“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.

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.

"From a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in environmental economics, an innovative account of how and why "green thinking" could cure many of the world's most serious problems-from global warming to pandemics Solving the world's biggest problems-from climate catastrophe and pandemics to wildfires and corporate malfeasance-requires, more than anything else, coming up with new ways to manage the powerful interactions that surround us. For carbon emissions and other environmental damage, this means ensuring that those responsible pay their full costs rather than continuing to pass them along to others, including future generations. In The Spirit of Green, Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus describes a new way of green thinking that would help us overcome our biggest challenges without sacrificing economic prosperity, in large part by accounting for the spillover costs of economic collisions. In a discussion that ranges from the history of the environmental movement to the Green New Deal, Nordhaus explains how the spirit of green thinking provides a compelling and hopeful new perspective on modern life. At the heart of green thinking is a recognition that the globalized world is shaped not by isolated individuals but rather by innumerable interactions inside and outside the economy. He shows how rethinking economic efficiency, sustainability, politics, profits, taxes, individual ethics, corporate social responsibility, finance, and more would improve the effectiveness and equity of our society. And he offers specific solutions-on how to price carbon, how to pursue low-carbon technologies, how to design an efficient tax system, and how to foster international cooperation through climate clubs. The result is a groundbreaking new vision of how we can have our environment and our economy too"--

We are a nation born from the conviction that people must be free. But since the middle of the last century, that idea has been co-opted. Forces on the political Right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more. How did we get here? Whose freedom are we--and should we--be thinking about? In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America's current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. "Free" and unfettered markets have only succeeded in delivering a series of crises: the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, and the crisis of inequality. While a small portion of the population has amassed considerable wealth, wages for most people have stagnated. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. Such failures have fed populist movements that believe being free means abandoning any obligations citizens have to one another. As they grow in strength, these movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom. As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. As he argues, the failures follow from the elites' unshakeable dedication to "the neoliberal experiment." Explicitly taking on giants such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, Stiglitz exposes accepted ideas about our political and economic life for what they are: twisted visions that tear at the social fabric while they enrich the very few. The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics--including recent advances in which Stiglitz has played such an important role--reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Drawing on the work of contemporary philosophers, Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms--one that considers with care what to do when one person's freedom conflicts with another's. We must reimagine our existing economic and legal systems and embrace forms of collective action, including regulation and investment, if we are to create an innovative society in which everyone can flourish. The task could not be more urgent, and Stiglitz's latest book is essential reading for those committed to the American ideal of an economic and political system that delivers well-being, opportunity, and meaningful freedoms for all.

A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end extreme global poverty, now a Signal paperback. "The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty , vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium Villages Project. Sachs would test his theories in villages in different African countries, then, with each success, scale up until until the program was continent-wide. His first village "make-over" was a small community in Sauri, Kenya, and the immediate effect was encouraging. With that first inkling of success achieved, Sachs rolled out a dozen model Millennium villages in ten countries. For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Project, following Sachs on official trips and listening in on conversations with heads of states, rival organisations and potential donors. And she has immersed herself in the lives of people in two of the remote villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting hospitality from these camel herders and smallhold farmers, and sharing in their struggles, Munk came to understand the on-the-ground issues challenging Sachs' one-size-fits-all approach to global poverty. The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happened when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man met messy human reality.

There is now clear scientific evidence that emissions from economic activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels for energy, are causing changes to the Earth's climate. A sound understanding of the economics of climate change is needed in order to underpin an effective global response to this challenge. The Stern Review is an independent, rigourous and comprehensive analysis of the economic aspects of this crucial issue. It has been conducted by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the UK Government Economic Service, and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank. The Economics of Climate Change will be invaluable for all students of the economics and policy implications of climate change, and economists, scientists and policy makers involved in all aspects of climate change.

Relates the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain.

