Best Business Books : 2017: Home

Economics drives the modern world and shapes our lives, but few of us feel we have time to engage with the breadth of ideas in the subject. 50 Economics Classics is the smart person's guide to two centuries of discussion of finance, capitalism and the global economy. From Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Thomas Piketty's bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, here are the great reads, seminal ideas and famous texts clarified and illuminated for all.

A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behavior Half of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can't agree on whether investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or irrational and inefficient, as behavioral economists believe--and as financial bubbles, crashes, and crises suggest. This is one of the biggest debates in economics and the value or futility of investment management and financial regulation hang on the outcome. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Lo cuts through this debate with a new framework, the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis, in which rationality and irrationality coexist. Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and other fields, Adaptive Markets shows that the theory of market efficiency isn't wrong but merely incomplete. When markets are unstable, investors react instinctively, creating inefficiencies for others to exploit. Lo's new paradigm explains how financial evolution shapes behavior and markets at the speed of thought--a fact revealed by swings between stability and crisis, profit and loss, and innovation and regulation. A fascinating intellectual journey filled with compelling stories, Adaptive Markets starts with the origins of market efficiency and its failures, turns to the foundations of investor behavior, and concludes with practical implications--including how hedge funds have become the Gal#65533;pagos Islands of finance, what really happened in the 2008 meltdown, and how we might avoid future crises. An ambitious new answer to fundamental questions in economics, Adaptive Markets is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how markets really work.

It may sound crazy to pay people an income whether or not they are working or looking for work. But the idea of providing an unconditional basic income to every individual, rich or poor, active or inactive, has been advocated by such major thinkers as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, and John Kenneth Galbraith. For a long time, it was hardly noticed and never taken seriously. Today, with the traditional welfare state creaking under pressure, it has become one of the most widely debated social policy proposals in the world. Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght present the most comprehensive defense of this radical idea so far, advocating it as our most realistic hope for addressing economic insecurity and social exclusion in the twenty-first century. The authors seamlessly combine philosophy, politics, and economics as they compare the idea of a basic income with rival ideas past and present for guarding against poverty and unemployment. They trace its history, tackle the economic and ethical objections against an unconditional income-including its alleged tendency to sap incentives and foster free riding-and lay out how such an apparently implausible idea might be viable financially and achievable politically. Finally, they consider the relevance of the proposal in an increasingly globalized economy. In an age of growing inequality and divided politics, when old answers to enduring social problems no longer inspire confidence, Basic Income presents fresh reasons to hope that we might yet achieve a free society and a sane economy.

How poor countries can ignite economic growth without waiting for global action or the creation of ideal local conditions Contrary to conventional wisdom, countries that ignite a process of rapid economic growth almost always do so while lacking what experts say are the essential preconditions for development, such as good infrastructure and institutions. In Beating the Odds, two of the world's leading development economists begin with this paradox to explain what is wrong with mainstream development thinking--and to offer a practical blueprint for moving poor countries out of the low-income trap regardless of their circumstances. Justin Yifu Lin, the former chief economist of the World Bank, and C#65533;lestin Monga, the chief economist of the African Development Bank, propose a development strategy that encourages poor countries to leap directly into the global economy by building industrial parks and export-processing zones linked to global markets. Countries can leverage these zones to attract light manufacturing from more advanced economies, as East Asian countries did in the 1960s and China did in the 1980s. By attracting foreign investment and firms, poor countries can improve their trade logistics, increase the knowledge and skills of local entrepreneurs, gain the confidence of international buyers, and gradually make local firms competitive. This strategy is already being used with great success in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and other countries. And the strategy need not be limited to traditional manufacturing but can also include agriculture, the service sector, and other activities. Beating the Odds shows how poor countries can ignite growth without waiting for global action or the creation of ideal local conditions.

From prompting a transition from hunter-gatherer to an agrarian lifestyle in ancient Mesopotamia to bankrolling Britain's imperialist conquests, strategic taxation and the regulation of beer has played a pivotal role throughout history. Beeronomics: How Beer Explains the World tells thesestories, and many others, whilst also exploring the key innovations that propelled the industrialization and consolidation of the beer market.At the same time when mega-mergers in the brewing industry are creating huge transnationals selling their beer across the globe, the craft beer movement in America and Europe has brought the rich history of ancient brewing techniques to the forefront in recent years. But less talked about is theeconomic influence of this beverage on the world and the myriad ways it has shaped the course of history. Beeronomics covers world history through the lens of beer, exploring the common role that beer taxation has played throughout and providing context for recognizable brands and consumer trendsand tastes.Beeronomics examines key developments that have moved the brewing industry forward. Its most ubiquitous ingredient, hops, was used by the Hanseatic League to establish the export dominance of Hamburg and Bremen in the sixteenth century. During the late nineteenth century, bottom-fermentation led tothe spread of industrial lager beer. Industrial innovations in bottling, refrigeration, and TV advertising paved the way for the consolidation and market dominance of major macrobreweries like Anheuser Busch in America and Artois Brewery in Belgium during the twentieth century. We're now in the eraof global integration - one multinational AB InBev, claims 46% of all beer profits - but there's a counterrevolution afoot of small, independent craft breweries in both America, Belgium and around the world. Beeronomics surveys these trends, giving context to why you see which brands and styles onshelves at your local supermarket or on tap at the nearby pub.

Traditionally economists have based their economic predictions on the assumption that humans are super-rational creatures, using the information we are given efficiently and generally making selfish decisions that work well for us as individuals. Economists also assume that we're doing thevery best we can possibly do - not only for today, but over our whole lifetimes too. But increasingly the study of behavioural economics is revealing that our lives are not that simple. Instead, our decisions are complicated by our own psychology. Each of us makes mistakes every day. We don't alwaysknow what's best for us and, even if we do, we might not have the self-control to deliver on our best intentions. We struggle to stay on diets, to get enough exercise and to manage our money. We misjudge risky situations. We are prone to herding: sometimes peer pressure leads us blindly to copyothers around us; other times copying others helps us to learn quickly about new, unfamiliar situations. This Very Short Introduction explores the reasons why we make irrational decisions; how we decide quickly; why we make mistakes in risky situations; our tendency to procrastination; and how we are affected by social influences, personality, mood and emotions. The implications of understanding therationale for our own financial behaviour are huge. Behavioural economics could help policy-makers to understand the people behind their policies, enabling them to design more effective policies, while at the same time we could find ourselves assaulted by increasingly savvy marketing. MichelleBaddeley concludes by looking forward, to see what the future of behavioural economics holds for us.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, andenthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Are you looking for some ideas to help you improve your portfolio? Let the brightest, most insightful minds in investing help.The Best Investment Writing - Volume 1 contains 32 hand-selected articles. These are the best pieces from some of the most respected money managers and investment researchers in the world.You'll get valuable insights into:-- The strategies that produce some of the highest historical returns -- Five due diligence questions we must ask before investing-- Why we often make poor "complex" investing decisions-- The easiest, most powerful method to estimate future stock returns-- How to spend our investment gains to maximize genuine happinessThe Best Investment Writing - Volume 1 reads like a masters course in investing. See how it can help you become a better investor today. With contributions from: Jason Zweig, Gary Antonacci, Morgan Housel, Ben Hunt, Todd Tresidder, Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Meb Faber, David Merkel, Norbert Keimling, Adam Butler, Stan Altshuller, Tom McClellan, Jared Dillian, Raoul Pal, Barry Ritholtz, Ken Fisher, Chris Meredith, Aswath Damodaran, Ben Carlson, Dave Nadig, Josh Brown, Corey Hoffstein, Jason Hsu, Wes Gray, John Reese, Larry Swedroe, Cullen Roche, Jonathan Clements, Michael Kitces, Charlie Bilello, John Mauldin

