Economics Books

This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to challenge their assumptions about poverty and understand the complex decisions made by those living in extreme poverty. Through compelling real-life examples, Banerjee and Duflo shed light on the unexpected choices and behaviors of individuals living on very little. From unraveling the paradoxes of borrowing to save and the impact of incentives, to exploring the entrepreneurial spirit of the poor, Poor Economics offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on poverty and the global economy.

There are two broad schools of thought on why the West rules. Proponents of 'Long-Term Lock-In' theories such as Jared Diamond suggest that from time immemorial, some critical factor - geography, climate, or culture perhaps - made East and West unalterably different, and determined that the industrial revolution would happen in the West and push it further ahead of the East. But the East led the West between 500 and 1600, so this development can't have been inevitable; and so proponents of 'Short-Term Accident' theories argue that Western rule was a temporary aberration that is now coming to an end, with Japan, China, and India resuming their rightful places on the world stage. However, as the West led for 9,000 of the previous 10,000 years, it wasn't just a temporary aberration. So, if we want to know why the West rules, we need a whole new theory. Ian Morris, boldly entering the turf of Jared Diamond and Niall Ferguson, provides the broader approach that is necessary, combining the textual historian's focus on context, the anthropological archaeologist's awareness of the deep past, and the social scientist's comparative methods to make sense of the past, present and future - in a way no one has ever done before.

The "Dear Economist" column offers a unique perspective on common issues, providing rational and practical advice backed by economics. Tim Harford's witty and insightful explanations make this book a great read for anyone looking to understand the hidden economic principles behind everyday dilemmas, from family conflicts to dating. Reading this book will help readers make better-informed decisions, and approach life's challenges with a more analytical and rational mindset.

A young army captain who risked execution to swim from free-market Taiwan to Communist China.A barber who made $150 million in the gambling dens of Macau. The richest woman in China, a recycling tycoon known as the ‘Wastepaper Queen’. Age of Ambition describes some of the billion individual lives that make up China’s story – one that unfolds on remote farms, in glittering mansions, and in the halls of power of the world’s largest authoritarian regime. Together they describe the defining clash taking place today: between the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.Here is a China infused with a sense of boundless possibility and teeming romance. Yet it is also riven by contradictions. It is the world’s largest buyer of Rolls Royces and Ferraris yet the word ‘luxury’ is banned from billboards. It has more Christians than members of the Communist Party. And why does a government that has lifted more people from poverty than any other so strictly restrain freedom of expression?Based on years of research, Age of Ambition is a stunning narrative that reveals China as we have never understood it before.

India is a very diverse country with many distinct pursuits, vastly different convictions, widely divergent customs, and a veritable feast of viewpoints. The Argumentative Indian brings together an illuminating selection of writings from Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen that outline the need to understand contemporary India in the light of its long argumentative tradition. The understanding and use of this rich argumentative tradition are critically important, Sen argues, for the success of India's democracy, the defence of its secular politics, the removal of inequalities related to class, caste, gender and community, and the pursuit of sub-continental peace.

With The Verdict of Peace Correlli Barnett brings to a majestic finale his acclaimed Pride and Fall quartet, tracing Britain's decline from world power to victim of the 'British disease'.Challengingly original in concept, The Verdict of Peace describes how, between the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950 and the Suez debacle in 1956, Britain threw away her last opportunity to reinvent herself as an industrial nation state before old rivals such as Germany and Japan finally recovered from wartime defeat. It describes how Britain still suffered, ten years after the Second World War, from old-fashioned industries, hidebound management, trade union blocking of technical change and self-destructive strikes. It analyses Britain's ominous failure to win market domination in new technologies such as aeronautics, business systems and computers.

"The World is Flat" offers a timely update on globalization and its effects. Friedman provides a compelling account of how advanced technologies have connected the world, and how this "flattening" affects us all. Through his impressive writing, Friedman helps readers understand the opportunities and challenges of the new global age. If you'd like to understand the workings of the global economy and how technology is shaping our future, this book is for you.