The social cost of carbon: The most important number you've never heard of—and what it means. If you’re injuring someone, you should stop—and pay for the damage you’ve caused. Why does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate Justice , a bracing challenge to status quo thinking on the ethics of climate change, renowned author and legal scholar Cass Sunstein clearly frames what’s at stake and lays out the moral imperative: When it comes to climate change, everyone must be counted equally, regardless of when they live or where they live—which means that wealthy nations, which have disproportionately benefited from greenhouse gas emissions, are obliged to help future generations and people in poor nations that are particularly vulnerable.

In February of 2008, amid the looming global financial crisis, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France asked Nobel Prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, along with the distinguished French economist Jean Paul Fitoussi, to establish a commission of leading economists to study whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP) - the most widely used measure of economic activity - is a reliable indicator of economic and social progress. The Commission was given the further task of laying out an agenda for developing better measures. Mismeasuring Our Lives is the result of this major intellectual effort, one with pressing relevance for anyone engaged in assessing how and whether our economy is serving the needs of our society. The authors offer a sweeping assessment of the limits of GDP as a measurement of the well-being of societies - considering, for example, how GDP overlooks economic inequality (with the result that most people can be worse off even though average income is increasing); and does not factor environmental impacts into economic decisions.In place of GDP, Mismeasuring Our Lives introduces a bold new array of concepts, from sustainable measures of economic welfare, to measures of savings and wealth, to a ''green GDP.'' At a time when policymakers worldwide are grappling with unprecedented global financial and environmental issues, here is an essential guide to measuring the things that matter.

Provides a detailed analysis of the DICE model (Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy) as well as an extensive analysis of the model's results. Coping with the challenges of global warming is a daunting task for both scientists and economists, who must understand future changes, and for policy makers, who must ultimately choose policies to balance risks and costs. Managing the Global Commons presents a unique effort to encompass economic, scientific, and policy aspects of this great geophysical experiment. Managing the Global Commons provides a detailed analysis of the DICE model (Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy) as well as an extensive analysis of the model's results. DICE is the first dynamic model to include a closed-loop system that includes emissions, concentrations, climate change, damages, and emissions controls. The model is useful for estimating the costs and benefits of different paths for slowing climate change and for analyzing the impact of control strategies over time. The analysis contains a number of methodological advances and major findings - most importantly the construction of a small model to encompass the primary components of the climate and economic system within an optimization framework. Also included are new techniques and results concerning the role of uncertainty and the risk premium involved in policies to slow global warming. In addition, the analysis derives a set of uncertain representative scenarios that summarize the large number of potential outcomes into a manageable number to be used within an optimization framework and incorporated into a contingent-commodity framework. Nordhaus examines several different approaches to climate-change policy: no controls, economic optimization, geoengineering, stabilization of emissions and climate, and a ten-year delay in undertaking climate-change policies. Among these, there is a modest advantage of an efficient policy over no controls or a ten-year delay, while the three stabilization options would impose significant net costs. Overall, Nordhaus observes, the analysis reveals that even with major technological breakthroughs and stringent controls, the momentum of past greenhouse gas emissions coupled with great inertia in climate change policy will lead to an inevitable rendezvous with massive climate change.

"Fighting climate change, saving democracy, and eradicating poverty are urgent global challenges, yet the world's leaders continue to pursue outdated policies that focus on one while worsening the tradeoffs between each of them. Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World shows how the nations of the world can achieve all three objectives. Dani Rodrik provides a bold new vision of globalization, one in which we accelerate the green transition to achieve a sustainable planet, shore up the middle class to restore democracy's foundations, and hasten economic revitalization in the developing world to put an end to poverty. The rising tide of authoritarianism has demonstrated our inability to alleviate economic anxieties. Economic nationalism has raised the specter of increased protectionism and deteriorating prospects for economic growth. And automation and other new technologies have undercut the advantages of low-cost, unskilled labor in manufacturing and export-oriented industrialization. Rodrik reveals how we can restore prosperity through new forms of collaborative public-private action-to promote renewables and green industries, middle-class jobs, and enhanced productivity in labor-absorbing services-even in the absence of global cooperation. He explains why this new kind of globalization must also recognize the legitimate desire of governments to pursue their economic, social, and security interests autonomously. Turning conventional economic wisdom on its head, Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World builds on practices that work while radically transforming those that don't, presenting a grounded, clear-eyed approach to tackling the problems that affect us all, at home and around the world"--