Investors are tempted daily by misleading or incomplete information. They may make a lucky bet, realize a sizable profit, and find themselves full of confidence. Their next high-stakes gamble might backfire, not only hitting them in the balance sheet but also taking a mental and emotional toll. Even veteran investors can be caught off guard: a news item may suddenly cause havoc for an industry they've invested in; crowd mentality among fellow investors may skew the market; a CEO may turn out to be unprepared to effectively guide a company. How can one stay focused in such a volatile profession? If you can't trust your past successes to plan and predict, how can you avoid risky situations in the future? In Big Money Thinks Small, veteran fund manager Joel Tillinghast shows investors how to avoid making these mistakes. He offers a set of simple but crucial steps to successful investing, including: #65533; Know yourself, how you arrive at decisions, and how you might be susceptible to self-deception. #65533; Make decisions based on your own expertise, and do not invest in what you don't understand. #65533; Select only trustworthy and capable colleagues and collaborators. #65533; Learn how to identify and avoid investments with inherent flaws. #65533; Always search for bargains, and never forget that the first responsibility of an investor is to identify mispriced stocks. Patience and methodical planning will pay far greater dividends than flashy investments. Tillinghast teaches readers how to learn from their mistakes--and his own, giving investors the tools to ask the right questions in any situation and to think objectively and generatively about portfolio management.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The story of the billionaire trader Steven A. Cohen, the rise and fall of his hedge fund, SAC Capital, and the largest insider trading investigation in history--for readers of The Big Short, Den of Thieves, and Dark Money. The rise over the last two decades of a powerful new class of billionaire financiers marks a singular shift in the American economic and political landscape. Their vast reserves of concentrated wealth have allowed a small group of big winners to write their own rules of capitalism and public policy. How did we get here? Through meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling, New Yorker staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar shows how Steve Cohen became one of the richest and most influential figures in finance--and what happened when the Justice Department put him in its crosshairs. Cohen and his fellow pioneers of the hedge fund industry didn't lay railroads, build factories, or invent new technologies. Rather, they made their billions through speculation, by placing bets in the market that turned out to be right more often than wrong--and for this they have gained not only extreme personal wealth but formidable influence throughout society. Hedge funds now manage nearly $3 trillion in assets, and competition between them is so fierce that traders will do whatever they can to get an edge. Cohen was one of the industry's greatest success stories. He mastered poker in high school, went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched SAC Capital, which he built into a $15 billion empire, almost entirely on the basis of his wizardlike stock trading. He cultivated an air of mystery, reclusiveness, and extreme excess, building a 35,000 square foot mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. On Wall Street, Cohen was revered as a genius. That image was shattered when SAC became the target of a sprawling, seven-year government investigation. Labeled by prosecutors as a "magnet for market cheaters" whose culture encouraged the relentless hunt for "edge"--and even "black edge," or inside information--SAC was ultimately indicted in connection with a vast insider trading scheme, even as Cohen himself was never charged. Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the gray zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the U.S. economy. It's a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the government's pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of modern Wall Street. Praise for Black Edge "A modern version of Moby-Dick, with wiretaps rather than harpoons."--Jennifer Senior, The New York Times  "Excellent."--The Economist  "If you liked James B. Stewart's Den of Thieves, Sheelah Kolhatkar's thrilling Black Edge should be next on your reading list."--The Wall Street Journal "A lot of people do not trust Wall Street. They regard it as a moneymaking machine for those who work there, which has little interest in practice in its stated aim of channeling capital into businesses and helping them to grow for the broader benefit of society. For such skeptics, Steven Cohen is Exhibit A."--John Gapper, Financial Times "A richly reported, entertaining tale about the cat-and-mouse game between the government and Cohen."--Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times Book Review 

In 2010, Tim Clark helped create Business Model Generation, a groundbreaking global bestseller on how enterprises deliver value customers. In 2012, Clark and partner Bruce Hazen followed up with Business Model You, pioneering the personal business model technique for individuals. In their new book, Clark and Hazen turn this sights on teams, showing managers how much better their enterprises function when individuals and teams know their role in creating value for customers. Even great leaders face management problems every day. Do we have the right people in the right seats? How do they know what is a priority? Are we making it clear to everyone--across meetings, reports, and projects--how the enterprise creates value, and how each team member fits in? Through case studies, brief exercises and easy-to-follow visuals, Clark and Hazen show how leaders of any group, regardless of size, can help people work independently and passionately toward shared goals without excessive turnover, training, or culture building exercises. While any leader will benefit from Business Model For Teams, it is the ideal book for those confronting big market changes or overseeing new groups of colleagues.

The relentless increase of inequality in twenty-first century America has confounded analysts from both ends of the political spectrum. While many can point to particular contributing causes, so far none of the policies that have been enacted-not just in the United States but in other advancedcountries-have been able to lessen the wealth and income gaps between the top decile and the rest. Critics on the left are more forceful critics of rising inequality, and they tend to blame capitalism and the private sector. Predictably, they see solutions in government action. Many on the right worry about the issue, too, but they come from a position that is more sanguine about corporations andmore suspicious of government. But as the libertarian Brink Lindsey and the liberal Steve Teles argue in The Captured Economy, perhaps all of us-left, right, and center-are looking in the wrong places for culprits and solutions. They hone in on the government-corporate sector nexus, apportioningblame not only to both forces but also to the distorted form of governance that this partnership has created. Through armies of lobbyists, corporations and the wealthy have become remarkably adept at shaping policy - even ostensibly progressive policies - so that the field is tilted in their favor.Corporations have become classic "rentiers," using their monopoly power of influence over highly complicated legislative and regulatory processes to shift resources in their direction. FCC policy, health care regulation, banking regulation, labor policy, defense spending, and much more: in all ofthese arenas, well-resourced corporate rentiers have combined to ensure that the government favors them over everyone else. The perverse result is a state that shifts more and more wealth to the already-rich - even if that was never the initial intent of Congress, the President, or the electorate itself. Transforming this misshapen alliance will be difficult, and Lindsey and Teles are realistic about the chances forreform. To that end, they close with a set of reasonable policy proposals that can help to reduce corporate rentiers' scope and power to extract excessive rents via government policy. A powerful, original, and genuinely counterintuitive interpretation of the forces driving the increase ininequality, The Captured Economy will be necessary reading for anyone concerned about the rising social and economic divisions in contemporary America.

