The Economics of Social Responsibility: The World of Social Enterprises (Routledge Advances in Social Economics)

The crisis of welfare systems coupled with difficulties in public financing and global integration of financial, product and labour markets are generating a transition in which the old system of check and balances (involving corporations, domestic institutions and domestic workers' association) has changed into a new 'œthree pillar' system in which bottom-up action of (a minority of) socially responsible individuals compensates for the weakness of domestic institutions and the lack of new global governance rules.This book provides new and original research on social entrerepeurship: consumers and investors voting with their portfolio and groups of citizens setting up enterprises without a profit goal, thus extending democratic participation beyond the exercise of electoral vote and thereby contributing to the rise of a fuller economic democracy. The specific fields which are extensively discussed in the book (fair trade, socially responsible consumption, socially responsible finance, evolution of welfare systems with bottom-up entrepreneurial actions) are new and original and with great future potential.Borzaga, Carlo is the author of 'The Economics of Social Responsibility: The World of Social Enterprises (Routledge Advances in Social Economics)', published 2010 under ISBN 9780415465762 and ISBN 0415465761.