Public Finance

The Great Recession that began in 2007 is now more than four years old - and counting. Some 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, and at recent rates of job creation we won’t be back to normal levels of employment until late this decade. This is a tragedy. Do we have to accept it? "No!" is the resounding answer given by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in this call to arms. We have seen this situation before and we know how to fix it; all we lack is the political will to take action.

Paul Polak, whose organization International Development Enterprises (IDE) has directly helped over 17 million people get out of poverty permanently, exposes the top 3 things we are doing wrong in our efforts to end the root causes of poverty. He then, through the story of a Nepali farmer, goes on to detail solutions for what actually works when it comes to ending poverty.

Adair Turner became chairman of Britain's Financial Services Authority just as the global financial crisis struck in 2008, and he played a leading role in redesigning global financial regulation. In this eye-opening book, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn’t happen because banks are too big to fail—our addiction to private debt is to blame. Between Debt and the Devil challenges the belief that we need credit growth to fuel economic growth, and that rising debt is okay as long as inflation remains low.

We used to make things in this country. We were the dazzling innovators, the undisputed world economic leaders, and with our manufacturing engine driving the process, we built a solid, high-achieving middle class. Now, thanks to policies that are either indifferent - or downright hostile - to manufacturing, we're at the brink of losing it all. If you think this won't affect you, guess again. Author Andrew N. Liveris presents a powerful case for the critical importance of domestic manufacturing.

American economic policy ranks as something between bad and disgraceful. As leading economist Alan S. Blinder argues, a crucial cultural divide separates economic and political civilizations. Economists and politicians often talk - and act - at cross purposes: politicians typically seek economists' "advice" only to support preconceived notions, not to learn what economists actually know or believe. Politicians naturally worry about keeping constituents happy and winning elections. Some are devoted to an ideology.

Thomas Piketty's work has proved that unfettered markets lead to increasing inequality. Without meaningful regulation, capitalist economies will concentrate wealth in an ever smaller number of hands. Armed with this knowledge, democratic societies face a defining challenge: fending off a new aristocracy. For years Piketty has wrestled with this problem in his monthly newspaper column, which pierces the surface of current events to reveal the economic forces underneath.

Wall Street lawyer Norm Champ spent nearly 20 years dealing with the SEC on behalf of his clients and as an industry representative working to educate the agency about hedge funds. Believing he could help reform the deeply flawed agency, Champ left his career in the private sector and joined the SEC. In Going Public, Champ presents a rare insider's look at how the SEC operates and explains exactly how the agency impacts the overall economic health of the country.

Understanding cash, currencies and the financial system is vital for making sense of what is going on in our world, especially now. Since the 2008 financial crisis, money has rarely been out of the headlines. Central banks have launched extraordinary policies, like quantitative easing or negative interest rates. New means of payment are changing how we interact with money and how governments and corporations keep track of our spending. Radical politicians in the US and UK are urging us to transform our financial system and make it the servant of social justice.

The "Godfather of Trumpmania", Michael Savage, examines the initial appointments, speeches, tweets, and history of Donald Trump and offers his insights and analysis. The man many consider to be the determining factor in driving Trump over the finish line by motivating millions of undecideds and the "Deplorables", who would have otherwise sat out the election, provides a crucial first look at the early direction of the Trump presidency.

Jim Rogers and his fiancie, began their "Millennium Adventure" on January 1, 1999. They traveled through 116 countries, including many where most have rarely ventured, such as Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, and Angola. They saw the real world from the ground up - the only vantage point from which it can be truly understood - economically, politically, and socially and have saw the world and understood it as it really is.

How serious are the threats to our environment? Here is one measure of the problem: if we continue to do exactly what we are doing, with no growth in the human population or the world economy, the world in the latter part of this century will be unfit to live in. Of course human activities are not holding at current levels—they are accelerating, dramatically—and so, too, is the pace of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment, and toxification.

Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tel Aviv--the global hubs of entrepreneurial activity all bear the marks of government investment. Yet, for every public intervention that spurs entrepreneurial activity, there are many failed efforts that waste untold billions in taxpayer dollars. When has governmental sponsorship succeeded in boosting growth, and when has it fallen terribly short?

The Economics of Belonging argues that we should step back and take a fresh look at the root causes of our current challenges. In this original, engaging book, Martin Sandbu argues that economics remains at the heart of our widening inequality and it is only by focusing on the right policies that we can address it. He proposes a detailed, radical plan for creating a just economy where everyone can belong. Sandbu demonstrates that the rising numbers of the left behind are not due to globalization gone too far.

Unequal Gains offers a radically new understanding of the economic evolution of the United States, providing a complete picture of the uneven progress of America from colonial times to today. While other economic historians base their accounts on American wealth, Peter Lindert and Jeffrey Williamson focus instead on income - and the result is a bold reassessment of the American economic experience.

A revelatory and entertaining book about the pitfalls of how we measure our economy and how to correct them, by an award-winning editor of The Financial Times. According to GDP, the economy is in a golden era: economic growth has risen steadily over the past 70 years and shows no sign of stopping. But if this is the case, why are we living in such fractured times, with global populism on the rise and wealth inequality as stark as ever?

Man vs. Markets by Paddy Hirsch of NPR's "Marketplace" is economics explained, pure and simple, for the layperson who wouldn't know a "bond" from an "option," and who believes that a "future" is when we'll all have flying cars. Here is an illuminating, insightful, and wonderfully witty journey of discovery through the often confusing financial markets, offering clear, relatable explanations and definitions of the system's various instruments, yet less simplistically than the popular ...for Dummies series.

Families today are squeezed on every side - from high childcare costs and harsh employment policies to workplaces without paid family leave or even dependable and regular working hours. Many realize that attaining the standard of living their parents managed has become impossible. Alissa Quart, executive editor of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, examines the lives of many middle-class Americans who can now barely afford to raise children.

The growing wealth inequality continues to dominate headlines. The divide between the haves and have nots in America is increasingly political and tensions are rising. On one side, the wealthy wield power and advantage, keeping the system operating in their favor, all while retreating into enclaves that separate them further and further from the poor and working class.

Here they are, the 2000s, and Barbara Ehrenreich's antidotes are as sardonic as they are spot-on: pet insurance for your kids; Salvation Army fashions for those who can no longer afford Wal-Mart; and boundless rage against those who have given us a nation scarred by deepening inequality, corroded by distrust, and shamed by its official cruelty.

Cyber Intelligence-Driven Risk provides a solution to one of the most pressing issues that executives and risk managers face: How can we weave information security into our business decisions to minimize overall business risk?