New Books In Economics

Whether you are a commuter weighing options of taking the bus vs walking to get you to work on time or a military general leading troops into war, risk is something we deal with every day. Even the most cautious of us can’t opt out—the question is always which risks to take to maximize our results. But how do we know which path is correct? Enter Allison Schrager. Schrager is not a typical economist. Like others, she has spent her career assessing risk, but instead of crunching numbers or sitting at a desk, she chose to venture out. Now, she travels to unexpected places to uncover how financial principles can be used to navigate hazards and prevent danger. In her new book An Economist Walks Into A Brothel And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk (Portfolio, 2019), Schrager puts together a five-pronged approach for understanding and assessing risk. First, she helps define what risk and reward mean for individuals. Then, taking into account irrationality and uncertainty, Schrager helps readers master their

Labor and race have shared a complex, interconnected history in America. For decades, key aspects of work—from getting a job to workplace norms to advancement and mobility—ignored and failed Black people. While explicit discrimination no longer occurs, and organizations make internal and public pledges to honor and achieve “diversity,” inequities persist through what Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield calls the “gray areas:” the relationships, networks, and cultural dynamics integral to companies that are now more important than ever. The reality is that Black employees are less likely to be hired, stall out at middle levels, and rarely progress to senior leadership positions. Dr. Wingfield has spent a decade examining inequality in the workplace, interviewing over two hundred Black subjects across professions about their work lives. In Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Perpetuates Racism and What We Can Do to Fix It (Amistad Press, 2023), she introduces seven of them: Alex, a worker in the gig economy Max, an emergency

The creation of the postwar welfare state in Great Britain did not represent the logical progression of governmental policy over a period of generations. As George R. Boyer details in The Winding Road to the Welfare State: Economic Insecurity and Social Welfare Policy in Britain (Princeton University Press, 2019), it only emerged after decades of different legislative responses to the problems of poverty that reflected shifting societal attitudes on the subject. As Boyer explains, welfare policy in the early 19th century primarily consisted of cash or in-kind payments provided for people living in their homes. This changed with the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which replaced it with the infamous workhouse system. Though this brought down expenditures on the poor, the expectation that poverty was being reduced was belied by a series of reports at the end of the century which exposed the extent of urban poverty to a shocked nation. In response, the Liberal governments of the early 20th century passed a serie

In Disruption: The Global Economic Shocks of the 1970s and the End of the Cold War (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Michael De Groot argues that the global economic upheaval of the 1970s was decisive in ending the Cold War. Both the West and the Soviet bloc struggled with the slowdown of economic growth; chaos in the international monetary system; inflation; shocks in the commodities markets; and the emergence of offshore financial markets. The superpowers had previously disseminated resources to their allies to enhance their own national security, but the disappearance of postwar conditions during the 1970s forced Washington and Moscow to choose between promoting their own economic interests and supporting their partners in Europe and Asia. Dr. de Groot shows that new unexpected macroeconomic imbalances in global capitalism sustained the West during the following decade. Rather than a creditor nation and net exporter, as it had been during the postwar period, the United States became a net importer of c

Podcasting in a Platform Age: From an Amateur to a Professional Medium (Bloomsbury, 2024) explores the transition underway in podcasting by considering how the influx of legacy and new media interest in the medium is injecting professional and corporate logics into what had been largely an amateur media form. Many of the most high-profile podcasts today, however, are produced by highly-skilled media professionals, some of whom are employees of media corporations. Legacy radio and new media platform giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Spotify are also making big (and expensive) moves in the medium by acquiring content producers and hosting platforms. This book focuses on three major aspects of this transformation: formalization, professionalization, and monetization. Through a close read of online and press discourse, analysis of podcasts themselves, participant observations at podcast trade shows and conventions, and interviews with industry professionals and individual podcasters, John Sullivan outlines h

Based on extensive research into weekly rural publishers and rural readers, Reviving Rural News: Transforming the Business Model of Community Journalism in the US and Beyond (Routledge, 2024) outlines a mode of practice by which small publications can stay financially sound and combat the rise of "news deserts." This book argues that publishers must actively reach out to their communities to foster a sense of belonging and shared purpose. A new model known as Press Club -- tested for a year at a weekly newspaper in Kansas -- is presented as a template through which memberships, social events, and online newsletters can create a more sustainable path for the future. Reviving Rural News will be of interest to advanced students and researchers of local, community, and rural journalism as well as practitioners looking to bring about real-world change in journalism organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.su

