Central / national / federal government policies

How to put democracy at the heart of AI governance.Artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping our world. Police forces use them to decide where to send police officers, judges to decide whom to release on bail, welfare agencies to decide...

In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that predict future life outcomes. In this timely and innovative account,...

A groundbreaking account of how the welfare state began with early nineteenth-century child labor laws, and how middle-class and elite reformers made it happen.The beginnings of the modern welfare state are often traced to the late nineteenth-century...

How the politicization of the pandemic endangers our lives-and our democracyCOVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics...

How policies forged after September 11 were weaponized under Trump and turned on American democracy itselfIn the wake of the September 11 terror attacks, the American government implemented a wave of overt policies to fight the nation's enemies. Unseen...

A clear and comprehensive framework for bridging the widening gap between theorists and empiricists in social scienceThe credibility revolution, with its emphasis on empirical methods for causal inference, has led to concerns among scholars that the...

From the acclaimed authors of Capitalism without Capital, radical ideas for restoring prosperity in today's intangible economyThe past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of...

Digital technology, big data, big tech, machine learning, and AI are revolutionising both the tools of economics and the phenomena it seeks to measure, understand, and shape. In Cogs and Monsters, Diane Coyle explores the enormous problems - but also...

Leading technologists, historians, and journalists reveal the stories behind the computer coding that touches all aspects of life - for better or worse.Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word...

Why working-class Americans almost never become politicians, what that means for democracy, and what reformers can do about itWhy are Americans governed by the rich? Millionaires make up only three percent of the public but control all three branches of...

How American political participation is increasingly being shaped by citizens who wield more resourcesThe Declaration of Independence proclaims equality as a foundational American value. However, Unequal and Unrepresented finds that political voice in...

The last three decades have seen a massive expansion of China's visual culture industries, from architecture and graphic design to fine art and fashion. New ideologies of creativity and creative practices have reshaped the training of a new generation of...

Propelled by the belief that government has slipped out of the hands of ordinary citizens, a surging wave of populism is destabilizing democracies around the world. As John Matsusaka reveals in Let the People Rule, this belief is based in fact. Over the...

Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts- and, in repressing it, ended up burning...

In the growing body of work on democracy, little attention has been paid to its links with migration. Migration and Democracy focuses on the effects of worker remittances-money sent by migrants back to their home countries-and how these resources shape...

How the creation of the Nobel Prize in Economics changed the economics profession, Sweden, and the worldOur confidence in markets comes from economics, and our confidence in economics is underpinned by the Nobel Prize in Economics, which was first...

How collective intelligence can transform business, government, and our everyday livesA new field of collective intelligence has emerged in recent years, prompted by digital technologies that make it possible to think at large scale. This "bigger...

From New York Times bestselling author and economics columnist Robert Frank, bold new ideas for creating environments that promise a brighter future. Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behaviour, sometimes...

How middle class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilienceConventional wisdom holds that the rising middle classes are a force for democracy. Yet in post-Soviet countries like Russia, where the...

An in-depth look at how politics and economics shape the relationship between Congress and the Federal ReserveBorn out of crisis a century ago, the Federal Reserve has become the most powerful macroeconomic policymaker and financial regulator in the...

A provocative and timely case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just and equal societyIn recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different, in our personalities and in our health - and in ways...

A compelling account of the threat immigration control poses to the citizens of free societies. Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and...

How to overcome barriers to the long-term investments that are essential for solving the world's biggest problemsThere has never been a greater need for long-term investments to tackle the world's most difficult problems, such as climate change and...

The unknown history of deportation and of the fear that shapes immigrants' livesConstant headlines about deportations, detention camps, and border walls drive urgent debates about immigration and what it means to be an American in the twenty-first...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Nudge and The World According to Star Wars, a revealing account of how today's Internet threatens democracy-and what can be done about it As the Internet grows more sophisticated, it is creating new...

How the 'First State' has enabled international crime, sheltered tax dodgers, and diverted hard-earned dollars from the rest of us.The legal home to over a million companies, Delaware has more registered businesses than residents. Why...

A revealing look at how today's bureaucrats are finding their public voice in the era of 24-hour mediaOnce relegated to the anonymous back rooms of democratic debate, our bureaucratic leaders are increasingly having to govern under the scrutiny of a...

It is clear that in our society today, issues of diversity and social connectedness remain deeply unresolved and can lead to crisis and instability. The major demographic changes taking place in America make discussions about such issues all the more...

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...

What makes people happy? Why should governments care about people's well-being? How would policy change if well-being was the main objective? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy...

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...

The institution of marriage stands at a critical juncture. As gay marriage equality gains acceptance in law and public opinion, questions abound regarding marriage's future. Will same-sex marriage lead to more radical marriage reform? Should it? Antonin...

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...

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...

Modern warfare is almost always multilateral to one degree or another, requiring countries to cooperate as allies or coalition partners. Yet as the war in Afghanistan has made abundantly clear, multilateral cooperation is neither straightforward nor...

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...

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...

A radical and timely proposal for reinvigorating transformative scientific discovery.So rich was the scientific harvest of the early 20th century that it transformed entire industries and economies. Max Planck laid the foundation for quantum physics,...

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...

Since the 1980s, Helen Caldicott - whom Meryl Streep has called "my inspiration to speak out" - has worked tirelessly for a safe, sustainable, nuclear-free planet. Now she has edited Loving This Planet, which offers an accessible overview of the chief...