The former top CEO examines the scandalous and corrupt reasons behind obscene pay packages for corporate executives--and explains how this hurts all of us--and how we can stop it.  Today, the pay gap between chief executive officers of major U.S. firms and their workers is higher than ever before--depending on the method of calculation, CEOs get paid between 300 and 700 times more than the average worker. Such outsized pay is a relatively recent phenomenon, but despite all the outrage, few detractors truly understand the numerous factors that have contributed to the dizzying upward spiral in CEO compensation.  Steven Clifford, a former CEO who has also served on many corporate boards, has a name for these procedures and practices-- "The CEO Pay Machine." The CEO Pay Machine is Clifford's thorough and shocking explanation of the 'machine'--how it works, how its parts interact, and how every step pushes CEO pay to higher levels. As Clifford sees it, the payment structure for CEOs begins with shared delusions that reinforce one other: Once this groupthink is accepted as corporate dogma, it becomes infinitely harder to see any decision as potentially irrational or dysfunctional. Yet, as Clifford notes, the Pay Machine has caused immeasurable harm to companies, shareholders, economic growth, and democracy itself. He uses real-life examples of the top four CEOs named the highest paid in 2011 through 2014. Clifford examines how board directors and compensation committees have directly contributed to the rising salaries and bonuses of the country's richest executives; what's more, Clifford argues, each of those companies could have paid their CEOs 90 percent less and performed just as well. Witty and infuriating, The CEO Pay Machine is a thorough and incisive critique of an economic issue that affects all American workers.

A provocative and inspiring case for a more humanistic economics Economists often act as if their methods explain all human behavior. But in Cents and Sensibility, an eminent literary critic and a leading economist make the case that the humanities, especially the study of literature, offer economists ways to make their models more realistic, their predictions more accurate, and their policies more effective and just. Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro trace the connection between Adam Smith's great classic, The Wealth of Nations, and his less celebrated book on The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and contend that a few decades later Jane Austen invented her groundbreaking method of novelistic narration in order to give life to the empathy that Smith believed essential to humanity. Morson and Schapiro argue that Smith's heirs include Austen, Anton Chekhov, and Leo Tolstoy as well as John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman. Economists need a richer appreciation of behavior, ethics, culture, and narrative--all of which the great writers teach better than anyone. Cents and Sensibility demonstrates the benefits of a freewheeling dialogue between economics and the humanities by addressing a wide range of problems drawn from the economics of higher education, the economics of the family, and the development of poor nations. It offers new insights about everything from the manipulation of college rankings to why some countries grow faster than others. At the same time, the book shows how looking at real-world problems can revitalize the study of literature itself. Original, provocative, and inspiring, Cents and Sensibility brings economics back to its place in the human conversation.

Understanding wealth in the United States--who has it, how they acquired it, and how they preserve it--is crucial to addressing the economic and political challenges facing the nation. But until now we have had little reliable information. Edward Wolff, one of the world's great experts on the economics of wealth, offers an authoritative account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of wealth since 1900. A Century of Wealth in America demonstrates that the most remarkable change has been the growth of per capita household wealth, which climbed almost eightfold prior to the 2007 recession. But overlaid on this base rate are worrying trends. The share of personal wealth claimed by the richest one percent almost doubled between the mid-1970s and 2013, concurrent with a steep run-up of debt in the middle class. As the wealth of the average family dropped precipitously--by 44 percent--between 2007 and 2013, with black families hit hardest, the debt-income ratio more than doubled. The Great Recession also caused a sharp spike in asset poverty, as more and more families barely survived from one paycheck to the next. In short, the United States has changed from being one of the most economically equal of the advanced industrialized countries to being one of the most unequal. At a time of deep uncertainty about the future, A Century of Wealth in America provides a sober bedrock of facts and astute analysis. It will become one of the few indispensable resources for contemporary public debate.

Since Alexis de Tocqueville, restlessness has been accepted as a signature American trait. Our willingness to move, take risks, and adapt to change have produced a dynamic economy and a tradition of innovation from Ben Franklin to Steve Jobs. The problem, according to legendary blogger, economist and best selling author Tyler Cowen, is that Americans today have broken from this tradition—we’re working harder than ever toavoid change. We're moving residences less, marrying people more like ourselves and choosing our music and our mates based on algorithms that wall us off from anything that might be too new or too different. Match.com matches us in love. Spotify and Pandora match us in music. Facebook matches us to just about everything else. Of course, this “matching culture” brings tremendous positives: music we like, partners who make us happy, neighbors who want the same things. We’re morecomfortable. But, according to Cowen, there are significant collateral downsides attending this comfort, among them heightened inequality and segregation and decreased incentives to innovate and create. The Complacent Class argues that this cannot go on forever. We are postponing change, due to our near-sightedness and extreme desire for comfort, but ultimately this will make change, when it comes, harder. The forces unleashed by the Great Stagnation will eventually lead to a major fiscal and budgetary crisis: impossibly expensive rentals for our most attractive cities, worsening of residential segregation, and a decline in our work ethic. The only way to avoid this difficult future is for Americans to forcethemselves out of their comfortable slumber—to embrace their restless tradition again.

The essential futures market reference guide A Complete Guide to the Futures Market is the comprehensive resource for futures traders and analysts. Spanning everything from technical analysis, trading systems, and fundamental analysis to options, spreads, and practical trading principles, A Complete Guide is required reading for any trader or investor who wants to successfully navigate the futures market. Clear, concise, and to the point, this fully revised and updated second edition provides a solid foundation in futures market basics, details key analysis and forecasting techniques, explores advanced trading concepts, and illustrates the practical application of these ideas with hundreds of market examples. A Complete Guide to the Futures Market: Details different trading and analytical approaches, including chart analysis, technical indicators and trading systems, regression analysis, and fundamental market models. Separates misleading market myths from reality. Gives step-by-step instruction for developing and testing original trading ideas and systems. Illustrates a wide range of option strategies, and explains the trading implications of each. Details a wealth of practical trading guidelines and market insights from a recognized trading authority. Trading futures without a firm grasp of this market's realities and nuances is a recipe for losing money. A Complete Guide to the Futures Market offers serious traders and investors the tools to keep themselves on the right side of the ledger.

