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Readings and Reviews

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[Hoyt Bleakley and Jeffrey Lin (2012): Portage and Path Dependence]:

John Maynard Keynes (1931): Unemployment as a World Problem http://www.bradford-delong.com/2016/05/todays-economic-history-john-maynard-keynes-1931-unemployment-as-a-world-problem.html

http://www.bradford-delong.com/readings-and-reviews.html

Steven K. Vogel: Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (019069985X): "Modern-day markets do not arise spontaneously or evolve naturally...

A Simple Plan (film): "..."

Last Jedi Darkest Hour Outlander Oceans 8

GODS, MONSTERS, AND THE LUCKY PEACH The Tea Master and the Detective Jo Walton: Sleeper https://www.tor.com/2018/01/30/read-jo-waltons-sleeper/

Happy Death Day

2018-04-30:

2017-08-07: Today's Book Haul:

  • Blanchard: Macroeconomics
  • Jones: Macroeconomics
  • Robin: The Reactionary Mind

2017-09-23

Anton Howes: The World Economy and its History: "Introduces the main themes of Economic History, from the Neolithic to the mid-twentieth century. It is about asking the big questions... http://antonhowes.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/0/8/21082490/world_economic_history_2017_18_public_draft.pdf

...We will explore why some countries have become so rich, and ask why others remain poor. Among other things, we will uncover the origins of the modern state, and the institutions that make trade possible. And we will explore the evolution of the global economy – periods of globalisation, economic collapse, and rapid industrialisation....

PART I – Poverty and Riches: The Great Fact: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapter 1; Stephen Broadberry et al., British Economic Growth, 1270-1870 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Prologue.... The Malthusian Trap – why were our ancestors so poor?: Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton University Press, 2007), Chapters 2, 3, 4; 5 Dietrich Vollrath, “Who are you calling Malthusian?” (blogpost): https://growthecon.com/blog/Malthus/.... The Earliest Divergence: Why Eurasia?: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 1997). Chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 7....

The Mortality & Fertility Transitions: Ronald Lee, “The Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Change,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 17, no. 4 (December 2003): 167–90.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Growth: Gregory Clark, “The Industrial Revolution,” in Handbook of Economic Growth, ed. Philippe Aghion and Steven Durlauf, vol. 2 (Elsevier, 2014), 217–62; Jack A. Goldstone, “Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History: Rethinking the ‘Rise of the West’ and the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of World History 13, no. 2 (October 1, 2002): 323–89.... The Industrial Revolution: Sources of Innovation: Robert C. Allen, “Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced Invention, and the Scientific Revolution,” The Economic History Review 64, no. 2 (May 1, 2011): 357–84; Joel Mokyr, “The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth,” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 2 (June 1, 2005): 285–351.... The Great Divergence: East Asia: Joel Mokyr, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton University Press, 2016), Chapters 16, 17; Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making World Economy (Princeton University Press, 2000), Introduction and Chapter 1.... The Great Divergence: The Middle East: Jared Rubin, Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2017), Chapters 5, 8; Timur Kuran, “The Islamic Commercial Crisis: Institutional Roots of Economic Underdevelopment in the Middle East,” The Journal of Economic History 63, no. 2 (2003): 414–46.

PART II – Institutions & Trade: Deep Roots of Development: Kenneth L. Sokoloff and Stanley L. Engerman, “History Lessons: Institutions, Factors Endowments, and Paths of Development in the New World,” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 3 (July 1, 2000): 217–32; Understanding Institutions: Douglass C. North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1 (March 1991): 97–112; Douglas Allen, Institutional Revolution: Measurement and the Economic Emergence of the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2011) Chapters 1, 2, 3; Sheilagh Ogilvie, “‘Whatever Is, Is Right’? Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe,” The Economic History Review 60, no. 4 (2007): 649–684.... Trade, and How to Maintain It: Avner Greif, “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders,” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (1989): 857–82, and “History Lessons: The Birth of Impersonal Exchange: The Community Responsibility System and Impartial Justice,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, no. 2 (June 2006): 221–36.... The Rise of the Modern State: Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, “Gifts of Mars: Warfare and Europe’s Early Rise to Riches,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 27, no. 4 (November 2013): 165–86; Philip T. Hoffman, “Why Was It Europeans Who Conquered the World?,” Working Paper, (2012), http://economics.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Workshops-Seminars/Economic-History/hoffman-120409.pdf; Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D.990-1990 (Cambridge, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), Chapters 3, 4....