The global battle among the three dominant digital powers―the United States, China, and the European Union―is intensifying. All three regimes are racing to regulate tech companies, with each advancing a competing vision for the digital economy while attempting to expand its sphere of influence in the digital world. In Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (Oxford UP, 2023), her provocative follow-up to The Brussels Effect, Anu Bradford explores a rivalry that will shape the world in the decades to come. Across the globe, people dependent on digital technologies have become increasingly alarmed that their rapid adoption and transformation have ushered in an exceedingly concentrated economy where a few powerful companies control vast economic wealth and political power, undermine data privacy, and widen the gap between economic winners and losers. In response, world leaders are variously embracing the idea of reining in the most dominant tech companies. Bradford examines three competing regu

The anti-tax movement is "the most important overlooked social and political movement of the last half century", according to our guest Michael J. Graetz.  In his book The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America (Princeton UP, 2024), Graetz chronicles the movement from a fringe theory promoted by zealous outsiders using false economic claims and thinly veiled racist rhetoric to a highly organized mainstream lobbying force, funded by billionaires, that dominates and distorts politics.  Building on vague and disproven theories about "supply side" economics, the movement has undermined long-held beliefs that taxes are a reasonable price to pay for civil society, sound infrastructure, national security, and shared prosperity.  Leaders have attacked the IRS, protected tax loopholes, and pushed aggressively for tax cuts from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. Also known as "trickle-down" or "voodoo" economics, these theories falsely claim that tax cuts will pay for themselves, when in fact they have

This provocative and interesting book has received considerable attention. Roaring reviews and interviews include  The Financial Times (UK), The Telegraph (UK), Modem (Radio Switzerland Italian), Hufftington Post (Italy), El Diario (Spain), ABC (Australia), History Today (UK), The New Republic (USA), The New Yorker (USA), among others around the world. During the interview, Alfani tells of the challenges of putting together. Also, how the book builds on prior research and his interests in diverse fields in social sciences. About the book: How the rich and the super-rich throughout Western history accumulated their wealth, behaved (or misbehaved) and helped (or didn't help) their communities in times of crisis. The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act 'as gods among men'; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In this book, Guido Alfani offers a history of the rich and super-rich in the We

Why and how local coffee bars in Italy--those distinctively Italian social and cultural spaces--have been increasingly managed by Chinese baristas since the Great Recession of 2008? Italians regard espresso as a quintessentially Italian cultural product--so much so that Italy has applied to add Italian espresso to UNESCO's official list of intangible heritages of humanity. The coffee bar is a cornerstone of Italian urban life, with city residents sipping espresso at more than 100,000 of these local businesses throughout the country. And yet, despite its nationalist bona fides, espresso in Italy is increasingly prepared by Chinese baristas in Chinese-managed coffee bars. In Chinese Espresso: Contested Race and Convivial Space in Contemporary Italy (Princeton UP, 2024), Grazia Ting Deng explores the paradox of "Chinese espresso"--the fact that this most distinctive Italian social and cultural tradition is being preserved by Chinese immigrants and their racially diverse clientele. Deng investigates the condition

Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career, the best case for industrial policy, the labor market effects of globalization, and his vision of an ideal economic policy paradigm. Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is co-director of the Reimagining the Economy Program at the Kennedy School and of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity network. He was President of the International Economic Association during 2021-23 and helped found the IEA's Women in Leadership in Economics (IEA-WE) initiative. His most recent books are Combating Inequality: Rethinking Government's Role (2021, edited with Olivier Blanchard) and Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy (2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian and standup comedian, Sean Vanatta, lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow and senior fellow at the Wharton Initiative for Financial Policy and Regulation, about Vanatta’s cool new book, Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control (Yale UP, 2024). Plastic Capitalism examines the fascinating history of the rise of the credit card business in the United States, uncovering a complex picture that includes banks, consumers, and federal and state governments. It involves complex interplays of movement and countermovement, ending in the relative dissolution of regulatory power. Vinsel also talks with Vanatta about his current and future projects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century: Transnational Social Movements and Agrarian Change (Cornell University Press, 2024) by Dr. Marc Edelman illuminates the transnational agrarian movements that are remaking rural society and the world's food and agriculture systems. Dr. Edelman explains how peasant movements are staking their claims from farmers' fields to massive protests around the world, shaping heated debates over peasants' rights and the very category of "peasant" within the agrarian organisations and in the United Nations. Dr. Edelman chronicles the rise of these movements, their objectives, and their alliances with environmental, human rights, women's, and food justice groups. The book scrutinises high-profile activists and the forgotten genealogies and policy implications of foundational analytical frameworks like "moral economy," and concepts, such as "food sovereignty" and "civil society." Peasant Politics of the Twenty-First Century charts the struggle of agrarian movements in the face of