How businesses and other organizations can improve their performance by tapping the power of differences in how people think What if workforce diversity is more than simply the right thing to do in order to make society more integrated and just? What if diversity can also improve the bottom line of businesses and other organizations facing complex challenges in the knowledge economy? It can. And The Diversity Bonus shows how and why. Scott Page, a leading thinker, writer, and speaker whose ideas and advice are sought after by corporations, nonprofits, universities, and governments around the world, makes a clear and compellingly pragmatic case for diversity and inclusion. He presents overwhelming evidence that teams that include different kinds of thinkers outperform homogenous groups on complex tasks, producing what he calls "diversity bonuses." These bonuses include improved problem solving, increased innovation, and more accurate predictions--all of which lead to better performance and results. Page shows that various types of cognitive diversity--differences in how people perceive, encode, analyze, and organize the same information and experiences--are linked to better outcomes. He then describes how these cognitive differences are influenced by other kinds of diversity, including racial and gender differences--in other words, identity diversity. Identity diversity, therefore, can also produce bonuses. Drawing on research in economics, psychology, computer science, and many other fields, The Diversity Bonus also tells the stories of people and organizations that have tapped the power of diversity to solve complex problems. And the book includes a challenging response from Katherine Phillips of the Columbia Business School. The result changes the way we think about diversity in the workplace--and far beyond it.

Why is paying for things painful? Why are we comfortable overpaying for something in the present just because we've overpaid for it in the past? Why is it easy to pay $4 for a soda on vacation, when we wouldn't spend more than $1 on that same soda at our local grocery store? We think of money as numbers, values, and amounts, but when it comes down to it, when we actually use our money, we engage our hearts more than our heads. Emotions play a powerful role in shaping our financial behavior, often making us our own worst enemies as we try to save, access value, and spend responsibly. In Dollars and Sense, bestselling author and behavioral economist Dan Ariely teams up with financial comedian and writer Jeff Kreisler to challenge many of our most basic assumptions about the precarious relationship between our brains and our money. In doing so, they undermine many of personal finance's most sacred beliefs and explain how we can override some of our own instincts to make better financial choices. Exploring a wide range of everyday topics--from the lure of pain-free spending with credit cards to the  pitfalls of household budgeting to the seductive power of holiday sales--Ariely and Kreisler demonstrate how our misplaced confidence in our spending habits frequently leads us astray, costing us more than we realize, whether it's the real value of the time we spend driving forty-five minutes to save $10 or our inability to properly assess what the things we buy are actually worth. Together Ariely and Kreisler reveal the emotional forces working against us and how we can counteract them. Mixing case studies and anecdotes with concrete advice and lessons, they cut through the unconscious fears and desires driving our worst financial instincts and teach us how to improve our money habits. The result not only reveals the rationale behind our most head-scratching financial choices but also offers clear guidance for navigating the treacherous financial landscape of the brain. Fascinating, engaging, funny, and essential, Dollars and Sense provides the practical tools we need to understand and improve our financial choices, save and spend smarter, and ultimately live better.

A computer beats the reigning human champion of Go, a game harder than chess. Another is composing classical music. Labs are creating life-forms from synthetic DNA. A doctor designs an artificial trachea, uses a 3D printer to produce it, and implants it and saves a child's life. Astonishing technological advances like these are arriving in increasing numbers. Scholar and entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa uses this book to alert us to dozens of them and raise important questions about what they may mean for us. Breakthroughs such as personalized genomics, self-driving vehicles, drones, and artificial intelligence could make our lives healthier, safer, and easier. But the same technologies raise the specter of a frightening, alienating future: eugenics, a jobless economy, complete loss of privacy, and ever-worsening economic inequality. As Wadhwa puts it, our choices will determine if our future is Star Trek or Mad Max. Wadhwa offers us three questions to ask about every emerging technology: Does it have the potential to benefit everyone equally? What are its risks and rewards? And does it promote autonomy or dependence? Looking at a broad array of advances in this light, he emphasizes that the future is up to us to create--that even if our hands are not on the wheel, we will decide the driverless car's destination.

From Nobel Prize-winning economist Jean Tirole, a bold new agenda for the role of economics in society When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a "dismal science," is a positive force for the common good. Economists are rewarded for writing technical papers in scholarly journals, not joining in public debates. But Tirole says we urgently need economists to engage with the many challenges facing society, helping to identify our key objectives and the tools needed to meet them. To show how economics can help us realize the common good, Tirole shares his insights on a broad array of questions affecting our everyday lives and the future of our society, including global warming, unemployment, the post-2008 global financial order, the euro crisis, the digital revolution, innovation, and the proper balance between the free market and regulation. Providing a rich account of how economics can benefit everyone, Economics for the Common Good sets a new agenda for the role of economics in society.

The coauthor of the best-selling 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown now gives us a bracing deconstruction of the framework for understanding the world that is learned as gospel in Economics 101, regardless of its imaginary assumptions and misleading half-truths. "Economism": an ideology that distorts the valid principles and tools of Economics 101, propagated by self-styled experts, zealous lobbyists, clueless politicians, and ignorant pundits. In order to illuminate the fallacies of economism, James Kwak first offers a primer on supply and demand, market equilibrium, and social welfare: the underpinnings of most popular economic arguments.  Then he provides a historical account of how economism became a prevalent mode of thought in the United States--focusing on the people who packaged Econ 101 into sound bites that were then repeated until they took on the aura of truth. He shows us how issues of the moment in contemporary American society--labor markets, taxes, finance, health care, macroeconomic management, among others--are shaped by economism, demonstrating in each case with clarity and elan how, because of its failure to reflect the complexities of our world, economism has had a deleterious influence on policies that affect hundreds of millions of Americans.