The Rise of Democracy: Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast, “Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England,” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 4 (December 1, 1989): 803–32; Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective,” +The Quarterly Journal of Economics_ 115, no. 4 (November 1, 2000): 1167–99; Inequality within Countries: Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017), Introduction & Chapters 1, 2, 3....

Part III – The Modern Global Economy: Globalisation 1850-1914: Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 7; Kevin H. O′Rourke and Jeffrey G. Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy, New Ed edition (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2001), Chapters 1, 2, 7.... The Great Divergence: De-Industrialisation of the Periphery?: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapters 4, 5, 8; Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of “The Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies, New Ed edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), Chapters 2, 3....

Protectionism vs. Free Trade: Douglas A. Irwin, “Tariffs and Growth in Late Nineteenth Century America,” World Economy 24, no. 1 (January 1, 2001): 15–30; Laura Panza and Jeffrey G. Williamson, “Did Muhammad Ali Foster Industrialization in Early Nineteenth-Century Egypt?” The Economic History Review 68, no. 1 (February 1, 2015): 79–100.... The Gold Standard: Barry Eichengreen, Globalizing Capital: A History of the International Monetary System, Second Edition, Second edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).... De-Globalisation and the Great Depression: Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression 1919-1939 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), Chapter 1; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 8.... Post-War Re-Globalisation and Catch-up Growth: Robert C. Allen, Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), Chapter 9; Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, Power and Plenty: Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009), Chapter 9; Peter Temin, “The Golden Age of European Growth Reconsidered,” European Review of Economic History 6, no. 1 (2002): 3–22.

To Read:

Ian Morris (2013): The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations (0691155682): "In the last thirty years, there have been fierce debates over how civilizations develop and why the West became so powerful...

  • William V. Harris: Ancient Literacy https://books.google.com/books?id=-M_mu08ZiWoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=ancient+literacy&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizov6c3bTYAhVLs1QKHXarA4gQ6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=ancient%20literacy&f=false

  • Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt: How Democracies Die 9781524762933

To Reread:

To buy?

Rodrik Barlett Tirole Harper

Ellen Ullman’s “Life in Code: A Personal History of Technology” (MCD, 306 pages, $27).

“Hit Refresh” (HarperBusiness, 272 pages, $29.99), a quasi-autobiography by Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella..."

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artin Wolf selects his must-read titles

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Unfinished Business: The Unexplored Causes of the Financial Crisis and the Lessons Yet to be Learned, by Tamim Bayoumi, Yale University Press, RRP£25/$35

Bayoumi, a senior staff member of the International Monetary Fund, has succeeded in saying something both new and true about the financial crises of 2007-12 in this important book. He demonstrates conclusively that incompetently regulated European financial institutions played a complementary role to inadequately regulated US shadow banking in bringing economic calamity to both sides of the Atlantic — and to the world.

The Limits of the Market, by Paul De Grauwe, Oxford University Press, RRP£25/$40

In this lucid little book, De Grauwe, a Belgian economist now at the London School of Economics, explains why neither a pure market economy nor a purely government-controlled one is desirable. Getting the balance between market and government is extremely difficult. In practice, we lurch too far in one direction and then the other.

Capitalism without Capital: The Rise of the Intangible Economy, by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95

This is not just another book on the “new economy”. It is a lucid and rigorous analysis of an economic transformation in which, for the first time, advanced economies invest more in intangibles — design, branding, research and development, software — than in physical assets. This change, demonstrate Haskell of Imperial College and Westlake of Nesta, raises extraordinarily complex challenges for businesses and public policy.

India’s Long Road: The Search for Prosperity, by Vijay Joshi Oxford University Press, RRP£22.99/$34.95

India could (and should) do far better. That is the main conclusion of Joshi’s superb book. The performance of the economy is vastly improved since the reforms of the 1990s. But a great deal more needs to be done. Those who care about India’s future must hope that prime minister Narendra Modi will do what is required. Joshi provides good reasons for scepticism.

