Is it time for governments to launch a new wave of privatizations?

Defending the motion

Bernardo Bortolotti  

Professor of Economics, University of Turin; Director, Sovereign Investment Lab, Bocconi University

A large-scale privatisation programme alleviates public finances because cash revenues can be used to redeem public debt, and savings in interest payments may give leeway to expansionary fiscal policy.

Against the motion

Elliott Sclar  

Urban Planning Professor and Director, Centre for Sustainable Urban Development, Columbia University

The motivational misalignment between long-term public needs and shorter-term private needs for investment return is at the core of all the instances of failure in public-asset sales and leases.

The moderator’s opening remarks

Feb 4th 2014 | Matthew Valencia  

Our debate tackles a perennial economic question that is also inherently political. Privatisation has long been championed by proponents of laissez-faire capitalism, usually on the political right, and opposed, often bitterly, by trade unions and others on the left. Over the past quarter of a century it has ebbed and flowed, in line partly with the complexion of governments and partly with the state of financial markets. (Who wants to sell when prices are in a slump?) Global privatisation receipts have been strong in recent years, but much of the action has been in large developing countries, such as China and Brazil. Is it time for advanced economies to rediscover the boldness of the 1980s and the early part of the last decade? Read more of this post

Lessons From The Samurai: The Secret To Always Being At Your Best

FEBRUARY 6, 2014 by ERIC BARKER

Lessons From The Samurai: The Secret To Always Being At Your Best

Reading a few books by samurai there was one thing I saw repeated again and again and again that surprised me.

It has nothing to do with swords, fighting or strategy. Actually, quite the opposite when you think about it.

What did so many of history’s greatest warriors stress as key to success and optimal performance? Read more of this post

Seth Godin: Why I want you to steal my ideas

Seth Godin: Why I want you to steal my ideas

February 3, 2014 at 11:30 am EST

By Seth Godin

Please don’t steal my car.

If you drive away with it, I won’t have it any more, which is a real hassle.

Please don’t steal my identity or my reputation either. Neither travels well, and all the time you’re using it, you’re degrading something that belongs to me.

But my ideas? Sure, yes, please, by all means, take them. Read more of this post

India’s MIT (Manipal Institute of Technology) costs less than $6,000 a year-and look where it got Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella

India’s MIT costs less than $6,000 a year—and look where it got Satya Nadella

By Heather Timmons @HeathaT 7 hours ago

Few institutions could be as pleased with Microsoft’s recent appointment of new CEO Satya Nadella as the Manipal Institute of Technology. Read more of this post

A peek inside a VC’s thought process

A peek inside a VC’s thought process

By Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large February 6, 2014: 7:04 AM ET

Maveron’s Dan Levitan, in his own words, on how he met Trupanion CEO Darryl Rawlings and decided to invest in his company.

FORTUNE — Maveron is a U.S. venture capital firm based in Seattle and San Francisco that was co-founded in 1998 by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and investment banker Dan Levitan. The firm focuses exclusively on consumer businesses, and has made a name for itself with successful investments in the billion-dollar companies eBay (EBAY), Capella University (CPLA), Groupon (GRPN), and Zulily (ZU). (Another, the fast food chain Potbelly [PBPB], is more than halfway to the billion-dollar-valuation mark.)

In a recent interview, Levitan explained how he came to invest in Trupanion, a Seattle-based startup company that offers health insurance for pet animals. It’s a fascinating look at the investment process for a venture capital firm. Below, Levitan in his own words, as told to Fortune senior editor-at-large Adam Lashinsky. Read more of this post

Book Talk: Leadership in the world’s most extreme workplace

Book Talk: Leadership in the world’s most extreme workplace

Wed, Feb 5 2014

By Pauline Askin

SYDNEY (Reuters) – At age 34, Rachael Robertson accepted the biggest challenge of her life: to lead a large, 12-month expedition in Antarctica. Two months on, she found herself having to ask the team of 120 how they managed to get through a year’s supply of condoms in just eight weeks. Read more of this post

Stop Looking for Passion at Work; The meaning of your life won’t likely be found on the job

Posted: January 21, 2014

David Silverman is an author, teacher andsenior executive at a Fortune 100 firm.