The only introductory economics text to equip students to address today's pressing problems by mastering the conceptual and quantitative tools of contemporary economics. OUP has partnered with the international collaborative project of CORE researchers and teachers to bring students a book and learning system that complements and enhances CORE's open-access online e-book.The Economy: * is a new approach that integrates recent developments in economics including contract theory, strategic interaction, behavioural economics and financial instability * challenges students to address inequality, climate change, economic instability, wealth creation and innovation and other problems* provides a unified treatment of micro- and macroeconomics * motivates all models and concepts by evidence and real-world applications * uses interactive student-paced model-building * has been adopted as the standard principles course at University College London, Sciences Po Paris and the Toulouse School of Economics A new economics for the principles course The Economy begins with social interactions using elementary game theory and institutions modelled as rules of the game. This provides the basis for a modern treatment of markets including price-making as well as price-taking, the exercise of power, and the importance of social norms and adjustmentto disequilibria. Introducing labour and credit markets with incomplete contracts allows a consistent treatment of aggregate employment and fluctuations without the need for ad hoc sticky price and wage assumptions. Banks create money by extending credit and a central bank seeks to implement a target inflation rate. Growth and instability are illustrated from the Great Depression, through the post-war golden age of capitalism through to the financial crisis and ensuing uncertainties. Students acquire an understanding of the past and current evolution of the economy in its social and environmental context,equipping them to marshal evidence and articulate positions about contemporary policy issues. Pedagogical features * Economist in Action videos by Al Roth, James Heckman, Thomas Piketty, and others give students a glimpse of what economists do and how they engage in real policy questions* How economists learn from facts boxes introduce students to research practice including how to identify causation using experiments and other methods* When economists disagree features engage the student with evidence and controversies * The Read more suggestions direct the reader to resources they can consult to take their learning further* Student-paced interactive diagrams suited to diverse learner capabilities are available within the CORE open access ebook available here: http://www.core-econ.org/* Multiple-choice questions (with explanations of correct and incorrect answers) allow students to self-test their understanding * Great Economists panels showcase a range of influential thinkers who have shaped the path of economics* Definitions explain important terms right where needed* Einsteins provide an opportunity for readers to explore the quantitative aspects of the topics under discussion in more detail* Online Leibniz calculus supplements provide a calculus-based course option, enhancing flexibility of use.The Economy is further augmented by the online learning and assessment tool, Dashboard, making it the complete solution for teaching and learning the principles of economics. Additional support resources for the lecturer include: * Lecture slides plus animated slides of all figures and charts* 250 data sets in Excel for student exercises* Unit by unit guides to teaching* Suggested course structures for standalone micro and macro, and a course for non-majorsThe use of The Economy also brings to lecturers membership of a growing global network of curriculum innovators changing how economics is taught worldwide.

An in-depth look at how to account for the human complexities at the heart of today's financial system Our economy may have recovered from the Great Recession--but not our economics. In The End of Theory, Richard Bookstaber discusses why the human condition and the radical uncertainty of our world renders the standard economic model--and the theory behind it--useless for dealing with financial crises. What model should replace it? None. At least not any version we've been using for the past two hundred years. Instead, Bookstaber argues for a new approach called agent-based economics, one that takes as a starting point the fact that we are humans, not the optimizing automatons that standard economics assumes we are. Bookstaber's groundbreaking paradigm promises to do a far better job at preventing crises and managing those that break out. As he explains, our varied memories and imaginations color our economic behavior in unexpected hues. Agent-based modeling embraces these nuances by avoiding the mechanistic, unrealistic structure of our current economic approach. Bookstaber tackles issues such as radical uncertainty, when circumstances take place beyond our anticipation, and emergence, when innocent, everyday interactions combine to create sudden chaos. Starting with the realization that future crises cannot be predicted by the past, he proposes an approach that recognizes the human narrative while addressing market realities. Sweeping aside the historic failure of twentieth-century economics, The End of Theory offers a novel and innovative perspective, along with a more realistic and human framework, to help prevent today's financial system from blowing up again.

Foreword by Steven Pinker, author of Thr Better Angels of our Nature Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world—provided we ask the right questions. By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information—unprecedented in history—can tell us a great deal about who we are—the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable. Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women? Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.

In the early 2000s, a Wall Street escapee writing a financial column for the Dallas Morning News, Booth attracted attention for her criticism of the Fed's low interest rate policies and her warnings about the housing market. Nobody was more surprised when the head of the Dallas Federal Reserve offered her a job as a financial analyst. Figuring she could have more of an impact on Fed policies from inside, she also observed how the Fed abdicated its responsibility to the people both before and after the financial crisis and how nobody within the Fed seems to have learned from the experience.

Finance for Normal People shows how behavioral finance offers numerous insights into the performance of investors and managers as well as the functioning of markets. Meir Statman, a founder of behavioral finance, provides a unified approach to understanding financial behavior. He draws on his extensive experience and the most insightful research to enhance our awareness about the short-cuts and errors that normal people make in financial decisions and planning.He also emphasizes the importance learning the lessons of behavioral finance and applying them to banish ignorance, gain knowledge, and increase the ratio of smart to stupid behavior on our way to what we want.Behavioral finance is finance for normal people who experience cognitive and emotional errors, including overconfidence, exaggerated fear, and unrealistic hope. Normal people want to beat the market and feel pride they make gains and regret when they make losses. They also care about their familiesand social values. Normal people make important decisions about forming portfolios, saving and spending in working years and retirement, and readily taking gains while being reluctant to realize losses. As a result, normal people's wants and errors affect financial markets.With financial markets uncertain, standard approaches to finance suffer from wide cracks between theory, guidance, and evidence. With ordinary people uneasy about their financial future, Finance for Normal People encourages changing how we think and act in the pursuit of our goals.

Financial Behavior: Players, Services, Products, and Markets provides a synthesis of the theoretical and empirical literature on the financial behavior of major stakeholders, financial services, investment products, and financial markets. The book offers a different way of looking at financialand emotional well-being and processing beliefs, emotions, and behaviors related to money. The book provides important insights about cognitive and emotional biases that influence various financial decision-makers, services, products, and markets. With diverse concepts and topics, the book bringstogether noted scholars and practitioners so readers can gain an in-depth understanding about this topic from experts from around the world.In today's financial setting, the discipline of behavioral finance is an ever-changing area that continues to evolve at a rapid pace. This book takes readers through the core topics and issues as well as the latest trends, cutting-edge research developments, and real-world situations. Additionally,discussion of research on various cognitive and emotional issues is covered throughout the book. Thus, this volume covers a breadth of content from theoretical to practical, while attempting to offer a useful balance of detailed and user-friendly coverage. Those interested in a broad survey willbenefit as will those searching for more in-depth presentations of specific areas within this field of study. As the seventh book in the Financial Markets and Investment Series, Financial Behavior: Players, Services, Products, and Markets offers a fresh looks at the fascinating area of financialbehavior.

