Central banking before 1800
Reviewer: William A Allen
Central Banking Before 1800 rehabilitates pre-1800 central banking, including the role of numerous other institutions, on the European continent. It argues that issuing central bank money is a natural monopoly, and therefore central banks were always based on public charters regulating them and giving them a unique role in a sovereign territorial entity.
The Classical School:
The Turbulent Birth of Economics in Twenty Extraordinary Lives
Reviewer: Rosemary Connell
This book covers the works of twenty economic thinkers spanning about three centuries (1600-1900). Few of us, though, have read their works. Fewer still realise that the economies that many of them were analysing were quite unlike our modern one, or the extent to which they were indebted to one another. So join the Economist's Callum Williams to join the dots.
Austerity:
When It Works And When It Doesn’t
Reviewer: James Smith, Resolution Foundation
In this masterful book, three of today's leading policy experts cut through the political noise to demonstrate that there is not one type of austerity but many. Looking at thousands of fiscal measures adopted by sixteen advanced economies since the late 1970s, Austerity assesses the relative effectiveness of tax increases and spending cuts at reducing debt.
An Economic History of the English Garden
Reviewer: Bridget Rosewell, Senior Advisor, Volterra Partners
At least since the seventeenth century, most of the English population have been unable to stop making, improving and dreaming of gardens. Yet in all the thousands of books about them, this is the first to address seriously the question of how much gardens and gardening have cost, and to work out the place of gardens in the economic, as well as the horticultural, life of the nation. It is a new kind of gardening history.
China's Change:
The Greatest Show on Earth
Reviewer: Ian Harwood
As the Chinese economy has become an ever larger and more integral part of the global economy, so too has China-watching become an increasingly active pursuit.
Slowdown:
The End of the Great Acceleration‑and Why It’s Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives
Reviewer: Vicky Pryce, Board Member, CEBR
The end of our high-growth world was underway well before COVID-19 arrived. In this powerful and timely argument, Danny Dorling demonstrates the benefits of a larger, ongoing societal slowdown.
The Long Good Buy:
Analysing Cycles in Markets
Reviewer: Lavan Mahadeva
The Long Good Buy is an excellent introduction to understanding the cycles, trends and crises in financial markets over the past 100 years.
Productivity Perspectives
Reviewer: Dame Kate Barker, British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme
Productivity Perspectives offers a timely and stimulating social science view on the productivity debate, drawing on the work of the ESRC funded Productivity Insights Network. The book examines the drivers and inhibitors of UK productivity growth in the light of international evidence, and the resulting dramatic slowdown and flatlining of productivity growth in the UK.
The Deficit Myth:
Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy
Reviewer: Melissa Davies
The Deficit Myth, by Stephanie Kelton, is a wonderful introduction to the ‘through-the-looking-glass’ economics of Modern Monetary Theory – the increasingly fashionable challenger to the orthodox thinking that has dominated macro policy-making since the taming of the Great Inflation
The Economics of Belonging:
A Radical Plan to Win Back the Left Behind and Achieve Prosperity
Reviewer: Matt Whittaker
A radical new approach to economic policy that addresses the symptoms and causes of inequality in Western society today Fueled by populism and the frustrations of the disenfranchised, the past few years have witnessed the widespread rejection of the economic and political order that Western countries built up after 1945. Political debates have turned into violent clashes between those who want to "take their country back" and those viewed as defending an elitist, broken, and unpatriotic social contract.