Between 1974 and 1990 more than thirty countries in southern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe shifted from authoritarian to democratic systems of government. This global democratic revolution is probably the most important political trend in the late twentieth century. In The Third Wave, Samuel P. Huntington analyzes the causes and nature of these democratic transitions, evaluates the prospects for stability of the new democracies, and explores the possibility of more countries becoming democratic. The recent transitions, he argues, are the third major wave of democratization in the modem world. Each of the two previous waves was followed by a reverse wave in which some countries shifted back to authoritarian government. Using concrete examples, empirical evidence, and insightful analysis, Huntington provides neither a theory nor a history of the third wave, but an explanation of why and how it occurred. Factors responsible for the democratic trend include the legitimacy dilemmas of authoritarian regimes; economic and social development; the changed role of the Catholic Church; the impact of the United States, the European Community, and the Soviet Union; and the "snowballing" change in one country stimulating change in others. Five key elite groups within and outside the nondemocratic regime played roles in shaping the various ways democratization occurred. Compromise was key to all democratizations, and elections and nonviolent tactics also were central. New democracies must deal with the "torturer problem" and the "praetorian problem" and attempt to develop democratic values and processes. Disillusionment with democracy, Huntington argues, is necessary to consolidating democracy. He concludes the book with an analysis of the political, economic, and cultural factors that will decide whether or not the third wave continues. Several "Guidelines for Democratizers" offer specific, practical suggestions for initiating and carrying out reform. Huntington's emphasis on practical application makes this book a valuable tool for anyone engaged in the democratization process. At this volatile time in history, Huntington's assessment of the processes of democratization is indispensable to understanding the future of democracy in the world.

"Repositioning Asia" could be a useful read for business professionals and policymakers interested in revitalizing Asian economies. This book offers a unique perspective by applying principles of strategic marketing management to national and regional development. The text provides a new model for Asian businesses to achieve sustainable growth and become more competitive on a global scale. If you want to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by Asian economies and learn practical solutions to overcome them, then "Repositioning Asia" is the book for you.

This collection of readings, edited by Henry Mintzberg, is combined with cases from James Brian Quinn. Together they present an up-to-date look at how actual companies act strategically and the research driving them. Includes the most exciting new organization and strategy concepts to emerge in the last few years: Core Competency Strategies, Strategic Outsourcing, Managing with the new digital technologies, Managing Hypercompetition; addresses global dimensions of today's major strategy issues; cases provide a balanced mix of service industries, global competition, high technology concepts, new organizational forms, and management of software systems; examines the cross functional aspects of strategic management from sources such as: Organizational Behavior, Operations Management, Power and Politics, and Organizational Design.

Why did the size of the U.S. economy increase by 3 percent on one day in mid-2013--or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the U.K. financial industry show its fastest expansion ever at the end of 2008--just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives--but that hardly anyone actually understands.Diane Coyle traces the history of this artificial, abstract, complex, but exceedingly important statistic from its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century precursors through its invention in the 1940s and its postwar golden age, and then through the Great Crash up to today. The reader learns why this standard measure of the size of a country's economy was invented, how it has changed over the decades, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. The book explains why even small changes in GDP can decide elections, influence major political decisions, and determine whether countries can keep borrowing or be thrown into recession. The book ends by making the case that GDP was a good measure for the twentieth century but is increasingly inappropriate for a twenty-first-century economy driven by innovation, services, and intangible goods.

The major challenge for the current generation of mankind is to develop a shared vision of a future that is both desirable to the vast majority of humanity and ecologically sustainable. Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future offers a broad, critical discussion on what such a future should or can be, with global perspectives written by some of the world's leading thinkers, Wendell Berry, Van Jones, Frances Moore Lappe, Peggy Liu, Hunter Lovins, Gus Speth, Bill McKibben, and many more.

This book, by a distinguished Japanese economist now resident in the West, offers a new interpretation of the current success of the Japanese economy. By placing the rise of Japan in the context of its historical development, Michio Morishima shows how a strongly-held national ethos has interacted with religious, social and technological ideas imported from elsewhere to produce highly distinctive cultural traits. While Professor Morishima traces the roots of modern Japan back as far as the introduction of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism from China in the sixth century, he concentrates his observations on the last 120 years during which Japan has had extensive contacts with the West. He describes the swift rise of Japan to the status of a first-rate power following the Meiji Revolution after 1867, in which Japan broke with a long history of isolationism, and which paved the way for the adoption of Western technology and the creation of a modern Western-style nation state; and a similarly meteoric rise from the devastation of the Second World War to Japan's present position. A range of factors in Japan's economic success are analysed: her characteristic dualistic social structure - corresponding to the divide between large and medium/small enterprises - the relations of government and big business, the poor reception of liberalism and individualism, and the strength of the Japanese nationalism. Throughout, Professor Morishima emphasises the importance of the role played in the creation of Japanese capitalism by ethical doctrines as transformed under Japanese conditions, especially the Japanese Confucian tradition of complete loyalty to the firm and to the state. This account, which makes clear the extent to which the economic rise of Japan is due to factors unique to its historical traditions, will be of interest to a wide general readership as well as to students of Japan and its history.