What the financial diaries of working-class families reveal about economic stresses, why they happen, and what policies might reduce them Deep within the American Dream lies the belief that hard work and steady saving will ensure a comfortable retirement and a better life for one's children. But in a nation experiencing unprecedented prosperity, even for many families who seem to be doing everything right, this ideal is still out of reach. In The Financial Diaries, Jonathan Morduch and Rachel Schneider draw on the groundbreaking U.S. Financial Diaries, which follow the lives of 235 low- and middle-income families as they navigate through a year. Through the Diaries, Morduch and Schneider challenge popular assumptions about how Americans earn, spend, borrow, and save--and they identify the true causes of distress and inequality for many working Americans. We meet real people, ranging from a casino dealer to a street vendor to a tax preparer, who open up their lives and illustrate a world of financial uncertainty in which even limited financial success requires imaginative--and often costly--coping strategies. Morduch and Schneider detail what families are doing to help themselves and describe new policies and technologies that will improve stability for those who need it most. Combining hard facts with personal stories, The Financial Diaries presents an unparalleled inside look at the economic stresses of today's families and offers powerful, fresh ideas for solving them.

New York Times bestelling author T. R. Reid travels around the world to solve the urgent problem of America's failing tax code, unravelling a complex topic in plain English - and telling a rollicking story along the way.  The U.S. tax code is a total write-off. Crammed with loopholes and special interest provisions, it works for no one except tax lawyers, accountants, and huge corporations. Not for the first time, we have reached a breaking point. That happened in 1922, and again in 1954, and again in 1986. In other words, every thirty-two years. Which means that the next complete overhaul is due in 2018. But what should be in this new tax code? Can we make the U.S. tax system simpler, fairer, and more efficient? Yes, yes, and yes. Can we cut tax rates and still bring in more revenue? Yes.   Other rich countries, from Estonia to New Zealand to the UK--advanced, high-tech, free-market democracies--have all devised tax regimes that are equitable, effective, and easy on the taxpayer.  But the United States has languished. So byzantine are the current statutes that, by our government's own estimates, Americans spend six billion hours and $10 billion every year preparing and filing their taxes. In the Netherlands that task takes a mere fifteen minutes! Successful American companies like Apple, Caterpillar, and Google effectively pay no tax at all in some instances because of loopholes that allow them to move profits offshore. Indeed, the dysfunctional tax system has become a major cause of economic inequality.   In A Fine Mess, T. R. Reid crisscrosses the globe in search of the exact solutions to these urgent problems. With an uncanny knack for making a complex subject not just accessible but gripping, he investigates what makes good taxation (no, that's not an oxymoron) and brings that knowledge home where it is needed most. Never talking down or reflexively siding with either wing of politics, T. R. Reid presses the case for sensible root-and-branch reforms with a companionable ebullience. This affects everyone. Doing our taxes will never be America's favorite pastime, but it can and should be so much easier and fairer.

A groundbreaking intellectual biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential economists The First Serious Optimist is an intellectual biography of the British economist A. C. Pigou (1877-1959), a founder of welfare economics and one of the twentieth century's most important and original thinkers. Though long overshadowed by his intellectual rival John Maynard Keynes, Pigou was instrumental in focusing economics? on the public welfare. And his reputation is experiencing a renaissance today, in part because his idea of "externalities" or spillover costs is the basis of carbon taxes. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, Ian Kumekawa tells how Pigou reshaped the way the public thinks about the economic role of government and the way economists think about the public good. Setting Pigou's ideas in their personal, political, social, and ethical context, the book follows him as he evolved from a liberal Edwardian bon vivant to a reserved but reform-minded economics professor. With World War I, Pigou entered government service, but soon became disenchanted with the state he encountered. As his ideas were challenged in the interwar period, he found himself increasingly alienated from his profession. But with the rise of the Labour Party following World War II, the elderly Pigou re-embraced a mind-set that inspired a colleague to describe him as "the first serious optimist." The story not just of Pigou but also of twentieth-century economics, The First Serious Optimist explores the biographical and historical origins of some of the most important economic ideas of the past hundred years. It is a timely reminder of the ethical roots of economics and the discipline's long history as an active intermediary between the state and the market.

Paul Samuelson was at the heart of a revolution in economics. He was "the foremost academic economist of the 20th century," according to the New York Times, and the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. His work transformed the field of economics and helped give it thetheoretical and mathematic rigor that increased its influence in business and policy making.In Founder of Modern Economics, Roger E. Backhouse explores the central importance of Samuelson's personality and social networks to understanding his intellectual development. This is the first of two volumes covering Samuelson's extended and productive life and career. This volume surveysSamuelson's early years growing up in the Midwest to his experiences at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, where leading scholars in economics and other disciplines stimulated and rewarded his curiosity. His thinking was influenced by the natural sciences and he understood that acritical, scientific approach increased insights into important social and economic questions. He realized that these questions could not be answered through rhetorical debate but required rigor. His "eureka" moment came, he said, when "a good fairy whispered to me that math was a skeleton key tosolve age old problems in economics."Backhouse traces Samuelson's thinking from his early days to the publication of his groundbreaking book Foundations of Economic Analysis and Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which influenced generations of students. His work set the stage for economics to become a more cohesive and coherentdiscipline, based on mathematical techniques that provided surprising insights into many important topics, from business cycles to wage and unemployment rates, and from how competition influences trade to how tax rates affects tax collection. Founder of Modern Economics is a profound contribution to understanding how modern economics developed and the thinking of a revolutionary thinker.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu#65533;tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear#65533;able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine "smart factories" in which global systems of manu#65533;facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history.   He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu#65533;als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future--one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame#65533;works that advance progress.

The United States has always proved an inviting home for boosters, sharp dealers, and outright swindlers. Worship of entrepreneurial freedom has complicated the task of distinguishing aggressive salesmanship from unacceptable deceit, especially on the frontiers of innovation. At the same time, competitive pressures have often nudged respectable firms to embrace deception. As a result, fraud has been a key feature of American business since its beginnings. In this sweeping narrative, Edward Balleisen traces the history of fraud in America--and the evolving efforts to combat it--from the age of P. T. Barnum through the eras of Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. Starting with an early nineteenth-century American legal world of "buyer beware," this unprecedented account describes the slow, piecemeal construction of modern regulatory institutions to protect consumers and investors, from the Gilded Age through the New Deal and the Great Society. It concludes with the more recent era of deregulation, which has brought with it a spate of costly frauds, including the savings and loan crisis, corporate accounting scandals, and the recent mortgage-marketing debacle. By tracing how Americans have struggled to foster a vibrant economy without enabling a corrosive level of fraud, this book reminds us that American capitalism rests on an uneasy foundation of social trust.

