Economic Theory

Have economists neglected trust? The economy is fundamentally a network of relationships built on mutual expectations. More than that, trust is the glue that holds civilization together. Every time we interact with another person - to make a purchase, work on a project, or share a living space - we rely on trust. Institutions and relationships function because people place confidence in them. Benjamin Ho reveals the surprising importance of trust to how we understand our day-to-day economic lives.

Economics is essential for understanding the world around you. Billions of people across the planet wake up every morning and participate in a profoundly complex and interconnected global economy.

The power of economic thinking can be explained by seven core principles, which are accountability, investments, economy, incentive, freedom of choice, nondiscrimination, and one price.

Many Remainers reported waking up the day after the Brexit vote feeling as if they were living in a foreign country. In fact, they were merely experiencing the same feeling that many British people have felt every day for years. Goodhart shows us how people have come to be divided into two camps: the 'Anywheres', who have 'achieved' identities, derived from their careers and education, and the 'Somewheres', who get their identity from a sense of place and from the people around them, and who feel a sense of loss due to mass immigration and rapid social change.

According to business reporter Charles Gasparino, President Obama is faking his outrage at Wall Street, and his calls for new policies to rein in banks that are "too big to fail" are just pabulum. In reality, Obama has climbed into bed with Wall Street CEOs, giving them what they want so they will support his liberal, big-government agenda.

Where is 'home'? For Amartya Sen home has been many places - Dhaka in modern Bangladesh, where he grew up; the village of Santiniketan, where he was raised by his grandparents as much as by his parents; Calcutta, where he first studied economics and was active in student movements and Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he came aged 19. Sen brilliantly recreates the atmosphere in each of these.

Do we have to choose between equality and prosperity? Many think that reducing economic inequality would require such heavy-handed interference with market forces that it would stifle economic growth. Heather Boushey insists nothing could be further from the truth. Presenting cutting-edge economics with journalistic verve, she shows how rising inequality has become a drag on growth and an impediment to a competitive United States marketplace for employers and employees alike.

Adam Smith is now widely regarded as 'the father of modern economics' and the most influential economist who ever lived. But what he really thought, and what the implications of his ideas are, remain fiercely contested. Was he an eloquent advocate of capitalism and the freedom of the individual? Or a prime mover of 'market fundamentalism' and an apologist for inequality and human selfishness? This exceptional book, by a writer who combines to an unusual degree intellectual training and practical political experience, dispels the myths and caricatures and gives us Smith in the round.

EVE: Extra Value Economics: The General Theory of Time-Satisfaction, and the Move to More is a natural law treatise filled with “time bomb” concepts that will shake the foundations of modern economics. At the heart of this new economic model is time-satisfaction and the two-clock solution, which crack the code to understanding value—everything else can be derived from there.

Provocative political commentator Arianna Huffington yanks back the curtain on the unholy alliance of CEOs, politicians, lobbyists, and Wall Street bankers who have shown a brutal disregard for those in office cubicles and on factory floors.

Ever since the dawn of human civilisation, we have been trying to make predictions about what's in store for us. We do this on a personal level, so that we can get on with our lives efficiently (should I hang my laundry out to dry, or will it rain?). But we also have to predict on a much larger scale, often for the good of our broader society (how can we spot economic downturns or prevent terrorist attacks?). For just as long, we have been getting it wrong.

Despite the enormous problems we face and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo, it's surprisingly hard to find a coherent vision of what a better, fairer society would look like. Free and Equal provides that vision. In this hugely ambitious and exhilarating debut, philosopher and economist Daniel Chandler argues that the ideas we need are hiding in plain sight, in the work of the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. Although they have transformed philosophy, his ideas have had little impact on politics - until now.

Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of Britain and other Western societies: thriving cities versus the provinces, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit and the return of the far right in Germany.

In The Journey of Humanity, Oded Galor offers a revelatory explanation of how humanity became, only very recently, the unique species to have escaped a life of subsistence poverty, enjoying previously unthinkable wealth and longevity. He reveals why this process has been so unequal around the world, resulting in the great disparities between nations that exist today. He shows why so many of our efforts to improve lives have failed and how they might succeed.

A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in Latin in 1689. It was Locke's response to the problem of religion and government; he proposed religious toleration as the answer. For Locke, the only way a Church gains genuine converts is through persuasion, not violence.

Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis. Arguing that capitalism would cause an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the working class'.

This book is a demonstration both of the economic planning and order that prevail under capitalism and of the chaos and tyranny that prevail under socialism. Originally published in 1979, and later incorporated into the author’s magnum opus, Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics as Chapters 6-8, this is a powerful and convincing book which explains the essential principles of free-market price theory along with leading applications of those principles.

Covering diversity and equality, globalization, human rights, modern urban living and the role of work and institutions, The Sociology Book looks at the big questions of how we cooperate: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, co-workers, and rivals?

Proper stewardship of natural assets and liabilities is a matter of planetary urgency: natural resources have the potential either to transform the poorest countries or to tear them apart, while the carbon emissions and agricultural follies of the rich world could further impoverish them. The Plundered Planet charts a course between unchecked profiteering on the one hand and environmental romanticism on the other to offer realistic and sustainable solutions to dauntingly complex issues.

Premio Nobel per l'economia nel 1993, Douglass C. North (1920-2015) è noto per essere stato tra i riformatori della metodologia nel campo della storia economica durante gli anni Sessanta. Tuttavia il vero fulcro del suo pensiero si sviluppa attorno alle riflessioni sulla natura delle istituzioni economiche, sociali e politiche e dei modi in cui esse evolvono.