Great products are the lifeblood of great companies, yet approximately 60 percent of new products fail in the marketplace, after major investments and huge risks. Why? Gary Lynn and Richard Reilly now offer advice that will radically change the way new products are developed and a plan for companies to survive -- and thrive -- in today's competitive and turbulent times. Blockbusters shares the results of a ten-year research study of more than 700 teams illustrated by the inside stories of nearly fifty of the most successful products ever launched -- true "blockbusters," familiar to consumers everywhere. These include Colgate's Total toothpaste (now the market leader after Crest dominated for thirty years!), the Iomega Zip Drive, the Handspring Visor, the PowerShot staple gun, the Polycom SoundStation conference phone, the Apple IIe computer, and many others. Lynn and Reilly reveal and explain in detail the five keys to blockbuster success that companies ignore at their the responsibilities of senior management, a compelling vision of the product, the role of prototyping, the collaboration of people under pressure, and the process of information exchange. In this book, the authors prove that without these crucial elements a blockbuster new product is virtually impossible! Blockbusters uses both winning and losing case studies to explode established myths and to chart a course for implementing the surprising strategies of history-making development teams. A must for senior managers, entrepreneurs, and team leaders alike -- and for any reader curious about how great products are created -- this heavily researched and groundbreaking book promises to become a classic in the fields of product development and organizational renewal.

Hypercompetition by Richard D'Aveni offers a comprehensive analysis of the challenging and ever-changing business environment of today, where traditional competitive advantages are no longer sustainable. Through hundreds of industry examples, D'Aveni explains how companies can gain a temporary advantage and succeed in dynamic markets by disrupting the status quo and employing a set of strategies referred to as the "New 7-S's". This book is a must-read for managers, planners, consultants, academics, and students of hypercompetitive industries.

If you're fascinated by how technology bridges distances and creates a competitive global environment, Friedman's "The World Is Flat" might pique your interest. It's more than an exploration; it offers an insightful look into how our world has changed and is continuing to evolve. Think of it as a decoder for the intricate web of global connectivity that affects us all. Whether you're a business enthusiast, a tech-savvy individual, or just curious about global dynamics, this book puts the twenty-first-century world into perspective.

Author Q&A with Tim Harford [image] So are you an economic missionary, or is this just something that you love to do? It began as something that I love to do--and I think I am now starting to get a sense of it being a mission. People can use economics and they can use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote The Undercover Economist, it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the books: they are always such fun to write. Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate? People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong. Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology? I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. The Undercover Economist was basically all the cool economics I could think of and The Logic of Life was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in The Logic of Life were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, Adapt, is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different way: I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it. What specific subjects do you tackle? To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they are being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are not being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error. Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees? I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar. The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success? I was working on a book before The Undercover Economist… it was going to be a sort of Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary-styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually funny. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you made a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did. That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK? I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in politics. What actually happens is politicians--and this is true of all political parties--have got some project and they’ll say, “Right, we are going to do this thing,” and it is quite likely that idea is a bad idea--because most ideas fail; the world is complicated and while I don’t have the numbers for this, most ideas are, as it turns out, not good ideas. But they never collect the data, or whatever it is they need to measure, to find out where their idea is failing. So they have this bad idea, roll this bad idea out and the bad idea sticks, costs the country hundreds, millions, or billions of pounds, and then the bad idea is finally reversed by the next party on purely ideological grounds and you never find out whether it really worked or not. So we have this very, very low willingness to collect the data that would be necessary to demonstrate failure, which is the bit we actually need. To give a brief example: Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, came along and introduced these long, bendy buses. Boris Johnson came along and said, “If you elect me, I am going to get rid of those big bendy buses and replace them with double-decker buses.” He was elected and he did it, so… which one of them is right? I don’t know. I mean, isn’t that crazy? I know democracy is a wonderful thing and we voted for Ken Livingstone and we voted for Boris Johnson, but it would be nice to actually have the data on passenger injury rates, how quickly people can get on and off these buses, whether disabled people are using these buses… the sort of basic evidence you would want to collect. Based on that, are you a supporter of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, which in a sense favours local experimentation over central government planning? Well, I have some sympathy for the idea of local experimentation, but what worries me is that we have to have some mechanism that is going to tell you what is working and what is not--and there is no proposal for that. Cameron’s Tories seem to have the view that ‘if it is local then it will work.’ In my book, I have all kinds of interesting case studies of situations where localism really would have worked incredibly well, as in, say, the US Army in Iraq. But I have also got examples of where localism did not work well at all--such as a corruption-fighting drive in Indonesia. Is the new book, Adapt, your movement away from economic rationalist to management guru? Are you going to cast your eye over bigger problems? The two changes in Adapt are that I have tried to start with the problem, rather than saying, “I have got a hammer--I’m going to look for a nail.” I started with a nail and said, “Ok, look, I need to get this hammered in.” So I have started with the problem and then looked anywhere for solutions. And the second thing is that I have tried to do is write with more of a narrative. This is not a Malcolm Gladwell book, but I really admire the way that people like Gladwell get quite complex ideas across because they get you interested in the story; that is something that I have tried to do more of here. I am not too worried about it, because I know that I am never going to turn into Malcolm Gladwell--I am always going to be Tim Harford--but it doesn’t hurt to nudge in a certain direction. On Amazon, we recommend new book ideas to people: “If you like Tim Harford you may like…”, but what does Tim Harford also like? I read a lot of books, mostly non-fiction and in two categories: people who I think write a lot better than I do, and people who think about economics more deeply than I do. In the first category I am reading people like Michael Lewis, Kathryn Schulz (I loved her first book, Being Wrong), Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton. In the second category, I read lots of technical economics books, but I enjoy Steven Landsburg, Edward Glaeser (who has a book out now which looks good), Bill Easterly… I don’t necessarily agree with all of these people! When I am not reading non-fiction, I am reading comic books or 1980s fantasy authors like Jack Vance.