A riveting and timely intellectual history of one of our most important capitalist institutions, Harvard Business School, from the bestselling author of The Firm. With The Firm, financial journalist Duff McDonald pulled back the curtain on consulting giant McKinsey & Company. In The Golden Passport, he reveals the inner workings of a singular nexus of power, ambition, and influence: Harvard Business School. Harvard University occupies a unique place in the public’s imagination, but HBS has arguably eclipsed its parent in terms of its influence on modern society. A Harvard degree guarantees respect. An HBS degree is, as the New York Times proclaimed in 1978, "the golden passport to life in the upper class." Those holding Harvard MBAs are near-guaranteed entrance into Western capitalism’s most powerful realm—the corner office. Most people have a vague knowledge of the power of the HBS network, but few understand the dynamics that have made HBS an indestructible and powerful force for almost a century. As McDonald explores these dynamics, he also reveals how, despite HBS’s enormous success, it has failed with respect to the stated goal of its founders: "the multiplication of men who will handle their current business problems in socially constructive ways." While HBS graduates tend to be very good at whatever they do, that is rarely the doing of good. In addition to teasing out the essence of this exclusive, if not necessarily "secret" club, McDonald explores two important questions: Has the school failed at reaching the goals it set for itself? And is HBS therefore complicit in the moral failings of Western capitalism? At a time of pronounced economic disparity and political unrest, this hard-hitting yet fair portrait offers a much-needed look at an institution that has a profound influence on the shape of our society and all our lives.

Between 1820 and 1990, the share of world income going to today's wealthy nations soared from twenty percent to almost seventy. Since then, that share has plummeted to where it was in 1900. As Richard Baldwin explains, this reversal of fortune reflects a new age of globalization that is drastically different from the old. In the 1800s, globalization leaped forward when steam power and international peace lowered the costs of moving goods across borders. This triggered a self-fueling cycle of industrial agglomeration and growth that propelled today's rich nations to dominance. That was the Great Divergence. The new globalization is driven by information technology, which has radically reduced the cost of moving ideas across borders. This has made it practical for multinational firms to move labor-intensive work to developing nations. But to keep the whole manufacturing process in sync, the firms also shipped their marketing, managerial, and technical know-how abroad along with the offshored jobs. The new possibility of combining high tech with low wages propelled the rapid industrialization of a handful of developing nations, the simultaneous deindustrialization of developed nations, and a commodity supercycle that is only now petering out. The result is today's Great Convergence. Because globalization is now driven by fast-paced technological change and the fragmentation of production, its impact is more sudden, more selective, more unpredictable, and more uncontrollable. As The Great Convergence shows, the new globalization presents rich and developing nations alike with unprecedented policy challenges in their efforts to maintain reliable growth and social cohesion.

A controversial look at the end of globalization and what it means for prosperity, peace, and the global economic order Globalization, long considered the best route to economic prosperity, is not inevitable. An approach built on the principles of free trade and, since the 1980s, open capital markets, is beginning to fracture. With disappointing growth rates across the Western world, nations are no longer willing to sacrifice national interests for global growth; nor are their leaders able--or willing--to sell the idea of pursuing a global agenda of prosperity to their citizens.   Combining historical analysis with current affairs, economist Stephen D. King provides a provocative and engaging account of why globalization is being rejected, what a world ruled by rival states with conflicting aims might look like, and how the pursuit of nationalist agendas could result in a race to the bottom. King argues that a rejection of globalization and a return to "autarky" will risk economic and political conflict, and he uses lessons from history to gauge how best to avoid the worst possible outcomes.

How only violence and catastrophes have consistently reduced inequality throughout world history Are mass violence and catastrophes the only forces that can seriously decrease economic inequality? To judge by thousands of years of history, the answer is yes. Tracing the global history of inequality from the Stone Age to today, Walter Scheidel shows that inequality never dies peacefully. Inequality declines when carnage and disaster strike and increases when peace and stability return. The Great Leveler is the first book to chart the crucial role of violent shocks in reducing inequality over the full sweep of human history around the world. Ever since humans began to farm, herd livestock, and pass on their assets to future generations, economic inequality has been a defining feature of civilization. Over thousands of years, only violent events have significantly lessened inequality. The "Four Horsemen" of leveling--mass-mobilization warfare, transformative revolutions, state collapse, and catastrophic plagues--have repeatedly destroyed the fortunes of the rich. Scheidel identifies and examines these processes, from the crises of the earliest civilizations to the cataclysmic world wars and communist revolutions of the twentieth century. Today, the violence that reduced inequality in the past seems to have diminished, and that is a good thing. But it casts serious doubt on the prospects for a more equal future. An essential contribution to the debate about inequality, The Great Leveler provides important new insights about why inequality is so persistent--and why it is unlikely to decline anytime soon.

Why do black families own less than white families? Why does school segregation persist decades after Brown v. Board of Education? Why is it harder for black adults to vote than for white adults? Will addressing economic inequality solve racial and gender inequality as well? This book answers all of these questions and more by revealing the hidden rules of race that create barriers to inclusion today. While many Americans are familiar with the histories of slavery and Jim Crow, we often don't understand how the rules of those eras undergird today's economy, reproducing the same racial inequities 150 years after the end of slavery and 50 years after the banning of Jim Crow segregation laws. This book shows how the fight for racial equity has been one of progress and retrenchment, a constant push and pull for inclusion over exclusion. By understanding how our economic and racial rules work together, we can write better rules to finally address inequality in America.

From the ancients to the moderns, questions of economic theory and policy have been an important part of intellectual and public debate, engaging the attention of some of history's greatest minds. This book brings together readings from more than two thousand years of writings on economic subjects. Through these selections, the reader can see first-hand how the great minds of past grappled with some of the central social and economic issues of their times and, in the process, enhanced our understanding of how economic systems function. This collection of readings covers the major themes that have preoccupied economic thinkers throughout the ages, including price determination and the underpinnings of the market system, monetary theory and policy, international trade and finance, income distribution, and the appropriate role for government within the economic system. These ideas unfold, develop, and change course over time at the hands of scholars such as Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Fran#65533;ois Quesnay, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Alfred Marshall, Irving Fisher, Thorstein Veblen, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Paul Samuelson. Each reading has been selected with a view to both enlightening the reader as to the major contributions of the author in question and to giving the reader a broad view of the development of economic thought and analysis over time. This book will be useful for students, scholars, and lay people with an interest in the history of economic thought and the history of ideas generally.

