Welcomed in some circles, cursed in others, China and Taiwan's new trade agreement is a major milestone marking a turning point in cross-Strait relations, regardless of how it's viewed. The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement was signed on June 29 in Chongqing, China, committing the two countries to tariff reductions and improved access to a range of services. But this is no run-of-the-mill free trade agreement, experts note.

When China's government renewed Google's ICP license to operate on the mainland in early July, there was a collective sigh of relief. It wasn't in the interest of either the California-based Internet search giant or the government to let issues involving censorship and operating an IT business in China escalate. It was also good news for the mainland's millions of Internet users. But where does the Internet search engine market go from here?

The price war is on in the e-reader market as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others duel to increase market share for their devices. However, experts at Wharton say the larger question for these companies is whether there's much of a future for e-readers -- which are designed mostly for reading books, newspapers and magazines -- in a consumer world that is becoming more and more enamored of tablets that can do it all.

The recent financial crisis, triggered primarily by bad bets in the financial sector, has added momentum to the idea that executive compensation should be tied more closely to corporate debt rather than equity. For example, American International Group (AIG) announced that it will link incentive pay to the value of the troubled insurer's bonds. In a new paper, Wharton finance professor Alex Edmans and doctoral student Qi Liu argue that these types of incentives protect bondholders' interests and the value of the firm, particularly when a company's solvency is in question.

Committed to the "double bottom line" of financial returns and social progress, Women's World Banking (WWB), with its global network of 40 microfinance institutions and banks, offers credit, insurance and savings products to low-income women in developing countries. Recently, however, microfinance has been facing some tough challenges, including "mission drift," a competition for talent and questions about the effectiveness of its business model. During a presentation at the 14th Annual Wharton Leadership Conference, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, CEO of WWB, describes the innovative ways her organization is moving to meet these challenges and expand its global mission.

Financial institutions add to their woes during an economic downturn, experts say, by refusing to provide capital to worthy businesses because they fear other lenders will also cut back. In the end, banks create a credit shortage that does even more to extend the crisis and delay recovery. In a new paper, Wharton professor Itay Goldstein examines different approaches to halt an over-reaching credit crunch and concludes that the private and public sectors should work together to direct money toward viable businesses.