Enlaces 07.02.2014

Measuring management.  It is no longer just a plausible theory that good management boosts productivity, by The Economist.
The economists conclude that good management is indeed tightly linked to improved corporate performance, measured in terms of productivity, profitability, growth and survival. Good management is more like a technology than merely an adjustment to circumstances. Certain successful management practices can be applied to many horses on many courses. Some of these are eternal, such as rewarding merit. Some are genuine innovations, such as the quality movement founded by W. Edwards Deming after the second world war.

Do people mind more about inequality than poverty? By Matt Ridley.
Here’s another question where my money is on the chimps: does income generally grow faster for people in the lowest fifth of the population or people in the highest? It’s the lowest, because many of those people are young, low-paid people just starting out on their careers, while many of the richest fifth are older people at the peak of their pay, about to retire. That is to say, the category “poorest fifth” may not seem to show much change, but the people in it do. Income mobility is far from dead: 80 per cent of people born in households below the poverty line escape poverty when they reach adulthood.

Executive MBA ranking, 2013, by The Economist (incluyo en documento en Culture).
American programmes dominate the ranking. Well over half the programmes on our list are based—solely or partly—in America. But two Spanish schools also perform well. This may come as a surprise, given the travails of that country’s economy. But students on these programmes are often not Spanish residents. The EMBA at IE Business School, ranked second, makes extensive use of distance learning, and face-to-face classes take place in Spain, China and Brazil, so it is not essential for students to be too near at hand. Its programme performs particularly well in the salary category, which is the most heavily weighted in the ranking. IE students reported that their basic salaries had risen by 52% by the time they graduated, from $101,569 to $154,281. Within two years they could expect their salaries to have increased by 125%, more than those of students at any other school. Career advancement is also a big selling point at neighbouring IESE, ranked fifth—88% of its students said that they had either been promoted or grown their company since graduation.

50 Reasons We're Living Through the Greatest Period in World History, by Morgan Housel. (incluyo en documento en Culture).
6. Two percent of American homes had electricity in 1900. J.P Morgan (the man) was one of the first to install electricity in his home, and it required a private power plant on his property. Even by 1950, close to 30% of American homes didn’t have electricity. It wasn’t until the 1970s that virtually all homes were powered. Adjusted for wage growth, electricity cost more than 10 times as much in 1900 as it does today, according to professor Julian Simon.

Charles Kenny's 6 favorite books. The Foreign Policy columnist recommends stories of human progress, by The Week Staff.
The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker (Penguin, $20). Violence, like disease, can make life nasty, brutish, and short. Pinker demonstrates that warfare, murder, rape — and even cruelty to animals — are on the wane planetwide.