasing the efficiency benefits of regional economic and financial integration.

An exploration of our understanding of the purpose of capital and the cultural, historic and environmental aspects of how we have come to understand the relation between economic, social and environmental components of capital. Offers a vision of capital as a fuel to promote individual freedom in the context of community and Earth.

Praise from Jason Mendelson (auth. Venture Deals), "Patrick brings an educator's perspective and an entertainer's sensibilities to his overview of venture capital." An approachable but disciplined overview of venture capital written by a professional musician turned business school professor over a 15-year period of teaching venture capital and startup classes at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. The book is a one-stop shop for understanding venture capital, distilling lessons from hundreds of interactions with VCs and founders. Readers of the book will learn: The core competencies of successful VCs What VC's are looking for in startups How venture capital differs from other forms of startup financing How the sharks on TV's Shark Tank are ruining venture capital The top two terms on any term sheet (and a few other key terms) Why VCs often behave like music industry professionals How to think like a VC Understanding how venture capital works in our economy can be of benefit to a wide variety of readers, from entrepreneurs to corporate decision-makers and everyone in between. This book treats venture capital as a topic of entrepreneurial strategy, not finance, and includes a background of the industry, an explanation of all aspect of the "VC Job Cycle" and a framework called "VC Razor" for performing due diligence. Learning how to think like a venture capitalist can help anyone become a better decision-maker. "Well organized, clearly articulated, this volume spans the gamut from beginner's overview to expert's guidebook. Venture Capital has never been more important, and this volume could not have been more timely." Jerome Engel, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business "Patrick lays out important concepts and insights in an easy to understand and digest form. As he clearly articulates in the book, the way that venture capitalists think is valuable to anyone in business." John F. Clarke, Dean of Graduate Programs, Tulane University Why Write Another Venture Capital Book? From the author: Over the years as I have taught venture capital classes and run a worldwide venture capital competition, I have struggled to find materials for my students. I have been frustrated by the simultaneous abundance and lack of available content. There is an abundance of terrific blogs written by VCs and founders, often teaching specific lessons derived from specific situations. Many VCs are prolific writers and have covered a wide variety of topics of the VC investment process. However, most blog postings have a very narrow scope, and they are not organized into a coherent body of work. They go deep in the weeds, but the forest gets lost. Similarly, there is also an abundance of textbooks that treat venture capital as a topic of finance. Wrong forest! Venture capital is undeniably a subset of private equity. However, approaching the industry from that perspective ignores the vast majority of what VCs actually do. If you would like to study venture capital as a finance subject, there are many other books that will serve you better than this one. Treating venture capital as a topic of finance overemphasizes the importance of numbers. For VCs, number play a large role, but just as important is the story about the numbers. In this regard, I will argue that VCs are more like journalists and filmmakers than financiers. What I have not been able to find is a holistic overview of venture capital as a topic of strategy, explaining its place in the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem. It is not simply entrepreneurial finance! VCs play a very important strategic role in commercializing technologies. Just as importantly, they employ specific strategies that we can learn and apply to our own entrepreneurial circumstances.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

Radical Advice for Reinventing Talent--and HR Most executives today recognize the competitive advantage of human capital, and yet the talent practices their organizations use are stuck in the twentieth century. Typical talent-planning and HR processes are designed for predictable environments, traditional ways of getting work done, and organizations where "lines and boxes" still define how people are managed. As work and organizations have become more fluid--and business strategy is no longer about planning years ahead but about sensing and seizing new opportunities and adapting to a constantly changing environment--companies must deploy talent in new ways to remain competitive. Turning conventional views on their heads, talent and leadership experts Ram Charan, Dominic Barton, and Dennis Carey provide leaders with a new and different playbook for acquiring, managing, and deploying talent--for today's agile, digital, analytical, technologically driven strategic environment--and for creating the HR function that business needs. Filled with examples of forward-thinking companies that have adopted radical new approaches to talent (such as ADP, Amgen, BlackRock, Blackstone, Haier, ING, Marsh, Tata Communications, Telenor, and Volvo), as well as the juggernauts and the startups of Silicon Valley, this book shows leaders how to bring the rigor that they apply to financial capital to their human capital--elevating HR to the same level as finance in their organizations. Providing deep, expert insight and advice for what needs to change and how to change it, this is the definitive book for reimagining and creating a talent-driven organization that wins.

Explanations to the inner workings of one of the least understood, but arguably most important, areas of business finance is offered to readers in this engaging volume: venture capital. Venture capitalists provide necessary investment to seed (or startup) companies, but the startup is only the beginning, there is much more to be explored. These savvy investors help guide young entrepreneurs, who likely have little experience, to turn their businesses into the Googles, Facebooks, and Groupons of the world. This book explains the often-complex methods venture capitalists use to value companies and to get the most return on their investments, or ROI. This book is a must-have for any reader interested in the business world.