From acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, the case for why government is needed to restore confidence in the economy The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. In this book, acclaimed economists George Akerlof and Robert Shiller challenge the economic wisdom that got us into this mess, and put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity. Akerlof and Shiller reassert the necessity of an active government role in economic policymaking by recovering the idea of animal spirits, a term John Maynard Keynes used to describe the gloom and despondence that led to the Great Depression and the changing psychology that accompanied recovery. Like Keynes, Akerlof and Shiller know that managing these animal spirits requires the steady hand of government―simply allowing markets to work won't do it. In rebuilding the case for a more robust, behaviorally informed Keynesianism, they detail the most pervasive effects of animal spirits in contemporary economic life―such as confidence, fear, bad faith, corruption, a concern for fairness, and the stories we tell ourselves about our economic fortunes―and show how Reaganomics, Thatcherism, and the rational expectations revolution failed to account for them. Animal Spirits offers a road map for reversing the financial misfortunes besetting us today. Read it and learn how leaders can channel animal spirits―the powerful forces of human psychology that are afoot in the world economy today.

This is the ultimate guide to the world of the Freak. Renegade thinkers and bestselling sensations Levitt and Dubner have carefully curated the very best of their blogs, conversations, wisecracks and advice from the last decade to reveal the outlandish truth about everything from lying to bankrobbing, fast food to sex taxes. 'We are all Freakonomists now' Washington Post 'A phenomenon ... their approach has won them a cult following' Observer 'Lie back and let Levitt and Dubner's bouncy prose style carry you along from one peculiarity to the next' Sunday Telegraph 'You are guaranteed a good time' Financial Times

The international bestseller on the extent to which personal freedom has been eroded by government regulations and agencies while personal prosperity has been undermined by government spending and economic controls. New Foreword by the Authors; Index.

A Nobel Prize-winning economist and his wife argue that free-market forces work better than government controls for achieving real equality and security, protecting consumers and workers, providing education, and avoiding inflation and unemployment

"In this classic work of economic history and social theory, Karl Polanyi tracks the economic and social changes brought about by the "great transformation" of the Industrial Revolution. He pays particular attention to capitalism's rise and its role in fundamentally altering life after the Industrial Revolution. This seminal analysis explains not only the deficiencies of the self-regulating market, but the potentially dire social consequences of untempered market capitalism"-- Provided by publisher.

"In matching markets, where 'sellers' and 'buyers' must choose each other, some surprising rules govern a vast array of our activities -- both mundane and life-changing -- where money has little or no role in who gets what. From applying for a job to asking someone out on a date, or getting your child into the best school or university, matching plays a crucial and invisible part. It accounts for some of the biggest technological successes of the decade, like Uber and Airbnb, and can even be the gatekeeper of life itself, guiding how desperately ill patients receive scarce organs for transplants. Nobel Prize-winner Al Roth is one of the world's leading experts on matching markets. He even designed several of them, including the system that increases the number of kidney transplants by better matching donors to patients. In Who Gets What and Why, his life's work provides an x-ray of the market designs you don't see. It shows how to recognize a good match and make smarter, more confident decisions"--Jacket

The post 9/11 global economy is a new and turbulent system - vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than ever before. The Age of Turbulence will be an incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good or ill, channelled through Greenspan's own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He will share the story of the extraordinary years he has experienced and shaped, and the individuals who made strong impressions on him, including every US President from Nixon to George W. Bush. But his main goal is to draw readers along the same learning curve he followed, so they have a grasp of his own hard-won, layered understanding of the dynamics that drive world events.

"Renowned economist Nouriel Roubini was nicknamed "Dr. Doom," until his prediction of the 2008 housing crisis and Great Recession came true--when it was too late. Now he is back with a much scarier prediction, one that we ignore at our peril. There are no fewer than ten overlapping, interconnected threats that are so serious, he calls them Megathreats. From the worst debt crisis the world has ever seen, to governments pumping out too much money, to borders that are blocked to workers and to many shipments of goods, to the rise of a new superpower competition between China and the U.S., to climate change that strikes directly at our most populated cities, we are facing not one, not two, but ten causes of disaster. There is a slight chance we can avoid them, if we come to our senses--but we must act now." --

“Lucid, quietly urgent, and relentlessly logical . . . this is Bigthink with a capital B.” —The New York Times Book Review “Common Wealth explains the most basic economic reckoning that the world faces.” —Al Gore, winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and former vice president of the United States In Common Wealth, Jeffrey D. Sachs-one of the world's most respected economists and the author of The New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty- offers an urgent assessment of the environmental degradation, rapid population growth, and extreme poverty that threaten global peace and prosperity. Through crystalline examination of hard facts, Sachs predicts the cascade of crises that awaits this crowded planet-and presents a program of sustainable development and international cooperation that will correct this dangerous course. Few luminaries anywhere on the planet are as schooled in this daunting subject as Sachs, and this is the vital product of his experience and wisdom.

Akerlof and Shiller argue that markets harm as well as help us. As long as there is profit to be made, sellers will systematically exploit our psychological weaknesses and our ignorance through manipulation and deception. Based on the intuitive idea that markets both give and take away, they show how phishing affects everyone, in almost every walk of life. We spend our money up to the limit, and then worry about how to pay the next month's bills. The financial system soars, then crashes. In exploring the role of manipulation and deception, the authors explain a paradox: why, at a time when we are better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation.

