Economic Theory

Keynes's preeminent biographer, Robert Skidelsky, brilliantly synthesizes from Keynes' career and life the aspects of his thinking that apply most directly to the world we currently live in. In so doing, Skidelsky shows that Keynes's mixture of pragmatism and realism, which distinguished his thinking from the neo-classical or Chicago school of economics that has been the dominant influence since the Thatcher-Reagan era and which made possible the raw market capitalism that created the current global financial crisis, is more pertinent and applicable than ever.

Talk about great timing. Rothbard's extraordinary book unravels the mystery of banking: What is legitimate enterprise and what is a government-backed shell game that can't last? His explanation is clear enough for anyone to follow and yet precise and rigorous enough to be the best textbook for college classes on the topic. This is because its expository clarity - in its history and theory - is essentially unrivaled. Most notably, he uses the T-account method of explaining the relationship between deposits and loans, showing the inherent instability of fractional reserve banking.

In this controversial, hard-hitting account of today’s explosive market, Robert J. Shiller, a leading expert on market volatility, evokes Alan Greenspan’s infamous 1996 reference, “irrational exuberance,” to explain the alternately soaring and declining stock market. Shiller’s unconventional yet persuasive argument credits an unprecedented confluence of events with driving stocks to uncharted heights, and he analyzes the structural, cultural, and psychological factors behind these levels of growth not reflected in any other sector of the economy.

This classic statement of economic liberalism or the policy of laissez-faire was first published in 1776. It is an engrossing analysis of the economic facts of life. Several fundamental principles, many of which are now referred to as axioms, were introduced in this work, the division of labor, supply-and-demand, and free market capitalism being among the most obvious.

This slim primer distills Sharma's decades of experience into 10 rules for identifying nations that are poised to take off or crash. A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, 10 Rules is full of pioneering insights on signs of political, economic, and social change. Sharma explains, for example, why autocrats are bad for the economy; robots are a blessing, not a curse; and consumer prices don’t tell you all you need to know about inflation.

Mission Economy looks at the challenges facing us in a radically new way. Global warming, pollution, dementia, obesity, gun violence, mobility—these environmental, health, and social dilemmas are huge, complex, and have no simple solutions. Mariana Mazzucato argues we need to think bigger and mobilize our resources in a way that is as bold as inspirational as the moon landing—this time to the most "wicked" social problems of our time. We can only begin to find answers if we fundamentally restructure capitalism to make it inclusive, sustainable, and driven by innovation.

The author of the widely praised Age of Greed now gives us a bold indictment of some of our most accepted economic theories - why they’re wrong, the harm they’ve done, and the theories that would vastly improve them.

Our current democratic capitalist system is close to imploding. This book is the first to reveal the secret financial system dominating capitalism today and shows how we can create accountability to restore our democracy.

Political Realignment tracks the evolution of citizen and elite opinions on economic and cultural issues from the 1970s to the 2010s - and the impact of these changes on electoral politics and public policy. Citizen positions on these cleavages have realigned over time, producing a similar realignment in the structure of the party systems to represent these demands. Economic issues remain important, now joined by divisions on cultural issues as a backlash to modernization. Assembling a time series of empirical evidence, this study explains the new forces of elector change in both Europe and the United States.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is a master of game theory, which is a fancy label for a simple idea: People compete, and they always do what they think is in their own best interest. Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory and its insights into human behavior to predict and even engineer political, financial, and personal events. His forecasts, which have been employed by everyone from the CIA to major business firms, have an amazing 90 percent accuracy rate.

In a radical break with the past, information now flows like water, and we must learn how to tap into its stream. Individuals and companies can no longer rely on the stocks of knowledge that theyve carefully built up and stored away. Information now flows like water, and we must learn how to tap into the stream.

A compelling argument - masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated - that despite increasing prosperity for most of Earth’s inhabitants and an explosion of goods overall, consumption of natural resources such as metals, water, and timber has begun to decline. Best-selling author and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Andrew McAfee says there’s a new reason for optimism: We’re past the point of "peak stuff" - from here on out, it'll take fewer resources to make things and fewer dollars to lead a comfortable life.

Loneliness has become the defining condition of the 21st century. It is damaging our health, our wealth, and our happiness and even threatening our democracy. Never has it been more pervasive or more widespread, but never has there been more that we can do about it.

The award-winning author of The Battle of Bretton Woods reveals the gripping history behind the Marshall Plan—told with verve, insight, and resonance for today.

In the wake of World War II, with Britain’s empire collapsing and Stalin's on the rise, US officials under new secretary of state George C. Marshall set out to reconstruct western Europe as a bulwark against communist authoritarianism. Their massive, costly, and ambitious undertaking would confront Europeans and Americans alike with a vision at odds with their history and self-conceptions. In the process, they would drive the creation of NATO, the European Union, and a Western identity that continues to shape world events.

Focusing on the critical years 1947 to 1949, Benn Steil’s thrilling account brings to life the seminal episodes marking the collapse of postwar US-Soviet relations—the Prague coup, the Berlin blockade, and the division of Germany. In each case, we see and understand like never before Stalin’s determination to crush the Marshall Plan and undermine American power in Europe.

Given current echoes of the Cold War, as Putin’s Russia rattles the world order, the tenuous balance of power and uncertain order of the late 1940s is as relevant as ever. The Marshall Plan provides critical context into understanding today’s international landscape. Bringing to bear fascinating new material from American, Russian, German, and other European archives, Steil’s account will forever change how we see the Marshall Plan and the birth of the Cold War. A polished and masterly work of historical narrative, this is an instant classic of Cold War literature.

Do we have to choose between equality and prosperity? Many think that reducing economic inequality would require such heavy-handed interference with market forces that it would stifle economic growth. Heather Boushey insists nothing could be further from the truth. Presenting cutting-edge economics with journalistic verve, she shows how rising inequality has become a drag on growth and an impediment to a competitive United States marketplace for employers and employees alike.

The 20th century witnessed the triumph of democratic capitalism in the industrialized West, with widespread popular support for both free markets and representative elections. Today, that political consensus appears to be breaking down, disrupted by polarization and income inequality, widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and insurgent populism. Tracing the history of democratic capitalism over the past two centuries, Carles Boix explains how we got here - and where we could be headed.

The intensified globalization that ensued after the end of the Cold War has resulted in an unprecedented level of interconnectedness between the economies of all rising and established powers. Economic interdependence makes today's world a much more complex place than when balance of power theory was initially developed. International relations literature has overlooked the fact that great powers have been using institutions to soft balance each other's power and aggressive behavior. Restraining Great Powers places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective.

Decades after The Death and Life of Great American Cities forever changed the field of urban studies, Jane Jacobs—one of the few contemporary thinkers whose works will remain in print for generations—brought us a modern classic on economies and ecology. The Nature of Economies is written in the form of a Platonic dialogue, a conversation over coffee among five contemporary New Yorkers. The question they discuss is: Does economic life obey the same rules as those governing nature? The answers that emerge will shape the way people think about how economies really work.

Praxeology, the science of human action, is a lens through which truthfulness of the world is revealed. Truth goggles, if you will. Praxeology teaches us that everything going on in our society is rooted in the wills and desires of individuals. Starting from an irrefutable set of statements about human beings, we can come to conclusions about human behavior that are true regardless of what any political ideology might assert.

For the past 50 years, the business world has been dominated by the Milton Friedman financial capitalism economic model, which preaches that it is the "sole social responsibility of business to maximize profit for distribution to shareholders". This one-dimensional focus represents a grossly incomplete view of reality - there are many other factors businesses need to pay attention to if they are to thrive and endure.