In their bestselling book Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway revealed the origins of climate change denial. Now, in The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (Bloomsbury. 2023), they unfold the truth about another disastrous dogma: the “magic of the marketplace.” In the early 20th century, business elites, trade associations, wealthy powerbrokers, and media allies set out to build a new American orthodoxy: down with “big government” and up with unfettered markets. With startling archival evidence, Oreskes and Conway document campaigns to rewrite textbooks, combat unions, and defend child labor. They detail the ploys that turned hardline economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman into household names; recount the libertarian roots of the Little House on the Prairie books; and tune into the General Electric-sponsored TV show that beamed free-market doctrine to millions and launched Ronald Reagan's political career. By the 1970s, this pr

A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce--why women's progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back. In an era of supposed great equality, women are still falling behind in the workplace. Even with more women in the workforce than in decades past, wage gaps continue to increase. It is the most educated women who have fallen the furthest behind. Blue-collar women hold the most insecure and badly paid jobs in our economy. And even as we celebrate high-profile representation--women on the board of Fortune 500 companies and our first female vice president--women have limited recourse when they experience harassment and discrimination. Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy (Simon & Schuster, 2023) explains that the system that governs our economy--a winner-take-all economy--is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, w

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with Guru Madhavan, Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs at the National Academy of Engineering, about his recent book, Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). In Wicked Problems, Madhavan draws on a rich body of literature from the humanities and social sciences to think through how engineers can do a better job working on problems that include complex social and technical realities. The pair also talk about how Madhavan came to the National Academy of Engineering after working as an engineer and entrepreneur and some of his future work, including ongoing writing on the importance of maintenance and “grind problems” in engineering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Robert Bruno is a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he also serves as Director of the Labor Education Program. He is the author of Justified by Work: Identity and the Meaning of Faith in Chicago’s Working-Class Churches; Steelworker Alley: How Class Works In Youngstown; and Reforming the Chicago Teamsters: The Story of Local 705. He is the coauthor of A Fight for the Soul of Public Education: The Chicago Teachers Strike. What Work Is (U Illinois Press, 2024) is draws on Bruno’s twenty years of experience teaching labor history and labor studies to union members from a wide range of occupations. The result is a distinctive exploration of how workers see work that combines personal experiences with research, history and other diverse sources to illuminate workers’ live in the present and envision what work could be in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://ne

The issue of the future of Social Security, on which millions of Americans depend, produced great political theater at the State of the Union address. That highlighted a bigger problem of financing retirement as baby boomers seek to retire, often with limited resources. Many argue that the solution to the problem is for people to work longer.  In Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy (U Chicago Press, 2024), Teresa Ghilarducci, a noted expert on retirement, argues that the "working longer" idea is wrong, unnecessary, and discriminates against people who work in lower wage occupations. Ghilarducci pushes for a national plan to finance retirement that would draw on contributions by both employers and employees to replace our privatized and ramshackle personal retirement system and make changes in the tax system that supports Social Security to give people a real choice whether to retire or continue to work in their later years.  This book tells the stories of people locked into

Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese state has increasingly shifted away from labor-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing to a process of socioeconomic development centered on science and technology. In The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China (Princeton University Press, 2023) Ya-Wen Lei traces the contours of this techno-developmental regime and its resulting form of techno-state capitalism, telling the stories of those whose lives have been transformed—for better and worse—by China’s rapid rise to economic and technological dominance.  Drawing on groundbreaking fieldwork and a wealth of in-depth interviews with managers, business owners, workers, software engineers, and local government officials, Lei describes the vastly unequal values assigned to economic sectors deemed “high-end” versus “low-end,” and the massive expansion of technical and legal instruments used to measure and control workers and capital. She shows how China’s rise has been uniquely shaped by its time-compr

University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox *01 delves into some of the popular wisdom surrounding marriage and tells us what the data has to say: is it better to marry young or wait? To move in with your partner before or after marriage? Does marriage hurt your career prospects or your ability to set aside time for your own happiness? What groups in America are doing well with regards to marriage, and what groups aren't doing as well? Along the way, he also addresses some of the political implications of marriage, including how and why marriage trends differ by class and how our tax code often penalizes marriage. Brad Wilcox is studies marriage, fatherhood, and the impact of strong families. He is a professor of Sociology at the University of Virignia where he also directs the National Marriage Project. He is also a Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the recent author of Get Married: Why Americans Should