In The New Society, Peter Drucker extended his previous works The Future of Industrial Man and The Concept of the Corporation into a systematic, organized analysis of the industrial society that emerged out of World War II. He analyzes large business enterprises, governments, labor unions, and the place of the individual within the social context of these institutions. Although written when the industrial society he describes was at its peak of productivity, Drucker's basic conceptual frame has well stood the test of time. Following publication of the first printing of The New Society, George G. Higgins wrote in Commonweal that "Drucker has analyzed, as brilliantly as any modem writer, the problems of industrial relations in the individual company or 'enterprise.' He is thoroughly at home in economics, political science, industrial psychology, and industrial sociology, and has succeeded admirably in harmonizing the findings of all four disciplines and applying them meaningfully to the practical problems of the 'enterprise.'" This well expresses contemporary critical opinion. Peter Drucker's new introduction places The New Society in a contemporary perspective and affirms its continual relevance to industry in the mid-1990s. Economists, political scientists, psychologists, and professionals in management and industry will find this seminal work a useful tool for understanding industry and society at large.

Why should we pay attention to the great social critics like Marx? If you want to understand capitalism in order to make society better, then understanding Marx’s analysis is fundamental in drawing your attention to capitalist production’s core conflict: class struggle. It is everywhere, and it influences everything and everyone in our society. Marx is the theoretician who first explained it systematically. He was a social critic for whom capitalism signified not the end of human history, but the latest phase that badly needed a transition to something better. Marxism displays a central, crucial focus on the class struggle that both haunts and drives capitalism. Nothing could be more relevant and useful here and now to help us understand and cope with the threatening global capitalism of our times. Indeed, Americans today confront serious questions and evidence that our capitalist system is in trouble and that it clearly serves the 1% far better than the vast mass of the people. We offer this introductory book now because of the power and usefulness today of Marx’s criticism of the capitalist economic system. This 2021 hardcover edition features a new introduction by author Richard D. Wolff, which strengthens the case for why Marxism is worth understanding. It explains and shares our excitement about the ways in which Marxism helps us to critically rethink capitalism today, and offers new directions for social development beyond and better than the capitalism we have.

Sandel argues that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society and examines one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?

Sandel argues that we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society and examines one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?

Award-winning author David Halberstam's The Reckoning gives a riveting account of the most decisive economic confrontation of this century--between Detroit's Ford Motor Company and Japan's Nissan. Here are young Ford, renegade Iacocca, visionary Katayama--everyone needed to reveal the crucial nuances behind two nations competing for commercial supremacy. HC: Morrow.

A systematic comparison of the 3 major economic theories — neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian—showing how they differ and why these differences matter in shaping economic theory and practice. Contending Economic Theories offers a unique comparative treatment of the three main theories in economics as it is taught today: neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian. Each is developed and discussed in its own chapter, yet also differentiated from and compared to the other two theories. The authors identify each theory's starting point, its goals and foci, and its internal logic. They connect their comparative theory analysis to the larger policy issues that divide the rival camps of theorists around such central issues as the role government should play in the economy and the class structure of production, stressing the different analytical, policy, and social decisions that flow from each theory's conceptualization of economics. Building on their earlier book Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical , the authors offer an expanded treatment of Keynesian economics and a comprehensive introduction to Marxian economics, including its class analysis of society. Beyond providing a systematic explanation of the logic and structure of standard neoclassical theory, they analyze recent extensions and developments of that theory around such topics as market imperfections, information economics, new theories of equilibrium, and behavioral economics, considering whether these advances represent new paradigms or merely adjustments to the standard theory. They also explain why economic reasoning has varied among these three approaches throughout the twentieth century, and why this variation continues today—as neoclassical views give way to new Keynesian approaches in the wake of the economic collapse of 2008.

"Understanding Socialism is a plainspoken text that disarms false narratives, confronts past failures, and offers a path to a fresh and modern understanding of socialism, by outlining what democracy in the workplace could look like. Wolff not only explains what socialism is and has meant to its various proponents, he also looks at the transition from feudalism to capitalism as a model to help us visualize an evolution from our current socioeconomic state. Understanding Socialism explores how socialist theory was used and applied to help shape the histories of countries such as Russia and China, and beyond. Wolff also analyzes the successes and defeats of those countries, the world's reactions to them, and how they offer important lessons for the building of a democratic, worker-controlled 21st-century socialism."--Publisher description.

In this passionate and powerful book--part manifesto, part plan of action--the renowned economist Jeffrey D. Sachs offers a practical strategy to move America, seemingly more divided than ever, toward a new consensus: sustainable development. Sustainable development is a holistic approach that emphasizes economic, social, and environmental objectives in shaping policy. In focusing too much on economic growth, the United States has neglected rising economic inequality and dire environmental threats. Now, even growth is imperiled. Sachs explores issues that have captivated the nation and political debate, including infrastructure, trade deals, energy policy, the proper size and role of government, the national debt, and income inequality. Not only does he provide illuminating and accessible explanations of the forces at work in each case, but he also presents specific policy solutions. His argument rises above the pessimism born of political paralysis, economic stagnation, and partisanship to devise a brighter way forward, achievable both individually and collectively. In Building the New American Economy , Sachs shows how the United States can find a path to renewed economic progress that is fair and environmentally sustainable.

Master today's principles of economics and gain an understanding of current economic issues and their importance as Baumol/Blinder/Solow's ECONOMICS: PRINCIPLES AND POLICY, 14E provides a solid introduction to economics using policy-based examples and applications. Written by several of today's most respected economists, this book is one of the most up-to-date economics choices on the market -- incorporating data and issues as recent as 2018. The authors combine the right level of rigor and detail to clarify even the most complicated economic concepts. An entirely new chapter closes the book by delving into some of the most important issues confronting the U.S. economy today. Throughout this edition, well-developed examples, intriguing puzzles and meaningful economic issues provide an excellent balance of theory to application while keeping you engaged and intrigued. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.