Political economy

How religious beliefs and practices can influence the wealth of nationsWhich countries grow faster economically-those with strong beliefs in heaven and hell or those with weak beliefs in them? Does religious participation matter? Why do some countries...

In less than a decade, the Internet went from being a series of loosely connected networks used by universities and the military to the powerful commercial engine it is today. This book describes how many of the key innovations that made this possible...

Philanthropy has long been a distinctive feature of American culture, but its crucial role in the economic well-being of the nation--and the world--has remained largely unexplored. Why Philanthropy Matters takes an in-depth look at philanthropy as an...

Guiding principles for ensuring that central bankers and other unelected policymakers remain stewards of the common goodCentral bankers have emerged from the financial crisis as the third great pillar of unelected power alongside the judiciary and the...

In The Globalization of Inequality, distinguished economist and policymaker Francois Bourguignon examines the complex and paradoxical links between a vibrant world economy that has raised the living standard of over half a billion people in emerging...

Why does capital formation often fail to occur in developing countries? Capital and Collusion explores the political incentives that either foster growth or steal nations' growth prospects. Hilton Root examines the frontier between risk and uncertainty,...

In economics, the emergence of New Growth Theory in recent decades has directed attention to an old and important problem: what are the forces of economic growth and how can public policy enhance them? This book examines major forces of growth--including...

A comprehensive look at the world of illicit trade Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced...

From David Card, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics 2021, and Alan Krueger, a provocative challenge to conventional wisdom about the minimum wageDavid Card and Alan B. Krueger have already made national news with their pathbreaking research on the...

Countries that are rich in petroleum have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil. What explains this oil curse? And can it be fixed? In this groundbreaking analysis, Michael L. Ross looks at how...

Who was the greater economist--Adam Smith or Charles Darwin? The question seems absurd. Darwin, after all, was a naturalist, not an economist. But Robert Frank, New York Times economics columnist and best-selling author of The Economic Naturalist,...

The recent economic rise of China and India has attracted a great deal of attention--and justifiably so. Together, the two countries account for one-fifth of the global economy and are projected to represent a full third of the world's income by 2025...

The world's leading economies are facing not just one but many crises. The financial meltdown may not be over, climate change threatens major global disruption, economic inequality has reached extremes not seen for a century, and government and business...

In the wake of the global financial crisis that began in 2007, faith in the rationality of markets has lost ground to a new faith in their irrationality. The problem, Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg argue, is that both the rational and behavioral...

Research on the spatial aspects of economic activity has flourished over the past decade due to the emergence of new theory, new data, and an intense interest on the part of policymakers, especially in Europe but increasingly in North America and...

In the face of an almost universal sense of surrender to capitalist globalization, this book demonstrates that postcapitalist subjects, economies, and communities can be fostered. The authors describe a politics of possibility that can build different...

How the largest social movement in history is making the world a better place.

Compiled by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, Divided gathers the writings of leading scholars, activists and journalists to provide an illuminating, multifaceted look at inequality. Combining surprising statistical evidence with...