Inside Job
How government insiders subvert the public interest
Reviewer: Rosemary Connell
National decline is typically blamed on special interests from the demand side of politics corrupting a country's institutions. The usual demand-side suspects include crony capitalists, consumer activists, economic elites, and labor unions. Less attention is given to government insiders on the supply side of politics - rulers, elected officials, bureaucrats, and public employees. In autocracies and democracies, government insiders have the motive, means, and opportunity to co-opt political power for their benefit and at the expense of national well-being. Many storied empires have succumbed to such inside jobs. Today, they imperil countries as different as China and the United States. Democracy - government by the people - does not ensure government for the people. Understanding how government insiders use their power to subvert the public interest - and how these negative consequences can be mitigated - is the topic of this book by Mark A Zupan.
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Virtual Competition
The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm‑Driven Economy
Reviewer: Leath Al Obaidi
Shoppers with Internet access and a bargain-hunting impulse can find a universe of products at their fingertips. In this thought-provoking expose, Ariel Ezrachi and Maurice Stucke invite us to take a harder look at today's app-assisted paradise of digital shopping.
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British imperialism and the making of colonial currency systems
Reviewer: William A Allen, NIESR
Covering the colonial Empire (including West Indies, India, Singapore, West Africa and East Africa), this book is a detailed revisionist history of the British imperial manipulations of colonial currency systems to facilitate the rise of sterling to world supremacy via the gold standard, and to slow its eventual decline after World War I. This book provides a new perspective on theories of imperialism, colonial money and colonial underdevelopment, with possible geostrategic historical lessons for the US dollar and emerging global currencies such as Chinese renminbi and the Euro.
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Cents and Sensibility
What Economics can Learn from the Humanities
Reviewer: Richard Bronk, London School of Economics and Political Science
Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro trace the connection between Adam Smith's great classic, The Wealth of Nations, and his less celebrated book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and contend that a few decades later Jane Austen invented her groundbreaking method of novelistic narration in order to give life to the empathy that Smith believed essential to humanity. Cents and Sensibility demonstrates the benefits of a freewheeling dialogue between economics and the humanities by addressing a wide range of problems drawn from the economics of higher education, the economics of the family, and the development of poor nations.
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President Trump, Inc.
How Big Business and Neoliberalism Empower Populism and the Far Right
Reviewer: Dr Rebecca Harding, CEO, Equant Analytics
With Trump in the White House, big business has direct power in government. Trump has stacked his cabinet with former employees of investment banks, big oil and international corporations. Now that big business has its representatives in the cabinet, it no longer needs to indulge in expensive lobbying. Under Trump, corporations control US policy. How and why did this happen and what does it mean for the bulk of the population?
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The Money Formula
Dodgy Finance, Pseudo Science, and How Mathematicians Took Over the Markets
Reviewer: Bridget Rosewell, Volterra Partners
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Adaptive Markets
Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought
Reviewer: Bridge Rosewell, Volterra Partners Ltd
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The Financial Diaries
How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty
Reviewer: Sunil Krishnan, Santander Asset Management
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Happiness For All?
Unequal Hopes and Lives In Pursuit of the American Dream
Reviewer: Sunil Krishnan, Santander Asset Management
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Basic Income
And how we can make it happen
Reviewer: Simon Briscoe
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