Grave New World: The End of Globalization, the Return of History, by Stephen D King, Yale University Press, RRP£20/$30

Globalisation is not inevitable. It is driven “not just by technological advance, but also by the development — and demise — of the ideas and institutions that form our politics, frame our economies and fashion our financial systems both locally and globally”. Globalisation, then, is a political choice, argues King in this well-argued and credibly pessimistic book.

Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality, by James Kwak, Pantheon, RRP$25.95

A little economics, argues Kwak of the University of Connecticut, is a dangerous thing. Politicians and pundits like to use simplistic models, long abandoned by professional economists, to bludgeon opponents of naive laissez-faire economics. One result has been unchecked increases in inequality. Yet, properly understood, economics justifies intervention more readily than it justifies unregulated markets.

Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought, by Andrew Lo, Princeton University Press, RRP£27.95/$35

Human beings are not desiccated calculating machines. They are products of a long evolutionary history and so, like other animals, driven by fear and greed. The financial markets we create similarly reflect “principles of evolution — competition, innovation, reproduction and adaptation”. In this important book, Lo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrates the radical implications of this insight. Above all, markets are not always efficient: they can and do ignore relevant information for lengthy periods.

Agricultural Development and Economic Transformation: Promoting Growth with Poverty Reduction, by John Mellor, Palgrave Macmillan, RRP£23.99

Mellor, emeritus professor at Cornell, is the doyen of the world’s experts on the role of agriculture in economic development. Here he argues convincingly that, in poor and even middle-income developing countries, the progress of small commercial farmers plays an essential role in generating growth and reducing poverty. Governments can and must contribute to this vital transformation.

Doughnut Economics, by Kate Raworth, Random House Business, RRP£20/Chelsea Green, RRP$28

The great mistake of economics, argues Raworth of Oxford university’s Environmental Change Institute, is thinking of the economy as separate from the society of which it is part and the environment in which it is embedded. She is right. One does not have to accept her metaphor of “the doughnut” as the way to think about the range within which the economy would be socially just and environmentally stable. But this is an admirable attempt to broaden the horizons of economic thinking.

Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy, by Dani Rodrik, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95

Harvard’s Rodrik was one of the first professional critics of the “hyperglobalised economy”. In this book, he argues that “the internationisation of markets for goods, services, and capital drives a wedge between the cosmopolitan, professional, skilled groups that are able to take advantage of it and the rest of society.” If populists of left and right are not to win, mainstream politicians must, he argues, respond far more effectively to the discontent on those who feel ignored and left behind.

Rethinking the Economics of Land, by Josh Ryan-Collins, Toby Lloyd and Laurie Macfarlane, Zed Books, RRP£14.95

The removal of land (defined as location) from the canonical neoclassical model of the economy was, argues this thought-provoking book, an intellectual blunder. More important, this simplification has led to dreadful outcomes. The role of land as an asset destabilises the financial system. The under-taxation of land deprives governments of needed revenue. The result has been growing inequality and instability. It is time, argue the authors, to reconsider the role of land in today’s economies and societies.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century, by Walter Scheidel, Princeton University Press, RRP£27.95/$35

Complex societies naturally generate inequality. It has been so, argues Stanford professor Scheidel, ever since the discovery of agriculture. Might policy ameliorate, or even reverse, this tendency? No. In Scheidel’s account the lessons of history are clear: only war, revolution, state collapse or catastrophic plague destroy the wealth of the rich. I wish the argument were wrong, but suspect it is not.

Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media, by Cass Sunstein, Princeton University Press, RRP£24.95/$29.95

We are citizens, not just consumers. If, as legal scholar Sunstein argues, each of us obtains only the information we want and talks only to those who think as we do, we will end up incapable of participating in the public sphere. We will be living in ghettos of the imagination. Our democratic societies will then be — indeed, arguably, already are — on the road to political and social disintegration.

The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin, MIT, RRP£21.95/$26.95

In this important and provocative book, Temin of MIT argues that the US is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with ever fewer households in the middle. But this is not inevitable. It is rather a political choice. The rich and powerful have, alas, persuaded downwardly mobile white people that their enemies are not those above them who refuse to pay the taxes needed for decent social services, but rather feared and despised ethnic minorities.

Economics for the Common Good, by Jean Tirole, translated by Steven Rendall, Princeton, RRP£24.95/$29.95

http://amzn.to/2Fk3E0E

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