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The purpose of the work is to verify the offered hypothesis and to develop a new model of macro-economic balance, adapted to peculiarities of information economy.

The methodology of the research is based on equilibrium approach to studying socio-economic phenomena and processes. According to this approach, in order to determine the balance in information economy, the methods of abstracting and modeling of economic systems are used. The theoretical basis of the chapter is the classical macro-economic balance in “AD–AS” model (aggregate demand–aggregate supply model).

The research concluded that information economy envisages high specificity of the main commodity market – market of information as a product – and that behavior of sellers and buyers cannot be described correctly with the help of the classical two-dimensional model of demand and offer in macro-economics. In order to solve this problem, the author presents a new three-dimensional model of balance, which is adapted to peculiarities of information economy. This model shows that the aggregate demand and supply of information as a product in information economy depends not only on the level of market price for information but also on its value and preservation of its uniqueness. So apart from striving for lowest prices, consumers are interested in purchasing the most valuable information, which is not sold by sellers and is not available in the market. The market has only information that has no critical value for its owners and economy on the whole.

The author’s three-dimensional model of balance, adapted to peculiarities of information economy, is recommended for application.

The aim of this section is to develop a model of the linkage between the macro-dynamics of price and the micro-dynamics of individual buyers and sellers, drawing on classical micro-economic theory (Jehle & Reny, 2001). Jehle and Reny's book is in three parts. The first part discusses economic agents, namely consumers and firms. The second part discusses markets, in other words what happens when the economic agents interact; and welfare, namely the social value of the outcome. The third part is on strategic behaviour, covering game theory, information economics and auctions and mechanism design. Here, the emphasis will be on the core concepts rather than on the mathematical details. In emphasising the core concepts, attention will be drawn to the fact that these core concepts have a much wider range than simply micro-economics.

Our physical universe is 1.5×10¹⁰ years old. It began with the Big Bang. There is some debate about what happened in the first tenth of a second! The first 3×10⁵ years were radiation dominated. Since then it has been matter dominated. (This in accordance with the first law of thermodynamics which states that total mass-energy is conserved.) The universe has continuously expanded in space and in the future either this may continue, or expansion may stabilise at a fixed size or the universe may contract in the Big Crunch (depending on the spatial curvature). At a certain scale the universe is spatially isotropic and homogeneous. Its trajectory exhibits increasing entropy in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. These statements are in accordance with certain models and empirical data: distant galaxies are receding from us at a velocity proportional to their distance; there is greater spatial uniformity at greater distances from us; there is uniform presence in space of radiation with a temperature of 2.7K; etc.

This chapter posits that we underestimate the way in which our immersion in the ‘social logic’ of capitalist consumption constrains our attempts to understand and respond to the ecological crises at both a personal and political level – and that both dimensions of our response are bound together.

Survey of literature on psychology, well-being and mindfulness.

How has the culture of capitalism – its psychic investment in colonizing our attention – compromised our ability to respond meaningfully to the challenges of sustainable development? In an acknowledgement of a certain closure around such themes within Western thought, I look to a point of exteriority in Peter Hershock’s work, drawing on China’s Chan Buddhist philosophy, for intimations of a worldview that challenges the West’s over-commitment to forms of ‘control’ in favour of a cultivation of mindful and careful awareness – and an offering of unconditional attention.

Draws attention to a new phase of ‘enclosure’ in the cultural processes of capitalism.

Original introduction of a critical approach to mindfulness in the debate on well-being.

The purpose of this chapter is to determine the basic characteristics of information economy, including consideration of the theoretical features and distinguishing the analytical aspects of functioning of this phenomenon under modern conditions. The authors offer a hypothesis that basic characteristics of information economy are transformed under the influence of digitization and the change in telecommunication interaction.

The following methodological tools were used: analytical introspection (determining estimate phenomena of the studied object with the help of practical materials analysis), theoretical cognition (grouping and synthesis of scientific studies of foreign and Russian scholars in the sphere of information economy), and group evaluation of phenomena (studying the modern regularities of information economy development).

The following conclusions are made: the theory of information economy is based on presenting information as a tool of economy management (information is the main economic value that creates national wealth); the modern idea of information economy is connected to the aspects of digital and telecommunication interaction; the information economy of the twenty-first century is aimed at monetization of information on households; and a new basic direction of information economy is information and program economy.

The sphere of application of the received results is rather wide. They will be of interest for practitioners, government employees, and researchers in the sphere of macro-economic development of the country during the period of transformation of the paradigm of economic growth. The main direction of future research is substantiation of approaches to formation of a new economic thought based on information and digital technologies.

As the chapters in this volume emphasize, the access to local resources in a given host country is not a free-for-all. Although the LOF has traditionally been understood as a phenomenon related to firms' performance in local markets, implicitly evoking a market-seeking motivation for entry, it applies equally well to strategic asset seeking (Dunning, 1993). Hence, foreign firms might suffer from discrimination and uncertainty relative to incumbent firms also in their attempts to get access to local resources such as labor and knowledge. The first chapter in this second section, by Nachum (‘Home-based Advantages and a Hierarchy of Location Resources: Foreign and Local Firms Dependency on Location Resources’), demonstrates these points and estimates a hierarchy of resources that differ in their degree of accessibility to foreign firms and fungibility within internal MNE networks. If the LOF thus inhibits MNEs' attempts to use LSA as a source of local competitiveness, we might assume a relationship of the form LSAM = LSA0(1 − e LOF), where e 0 captures, for lack of a better term, the local ‘resource embeddedness’, i.e. the extent to which local incumbents have an unfair advantage in sourcing LSA. These local firms, in contrast, do not suffer a penalty like the MNEs do and can freely access the local resources, so that LSAL = LSA0.