Aside from the recent security challenges, which cancelled a trip to the Grand Bazaar, Ingrid Vanderveldt, an entrepreneur doing business in Istanbul said Turkey has some pronounced challenges for female entrepreneurs. “Probably the biggest difference about doing business here vs. in the U.S.,” she says, “is in the U.S., women doing business is almost this expected thing, and I think in Turkey it’s very much still an emerging thing, so there’s a lot of excitement around it, there’s a lot of encouragement.”  Turkey-A Country for Women Entrepreneurs ?  

An excellent report on the current condition of the country Current Conditions in Turkey

She worked her way, step by step, up the corporate ladder from the time she started working at General Motors as age 18.  Now she has reached the top.

In the statement announcing her new role as CEO, GM credited Barra with “revitalizing GM’s product development process,” saying that her efforts resulted in higher product quality ratings and increased customer satisfaction.

“With an amazing portfolio of cars and trucks and the strongest financial performance in our recent history, this is an exciting time at today’s GM,” Barra said in a statement Tuesday morning. “I’m honored to lead the best team in the business and to keep our momentum at full speed.”   Mary Barra Named First woman CEO at General Motors

The OECD’s PISA 2012 tested more than 510,000 students in 65 countries and economies on maths, reading and science. The main focus was on maths. Math proficiency is a strong predictor of positive outcomes for young adults. It influences their ability to participate in post-secondary education and their expected future earnings. Shanghai-China, and Singapore were top in maths, with students in Shanghai scoring the equivalent of nearly three years of schooling above most OECD countries. Hong Kong-China, Chinese Taipei, Korea, Macao-China, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Netherlands were also in the group of top-performing countries.   Asian countries top OECD’s latest PISA survey on state of global education

The annual Icelandic Airwaves Festival has come and gone.  Iceland now seems a brisk and bustling economy after the 2008 collapse.  Angry at the EU for their treatment of EU countries’ debts, Iceland has stalled on its application and now seems focused on the Arctic Council and the Far East.  Will this impact the country’s vibrant music culture. Iceland Music Entrepreneurs

There are band-aids and there is long term policy.  Unemployment in the US has more to do with a mismatch between available jobs and appropriately trained personnel.  A shortage of truck drivers skilled in math means that jobs abound in the business. Government fiscal policy will not solve this problem.  Rob Curran of the WSJ reporting

The WTO is the central pillar of the system established after World War II to prevent a reversion to 1930s-style protectionism and trade wars. It is intended to keep a lid on member countries’ import barriers, and allows its 159 member states to take their trade disputes to WTO tribunals rather than imposing tit-for-tat sanctions.

Now it must address two critical problems which have arisen in recent decades.  One is currency manipulation  Should countries — China being an obvious example — be allowed to hold down their currencies’ exchange rates to gain competitive advantages? Another is climate change: Should countries that strictly curb their carbon emissions be allowed to impose countervailing tariffs on imports from countries that lack similar controls?  WTO Struggles

The power supply in South Africa has become stretched at a time when commerce is listless. Figures published on November 26th showed that GDP grew between June and September at its slowest rate since 2009. It is strange that a country whose exports depend heavily on energy-intensive industries, such as carmaking and mining, has been so careless about power. Fitful electricity may now be as much a turn-off to much-needed investment by foreign companies as red tape and strikes. But then South Africa is a strange country.  Electricity Short in South Africa

This paper develops a methodology for predicting the impact of trade liberalization on exports by industry. Predictions for industry-level changes in trade for the United States and Korea following the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) are made. As a test for our methodology, we show that it performs significantly better than the applied general equilibrium models originally used for the policy evaluation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).      Impact of Trade Reform

While the W-T-W editors struggle to define the bitcoin, venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are rushing to invest in bitcoin related startups.  The Financial Times reports.    Silicon Valley Catches Bitcoin Fever