Economic

A former chair of the Federal Reserve explains the transformation of one our most powerful and consequential institutions....

From the host of NPR’s Planet Money comes the deeply investigated story of how one visionary, ruthless investor changed American finance forever....

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries.....

Discrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation, or genetics....

How is it possible that a once-in-a-century pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and left millions more jobless didn't also destroy the country’s economy? One of the biggest reasons: Jay Powell and the Fed....

In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from 20 countries, ranging as far back as the 18th century, to uncover key economic and social patterns....

From the best-selling author of Saving Capitalism and The Common Good, an urgent analysis of how the "rigged" systems of American politics and power operate, how this status quo came to be, and how average citizens can enact change....

The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day....

The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books....

Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs....

A groundbreaking exposé of racism in the American taxation system from a law professor and expert on tax policy....

An eye-opening look at how new technologies are erasing millions of jobs before our eyes - and a rallying cry for the urgent steps America must take, including Universal Basic Income, to stabilize our economy....

Most people don't give a second thought to the Federal Reserve, but they should. In End the Fed, Ron Paul argues that the Fed is both corrupt and dangerously autonomous....

​This piercingly intelligent book shows how bygone policy decisions have left us with skyrocketing income inequality and poverty in America and widened fractures within the Democratic Party that persist to this day....

What happens when a society is run by people who are antisocial? Welcome to baby boomer America.....

Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early 20th century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war....

In Oneness vs. the 1%, Vandana Shiva takes on the billionaires club of Gates, Buffet, and Zuckerberg, as well as other modern empires whose blindness to the rights of people, and to the destructive impact of their construct of linear progress, have wrought havoc across the world....

The epic successor to one of the most important books of the century: at once a retelling of global history, a scathing critique of contemporary politics, and a bold proposal for a new and fairer economic system....

In 2006, Ben S. Bernanke was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve, capping a meteoric trajectory from a rural South Carolina childhood to public service in Washington's halls of power....

In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care....

In 1920-1921, Woodrow Wilson and Warren G. Harding met a deep economic slump by seeming to ignore it, implementing policies that most 21st-century economists would call backward....

From the former Treasury Secretary, the definitive account of the unprecedented effort to save the U.S. economy from collapse....

Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality,....

A remarkable debut by one of America's premier young reporters on financial corruption, American Kleptocracy offers the first explosive investigation into how the United States of America built the largest illicit offshore finance system the world has ever known....

For years, government bureaucrats have been looking for ways to destroy small businesses. With coronavirus, they finally had their chance....

A former chair of the Federal Reserve explains the transformation of one our most powerful and consequential institutions.  

The two great financial crises of the past century are the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession, which began in 2008. Both occurred against the backdrop of sharp credit booms, dubious banking practices, and a fragile and unstable global financial system. Pain and suffering were widespread.

 It is a bedrock principle of the US Constitution that Congress, as representatives of the people, sets economic policy and directs government resources. This all changed 13 years ago, and even more dramatically during the pandemic. The Federal Reserve operates independently from the rest of the government, and can create as much money as it sees fit and use it without the prior approval of Congress, the courts, or the President.

The world’s leading economist of inequality presents a short but sweeping and surprisingly optimistic history of human progress toward equality despite crises, disasters, and backsliding, a perfect introduction to the ideas developed in his monumental earlier books. 

Few people realize that raising children is the single largest industry in the United States. Yet this vital work receives little political support, and its primary workers—parents—labor in isolation. It's almost as if parents are set up to fail—and the result is lost opportunities that limit children's success and make us all worse off. In The Parent Trap, Nate Hilger combines cutting-edge social science research, revealing historical case studies, and on-the-ground investigation to recast parenting as the hidden crucible of inequality.

For decades, Democratic politicians have frustrated progressives by tinkering around the margins of policy while shying away from truly ambitious change. What happened to bold political vision on the left, and what shrunk the very horizons of possibility? In Thinking like an Economist, Elizabeth Popp Berman tells the story of how a distinctive way of thinking-an "economic style of reasoning" - became dominant in Washington between the 1960s and the 1980s and how it continues to dramatically narrow debates over public policy today.

Before Bill Gross was known among investors as the Bond King, he was a gambler. In 1966, a fresh college grad, he went to Vegas armed with his net worth ($200) and a knack for counting cards. Ten thousand dollars and countless casino bans later, he was hooked, so he enrolled in business school. The Bond King is the story of how that whiz kid made American finance his casino. 

Free-market economists often have noted that there are winners and losers in a competitive capitalist world. The question of how to deal with the difficult real-life consequences faced by the losers, however, has largely been ignored. Populist politicians have tried repeatedly to address the issue by creating walls - of both the physical and economic kinds - to insulate communities and keep competition at bay. Economist Glenn Hubbard argues that because they delay needed adaptations to the ever-changing world, walls are essentially backward-looking and ultimately destined to fail. 

This friendly guide is for technology people who work, or want to work, in the public sector. Cyd Harrell outlines the types of projects, partnerships, and people that civic technologists encounter, and the methods they can use to make lasting change. She focuses on principles to help technologists find the right way to do the most good, starting with finding the people already doing the work. Based on her years of government tech partnerships, Cyd offers practical advice on how to build alliances with public sector partners, what tech (and non-tech) skills are most useful, and more.

How is it possible that a once-in-a-century pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and left millions more jobless didn't also destroy the country’s economy? One of the biggest reasons: Jay Powell and the Fed. Trillion Dollar Triage is the inside story of how an unassuming civil servant created trillions of dollars from thin air, fended off a barrage of attacks from Donald Trump, and made sure the worst economic shock since the 1930s didn’t turn into a second depression.