Monday, September 28, 2009

Must Read: this week's Economist

The current issue of The Economist, September 26th to October 2nd, has a number of articles of interest to the socially responsible investment community. The most important of these is 'Briefing - Financial innovation and the poor' about the rise of social finance, which discusses some new inititatives and some old ones. The focus is on 'impact investing', which includes, but is not limited to, SRI.

In Science and Technology, we have 'Last gasp for the forest'. A new climate treaty could provide a highly effective way to reduce carbon emissions by paying people to not cut down forests.

Schumpeter addresses 'The pedagogy of the privileged', stating that business schools have done too little to reform themselves in the light of the credit crunch.

And less directly related to investing but nonetheless fascinating is the cover story on telecoms in emerging markets. "How did a device that just a few years ago was regarded as a yuppie plaything become, in the words of Jeffrey Sachs, a development guru at Columbia University's Earth Institute, 'the single most transformative tool for development'?"

You might have to buy the hard copy, as the Economist doesn't put everything online, but the information and thought provoking content are well worth it.

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