Co-publication with Yale University Press (USA). Discussion of the biological diversity of the earth. Demonstrates how the natural systems that surround us play an essential role in protecting our basic life-support systems. Describes the millions of species providing ecosystem services and explains how biological diversity opens the way for new medicines, construction materials and designs, and manufactured goods. Urges us to protect the biological wealth of the earth from destructive human activity. Includes reccommended reading and index. Beattie is director of the Commonwealth Key Centre for Biodiversity and Bioresources at Macquarie University. Turnbull is a research associate at Macquarie. Erlich is Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University.

In a model study Jacob Price illuminates the dynamic growth of Britain’s foreign trade in the eighteenth century through an investigation of the investment patterns and credit institutions that financed that expansion. Concentrating on the trade between Britain and the Chesapeake tobacco colonies of Virginia and Maryland, for which a unique set of records exists, Price surveys the ways in which commerce developed and working capital was mobilized in Britain to support expanding overseas trade. Price develops the clearest picture ever of the financial environment within Britain as it affected Southern colonies in the preindustrial age. He does so by determining the kind of capital resources merchants in foreign trade actually commanded and measuring how much of their own wealth merchants brought to trade. In great and absorbing detail he discusses also the development of merchant-oriented banks in London and other ports, reinvestment of profits, long-term borrowing on bond, and the long-term credit provided to export merchants by wholesalers in textiles, ironmongery, and other industries. The relationship of debt to the coming of the American Revolution is also treated. Tobacco growers suffered more than others from a psychological unease caused by immense debt and were more revolutionary than farmers with less intensive capital needs and, hence, with lighter debt. This history will enlighten Anglo-American historians, economic historians, and historians of the American revolutionary era.

"Global capitalism is facing an unprecedented crisis. The global economy is mired in prolonged stagnation. The worldwide social fabric is in decay. Civil strife and social upheaval are tearing up political systems and, in some cases, leading to the collapse of states. The planetary ecosystem is breaking down. Millions are fleeing, displaced by climate change, transnational corporate land grabs, wars and political persecution. How far into the future can global capitalism endure? In this urgent new study, sociologist William I. Robinson presents a "big picture" snapshot of the crisis of capitalism and the battle for the future of humanity. Drawing on 30 years of scholarship and activism, Robinson applies his original theory of global capitalism to the emerging digital age. He shows how global elites have pinned their hope on economic reactivation through the application of radical new digital technologies and financial strategies to the global economy and society. The rulers will turn to enhancing a global police state to contain mass rebellion as humanity enters a season of chaos and global civil war. The capitalist class and privileged strata of humanity may be able to survive collapse for decades to come even as a majority of humanity faces desperate struggles for survival that lead many to perish in the coming years. But there is eventually a terminal point to capitalist expansion as mass extinction and the radical alteration of the natural environment make life for our species and most others impossible. The only solution is a reversal of escalating inequalities through a radical redistribution of wealth and power downward as a first step in replacing the capitalist system, with its relentless pursuit of private profit at all cost, by an ecosocialism that prioritizes social need and harmony with the rest of nature. Theoretically sophisticated and engaging, this concise study will be satisfying to scholars yet accessible to a broader public concerned with the urgent political affairs of our day"--

Text: English, French (translation)

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book surveys the history of past agricultural policies, the sources of the current agricultural crisis, and the goals that should guide our choices in the future. It analyzes three key issues that shape the environment for agriculture) macroeconomic policy, tax policy, and farm credit. Overall, it provides an indispensible framework for understanding the bargain between agriculture and the rest of American society. A Hamilton Press book. Co-published with the Roosevelt Center for American Policy Studies.

This second edition takes into account the major developments in economics and jurisprudence that have occurred since the publication of the first edition. A new chapter has been added on anti-discrimination law and such topics as adverse possession, rent control, medical malpractice, product reliability, and defense against criminal prosecution have been reexamined in the light of new theoretical developments and case studies. Environmental law and a careful comparison of alternative methods to control the environment are included.