Between the high-level concepts of business intelligence and the nitty-gritty instructions for using vendors’ tools lies the essential, yet poorly-understood layer of architecture, design and process. Without this knowledge, Big Data is belittled – projects flounder, are late and go over budget. Business Intelligence From Data Integration to Analytics shines a bright light on an often neglected topic, arming you with the knowledge you need to design rock-solid business intelligence and data integration processes. Practicing consultant and adjunct BI professor Rick Sherman takes the guesswork out of creating systems that are cost-effective, reusable and essential for transforming raw data into valuable information for business decision-makers. After reading this book, you will be able to design the overall architecture for functioning business intelligence systems with the supporting data warehousing and data-integration applications. You will have the information you need to get a project launched, developed, managed and delivered on time and on budget – turning the deluge of data into actionable information that fuels business knowledge. Finally, you’ll give your career a boost by demonstrating an essential knowledge that puts corporate BI projects on a fast-track to success.

Growing inequality. The poor. Economics. Nobel Prize winning economist. Paperback.

A revised and abridged version of the introductory textbook Economics, 3rd Edition by the same author. Covers markets in action, the supply decision, wages and the distribution of income, aggregate demand and supply, the determination of national income and the role of fiscal policy, unemployment and inflation, international trade, and the balance of payments and exchange rates. Each chapter concludes with a summary and study questions. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

For senior year undergraduate Marketing courses, and first year MBA courses in Marketing/International/Asian Business. The book provides a broad-based approach to Asia-Pacific marketing case-studies. Cases include studies on products and services; consumer and business markets; profit and non-profit organizations; Asian firms operating within and outside of the region as well as non-Asian companies operating in Asia; small and large enterprises; manufacturing and trading businesses; and low- and high-technology industries.

Lim Siong Guan, Singapore's former Head of Civil Service (1999–2005) was the Institute of Policy Studies' 4th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book contains edited versions of the three IPS-Nathan Lectures he gave between September and November 2017, and highlights of his dialogue with the audience. Lim addresses the question, "Can Singapore Fall?", by examining the state of Singapore today and proposing what Singapore and Singaporeans must do in order to prevent economic and social decline. Taking inspiration from Sir John Glubb's essay, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival, Lim urges Singaporeans to counter decline by observing the "three legs of honour": Trust, Diversity, and Excellence. These include becoming a gracious society and building up a culture of innovation, excellence and outwardness. Lim also reminds us that cultural change takes a generational effort to effect; for change to happen, Singaporeans must thus act with urgency and act now for the well-being of future generations. The IPS-Nathan Lectures series was launched in 2014 as part of the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore. The S R Nathan Fellow delivers a series of lectures during their term to advance public understanding and discussion of issues of critical national interest.

Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.The Freakquel is here. In Superfreakonomics Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner look deeper, question harder and uncover even more hidden truths about our world, from terrorism to shark attacks, cable TV to hurricanes. They ask, among other things: ~What's a sure-fire way to catch a terrorist? ~Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? ~Which cancer does chemotherapy work best for? ~Why is combating global warming easier than we think? Sometimes, the most superfreaky solution is the simplest.~from the back cover