Tag Archives: Business

Cynical about this whole Big Data thing?

You’re not alone. The abstract of a journal article by danah boyd and Kate Crawford: The era of Big Data has begun. Computer scientists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, political scientists, bio-informaticists, sociologists, and other scholars are clamoring for access to the massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions. Diverse groups… Read More »

On financial services in Africa

From a new Accenture report titled At the tipping point: Financial services in Africa comes of age: The Accenture research study… highlights new growth triggers for financial services, pointing to rapid market development in some countries. While the paths to growth vary, these triggers often include innovation through (very) low-cost offerings and distribution, dramatically opening up… Read More »

On the ethnography of finance

From keith Hart: The anthropology of finance has flourished in the last decade or so. The doyen of this field is Bill Maurer who conducts research on law, property, money and finance, particularly new and experimental financial and currency forms and their legal implications. He is the author of Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative… Read More »

Africa banking rising

According to a report by Bain & Company, quoted in a Reuters article: Bain Partner Andrew Tymms said the continent’s financial services industry will continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 15 percent to 2020, outpacing gross domestic product growth. “Retail banking will grow faster than corporate banking … to make up 38… Read More »

Nigeria’s Central Bank governor wins international recognition

Mallam Lamido Aminu Sanusi has been named as the Central Bank Governor of 2010 for both the African continent and the entire world, by the prestigious Banker Magazine. The editor of the magazine, Brian Caplen, says that few candidate names generate an overall consensus on judging panels, and yet, when it came to finding the… Read More »

Recycling Indian Clothing: Global Contexts of Reuse and Value

… is the title of a new book by Lucy Norris of the Department of Anthropology, University College, London. The blurb: In today’s globally connected marketplace, a wedding sari in rural north India may become a woman’s blouse or cushion cover in a Western boutique. Lucy Norris’s anthropological study of the recycling of clothes in Delhi… Read More »

‘West Africa’s transport system is costliest in the world’

From NEXT: A study by the USAID on the West Africa Trade Hub has revealed that the region’s transport costs is the highest in the world and remains so because the trucking market in the region is highly regulated. “The regulationof the industry deter competition that would go a long way toward reducing transport costs”… Read More »

The Transition from Industrial Capitalism to a Financialized Bubble Economy

The abstract of a paper of the same title: For the past decade, the U.S. economy has been driven not by industrial investment but by a real estate bubble. Although the United States may seem to be the leading example of industrial capitalism, its economy is no longer based mainly on investing in capital goods… Read More »

New York Magazine profiles Jon Stewart

Check this out: “Here’s something you always like to see,” Stewart says, scanning the front page of the Washington Post.“ ‘U.S. Trade Deficit Startles Markets.’ Now, we’ve understood the U.S. trade deficit for a while. Are the markets small children that are easily startled? The next day, they’ll get an unemployment number and go, ‘Oh, I don’t… Read More »

Nigerian power industry to be liberalised

President Goodluck Jonathan says Nigeria’s power industry can only grow through liberalisation: The government will sell 11 distribution companies created out of Power Holding Co. of Nigeria, the state-owned utility, and allow private companies to set up power plants using natural gas, hydro-electric dams and coal-powered stations, Jonathan said in a speech in Lagos, the… Read More »