Lakshmi Iyer – författare

The Element advances our understanding of women's representation by focusing on local office, where women might be expected to express greater interest and face fewer disadvantages. Using an original survey of civically and politically engaged people, the authors find that the ambition gender gap extends to local office, including elected and appointed positions. Ambitious women are also more likely to seek only local office. Men express high levels of ambition in nearly every circumstance, but women do so only under ideal conditions. Women's engagement in their communities and in politics is driven by communal rather than agentic goals, which affects the types and levels of office they seek. Women's lower levels of perceived qualification and recruitment help explain the ambition gender gap at the local level. A more equitable political opportunity structure and an understanding of politics as an arena for problem-solving, rather than power-seeking, could help address women's underrepresentation.

The Element advances our understanding of women's representation by focusing on local office, where women might be expected to express greater interest and face fewer disadvantages. Using an original survey of civically and politically engaged people, the authors find that the ambition gender gap extends to local office, including elected and appointed positions. Ambitious women are also more likely to seek only local office. Men express high levels of ambition in nearly every circumstance, but women do so only under ideal conditions. Women's engagement in their communities and in politics is driven by communal rather than agentic goals, which affects the types and levels of office they seek. Women's lower levels of perceived qualification and recruitment help explain the ambition gender gap at the local level. A more equitable political opportunity structure and an understanding of politics as an arena for problem-solving, rather than power-seeking, could help address women's underrepresentation.

Emerging markets play an increasingly important role in the global economy, accounting for 31% of global GDP and more than 50% of global foreign direct investment in 2012. However, doing business in emerging markets remains subject to a high degree of "policy risk," namely the risk that a government will discriminatorily change the laws, regulations, or contracts governing an investment — or will fail to enforce them — in a way that reduces an investor's financial returns.Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance in Emerging Markets brings together a series of Harvard Business School case studies on emerging markets. This book is an invaluable resource for researchers in the fields of economics business to understand the role of specific economic and political institutions in shaping the business environment and economic growth in emerging markets. It gives answers to the following questions: When will governments define and enforce property rights? When will the division of policy authority across different government agents (e.g. federal and subnational governments, or politicians and bureaucrats) enable better policy decisions? And what are the consequences of globalization for the economic growth and stability of emerging market countries?