Stop Looking for Passion at Work

I recently came across an interesting career website called the Paper Tuner. Among a variety of mostly good and useful material, however, I also found this:

I have one word for this TED presentation where we are told that we are pursuing our careers all wrong: shame. And I mean that in the sense of the word that means “shame on you for making people feel bad about themselves for not finding success through the workplace.” I say that because the presenter, Larry Smith, pushes hard on what I consider the “big lies” of what I’ll call the IPO-wins-Internet culture. (He also insists on calling Steve Jobs “Steven J”—really?) Read more of this post

Making Better Decisions over Time; The technique of deliberate practice can dramatically improve performance, but knowing its limits is as important as understanding its value

January 6, 2014  

Making Better Decisions over Time

The technique of deliberate practice can dramatically improve performance, but knowing its limits is as important as understanding its value.

by Phil Rosenzweig

Managers make a wide range of decisions, from routine calls they face on a recurring basis, to large-scale strategic decisions they may encounter just once in their careers. For issues that are often repeated, the technique of deliberate practice—which involves action, feedback, modification, and action again—is a powerful way to boost performance. The technique works when a decision is part of a sequence, in which feedback from one part can improve the next. Not all decisions work in this manner, however. Knowing the difference is crucial. Read more of this post

100 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die

100 Books Everyone Should Read Before They Die

MEGAN WILLETT

FEB. 5, 2014, 12:01 PM 37,176 17

Amazon book editors have just released a list of their 100 Books To Read In A Lifetime.

Many of the books are 20th century classics or recent bestsellers — the oldest book on the list is Jane Austen’s 1813 masterpiece “Pride and Prejudice.” It also spanned multiple genres, with adult fiction, nonfiction, children’s, and young adult novels such as “The Hunger Games” and “Harry Potter” making the list. Read more of this post

A Solution for Bad Teaching: Tweaking tenure could help students and researchers

A Solution for Bad Teaching

By ADAM GRANT

FEB. 5, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — IT’S no secret that tenured professors cause problems in universities. Some choose to rest on their laurels, allowing their productivity to dwindle. Others develop tunnel vision about research, inflicting misery on students who suffer through their classes. Read more of this post

The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World

The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World Hardcover

by Michael Wheeler  (Author)

A member of the world-renowned Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School introduces the powerful next-generation approach to negotiation.
For many years, two approaches to negotiation have prevailed: the “win-win” method exemplified inGetting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton; and the hard-bargaining style of Herb Cohen’s You Can Negotiate Anything. Now award-winning Harvard Business School professor Michael Wheeler provides a dynamic alternative to one-size-fits-all strategies that don’t match real world realities.  Read more of this post

Emotions as a negotiating tool; The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World

February 5, 2014 4:00 pm

Emotions as a negotiating tool

By Alicia Clegg

Nelson Mandela famously spent some of his time in prison studying Afrikaner history and teaching himself Afrikaans, the language of his jailers. He understood that being able to see the world through the eyes of his adversaries would be important in any future negotiations. Read more of this post

‘Influx’ may propel sci-fi writer Daniel Suarez into the void left by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton; Rejected by 48 literary agents, he began self-pub in 2006. His sophisticated tech knowledge quickly attracted a cult following

Daniel Suarez Sees Into the Future

‘Influx’ may propel the sci-fi writer into the void left by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton

EBEN SHAPIRO

Updated Feb. 5, 2014 10:24 a.m. ET

Daniel Suarez Michal Czerwonka for The Wall Street Journal

Thriller writer Daniel Suarez has a lot of readers with important jobs. Read more of this post

Cheaters … Win? Why Systems to Prevent Deception Don’t Work

Cheaters … Win? Why Systems to Prevent Deception Don’t Work

Jan 30, 2014

Swiping office supplies from work. Jumping the turnstile to get a free ride on the subway. Stealing a car and taking it for a joyride. All of these are clearly unethical behaviors that should evoke a negative emotional response after the event — if the mere promise of feeling guilt or remorse doesn’t stop the individual from doing it in the first place. Read more of this post

The ‘Moneyball’ Approach to Hiring CEOs

The ‘Moneyball’ Approach to Hiring CEOs

Feb 03, 2014

It was the lesson of the best-selling book-turned-movie, Moneyball: Don’t throw money at big-name baseball players or judge future performance by purely physical attributes. Assess them, instead, by more relevant measurements, like their on-base percentage. Read more of this post