Showing titles in Economic History

Throughout the 20th century, "free enterprise" has been a contested keyword in American politics, and the cornerstone of a conservative philosophy that seeks to limit government involvement into economic matters. Lawrence B. Glickman shows how the idea first gained traction in American discourse and was championed by opponents of the New Deal. Those politicians, believing free enterprise to be a fundamental American value, held it up as an antidote to a liberalism that they maintained would lead toward totalitarian statism.

An eye-opening account of the failures of our financial system, the sources of its staying power, and the path to meaningful economic reform.

Who is the richest person in the world, ever? Does where you were born affect how much money you'll earn over a lifetime? How would we know? Why, beyond the idle curiosity, do these questions even matter? In The Haves and the Have-Nots, Branko Milanovic, one of the world's leading experts on wealth, poverty, and the gap that separates them, explains these and other mysteries of how wealth is unevenly spread throughout our world, now and through time.

Atossa Abrahamian traces the rise of the hidden globe to thirteenth-century Switzerland, where poor cantons marketed the commodity they had—bodies, in the form of mercenary fighters. Following its evolution around the world, she reveals how prize-winning economists, eccentric theorists, visionary statesmen, and consultants masterminded its export in the form of free trade zones, flags of convenience, offshore detention centers where immigrants languish in limbo, and charter cities controlled by by foreign governments and multinational foreign corporations—and even into outer space.

Although it is among the oldest of market institutions, the auction is ubiquitous in today's economy, used for everything from government procurement to selling advertising on the Internet to course assignment at MIT's Sloan School. Yet beyond the small number of economists who specialize in the subject, few people understand how auctions really work. This concise, accessible, and engaging book explains both the theory and the practice of auctions.

In a wide-ranging narrative that takes us from a downsized marketing executive in Massachusetts, to a father of three in Appalachia finding purpose and meaning working in a convenience-store chain, to an unemployed autoworker retraining in "advanced manufacturing", Shell reveals how work is essential to our flourishing and pyschological well-being - and how so many of the avenues to well-paid and meaningful work will be challenged in the years ahead.

Branko Milanovic presents a bold new account of the dynamics that drive inequality on a global scale. Drawing on vast data sets and cutting-edge research, he explains the benign and malign forces that make inequality rise and fall within and among nations. He also reveals who has been helped the most by globalization, who has been held back, and what policies might tilt the balance toward economic justice.

Since the financial crash of 2008, the cooperative movement has been coming back with renewed vigor. Everything for Everyone chronicles this economic and social revolution. Cooperative enterprise is poised to help us reclaim faith in our capacity for creative, powerful democracy.

In Putinomics, Chris Miller examines the making of Russian economic policy since Vladimir Putin took power in 1999. Miller argues that Putin's economic strategy has functioned far more effectively than most Westerners realize. While acknowledging that part of Putin's successes - above all, quadrupling per capita GDP in just a decade and a half - can be attributed to cashing in on high oil prices, Miller details the government policies that have also been fundamental to Russia's growth.

Before 1870, most people lived in dire poverty, the benefits of the slow crawl of invention continually offset by a growing population. Then came a great shift: invention sprinted forward, doubling our technological capabilities each generation, and creatively destroying the economy again and again. Slouching Towards Utopia tells the story of the major economic and technological shifts of the 20th century in a bold and ambitious, grand narrative. In vivid and compelling detail, DeLong charts the unprecedented explosion of material wealth after 1870.

To most people, the word economics sounds like homework. In Visible Hand, Wall Street Journal op-ed editor Matthew Hennessey brings basic economic principles vividly to life in plain English, without resorting to numbers, graphs, or jargon. This isn’t Fed policy or the stock market. This is the essential stuff: supply and demand, incentives and tradeoffs, scarcity and innovation, work and leisure.

Arguing that the slave trade was at the heart of Britain's economic progress, Eric Williams' landmark 1944 study revealed the connections between capitalism and racism and has influenced generations of historians ever since. Williams traces the rise and fall of the Atlantic slave trade through the 18th and 19th centuries to show how it laid the foundations of the Industrial Revolution, and how racism arose as a means of rationalising an economic decision.

After the 2008 financial crisis, investment banks and other professional investors had the edge when it came to bailouts and stock trading. The crisis also ushered in a wave of new small-scale retail investors who were hell-bent on crushing the big guys by using social media channels to connect, share ideas, promote stocks, and reap the rewards—Robin Hood-style. But did the meme short squeeze stand a chance in a rigged playing field? This concise, definitive account of a daring Wall Street heist exposes a fight to the death against a fraudulent system.

A new, gripping history of America - told through the executives, bankers, farmers, and politicians who paved the way from colonial times to the present - reveals that this country was founded as much on the search for wealth and prosperity as the desire for freedom.

A millioner and a self-made businessman, Marek Zmysłowski, built African Amazon and became one of the most famous people in IT in Africa. One day it turned out that he's also a fugitive wanted by the Interpol. How did this happen? In his autobiography, Zmysłowski doesn't take himself too seriously and with humor shows the backstage of doing business, which was sometimes dangerous. With his journalistic verve, he draws a colorful picture of Africa, which became his favorite continent.

Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life and offer solutions to them, too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: the Midwest USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions.

In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.

We live in a world of seemingly limitless consumer choice. Yet, as every shopper knows without thinking about it, many everyday goods—from beds to batteries to printer paper—are available in a finite number of "standard sizes." What makes these sizes "standard" is an agreement among competing firms to make or sell products with the same limited dimensions. But how did firms—often hotly competing firms—reach such collective agreements?

Beeronomics examines key developments that have moved the brewing industry forward. Its most ubiquitous ingredient, hops, was used by the Hanseatic League to establish the export dominance of Hamburg and Bremen in the 16th century. During the late 19th century, bottom-fermentation led to the spread of industrial lager beer. Industrial innovations in bottling, refrigeration, and TV advertising paved the way for the consolidation and market dominance of major macrobreweries during the 20th century.

Monday, October 19, 1987, was by far the worst day in Wall Street history. The market fell 22.6% - almost twice as bad as the worst day of 1929 - equal to a one-day loss of nearly 5,000 points today. Black Monday was more than seven years in the making and threatened nearly every US financial institution. Drawing on superlative archival research and dozens of original interviews, Diana B. Henriques weaves a tale of missed opportunities, market delusions, and destructive actions.