In this absorbing, smart, and accessible blend of economic and cultural history, Scott Nations, a longtime trader, financial engineer, and CNBC contributor, takes us on a journey through the five significant stock market crashes in the past century to reveal how they defined the United States today The Panic of 1907: When the Knickerbocker Trust Company failed, after a brazen attempt to manipulate the stock market led to a disastrous run on the banks, the Dow lost nearly half its value in weeks. Only billionaire J.P. Morgan was able to save the stock market. Black Tuesday (1929): As the newly created Federal Reserve System repeatedly adjusted interest rates in all the wrong ways, investment trusts, the darlings of that decade, became the catalyst that caused the bubble to burst, and the Dow fell dramatically, leading swiftly to the Great Depression. Black Monday (1987): When "portfolio insurance," a new tool meant to protect investments, instead led to increased losses, and corporate raiders drove stock prices above their real values, the Dow dropped an astonishing 22.6 percent in one day. The Great Recession (2008): As homeowners began defaulting on mortgages, investment portfolios that contained them collapsed, bringing the nation's largest banks, much of the economy, and the stock market down with them. The Flash Crash (2010): When one investment manager, using a runaway computer algorithm that was dangerously unstable and poorly understood, reacted to the economic turmoil in Greece, the stock market took an unprecedentedly sudden plunge, with the Dow shedding 998.5 points (roughly a trillion dollars in valuation) in just minutes. The stories behind the great crashes are filled with drama, human foibles, and heroic rescues. Taken together they tell the larger story of a nation reaching enormous heights of financial power while experiencing precipitous dips that alter and reset a market where millions of Americans invest their savings, and on which they depend for their futures. Scott Nations vividly shows how each of these major crashes played a role in America's political and cultural fabric, each providing painful lessons that have strengthened us and helped us to build the nation we know today. A History of the United States in Five Crashes clearly and compellingly illustrates the connections between these major financial collapses and examines the solid, clear-cut lessons they offer for preventing the next one.

"This book picks up where The Tipping Point left off." -- Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE Nothing "goes viral." If you think a popular movie, song, or app came out of nowhere to become a word-of-mouth success in today's crowded media environment, you're missing the real story. Each blockbuster has a secret history--of power, influence, dark broadcasters, and passionate cults that turn some new products into cultural phenomena. Even the most brilliant ideas wither in obscurity if they fail to connect with the right network, and the consumers that matter most aren't the early adopters, but rather their friends, followers, and imitators -- the audience of your audience. In his groundbreaking investigation, Atlantic senior editor Derek Thompson uncovers the hidden psychology of why we like what we like and reveals the economics of cultural markets that invisibly shape our lives. Shattering the sentimental myths of hit-making that dominate pop culture and business, Thompson shows quality is insufficient for success, nobody has "good taste," and some of the most popular products in history were one bad break away from utter failure. It may be a new world, but there are some enduring truths to what audiences and consumers want. People love a familiar surprise: a product that is bold, yet sneakily recognizable. Every business, every artist, every person looking to promote themselves and their work wants to know what makes some works so successful while others disappear. Hit Makers is a magical mystery tour through the last century of pop culture blockbusters and the most valuable currency of the twenty-first century--people's attention. From the dawn of impressionist art to the future of Facebook, from small Etsy designers to the origin of Star Wars, Derek Thompson leaves no pet rock unturned to tell the fascinating story of how culture happens and why things become popular.   In Hit Makers, Derek Thompson investigates: #65533;       The secret link between ESPN's sticky programming and the The Weeknd's catchy choruses #65533;       Why Facebook is the world's most important modern newspaper #65533;       How advertising critics predicted Donald Trump #65533;       The 5th grader who accidentally launched "Rock Around the Clock," the biggest hit in rock and roll history #65533;       How Barack Obama and his speechwriters think of themselves as songwriters #65533;       How Disney conquered the world--but the future of hits belongs to savvy amateurs and individuals #65533;       The French collector who accidentally created the Impressionist canon #65533;       Quantitative evidence that the biggest music hits aren't always the best #65533;       Why almost all Hollywood blockbusters are sequels, reboots, and adaptations #65533;       Why one year--1991--is responsible for the way pop music sounds today #65533;       Why another year --1932--created the business model of film #65533;       How data scientists proved that "going viral" is a myth #65533;       How 19th century immigration patterns explain the most heard song in the Western Hemisphere

"At the core, Hit Refresh, is about us humans and the unique quality we call empathy, which will become ever more valuable in a world where the torrent of technology will disrupt the status quo like never before." - Satya Nadella from Hit Refresh "Satya has charted a course for making the most of the opportunities created by technology while also facing up to the hard questions." - Bill Gates from the Foreword of Hit Refresh Hit Refresh is about individual change, about the transformation happening inside of Microsoft and the technology that will soon impact all of our lives--the arrival of the most exciting and disruptive wave of technology humankind has experienced: artificial intelligence, mixed reality, and quantum computing. It's about how people, organizations, and societies can and must transform and "hit refresh" in their persistent quest for new energy, new ideas, and continued relevance and renewal.  Microsoft's CEO tells the inside story of the company's continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era. Satya Nadella explores a fascinating childhood before immigrating to the U.S. and how he learned to lead along the way. He then shares his meditations as a sitting CEO--one who is mostly unknown following the brainy Bill Gates and energetic Steve Ballmer. He tells the inside story of how a company rediscovered its soul--transforming everything from culture to their fiercely competitive landscape and industry partnerships. As much a humanist as engineer and executive, Nadella concludes with his vision for the coming wave of technology and by exploring the potential impact to society and delivering call to action for world leaders. "Ideas excite me," Nadella explains. "Empathy grounds and centers me." Hit Refresh is a set of reflections, meditations, and recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement--for himself, for a storied company, and for society.

"One of the most mesmerizing and important books I've read in quite some time. Alter brilliantly illuminates the new obsessions that are controlling our lives and offers the tools we need to rescue our businesses, our families, and our sanity." --Adam Grant, New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction--an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.   In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today's products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.   By reverse engineering behavioral addiction, Alter explains how we can harness addictive products for the good--to improve how we communicate with each other, spend and save our money, and set boundaries between work and play--and how we can mitigate their most damaging effects on our well-being, and the health and happiness of our children. Adam Alter's previous book, Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces that Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave is available in paperback from Penguin.

"The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom." --Steven Pinker We all think we know more than we actually do.   Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don't even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We're constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact--and usually we don't even realize we're doing it.   The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individually oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. This book contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the world around us.

A new, gripping history of America—told through the executives, bankers, farmers, and politicians who paved the way from colonial times to the present—reveals that this country was founded as much on the search for wealth and prosperity as the desire for freedom. The Land of Enterprise charts the development of American business from the colonial period to the present. It explores the nation’s evolving economic, social, and political landscape by examining how different types of enterprising activities rose and fell, how new labor and production technologies supplanted old ones—and at what costs—and how Americans of all stripes responded to the tumultuous world of business. In particular, historian Benjamin Waterhouse highlights the changes in business practices, the development of different industries and sectors, and the complex relationship between business and national politics. From executives and bankers to farmers and sailors, from union leaders to politicians to slaves, business history is American history, and Waterhouse pays tribute to the unnamed millions who traded their labor (sometimes by choice, often not) or decided what products to consume (sometimes informed, often not). Their story includes those who fought against what they saw as an oppressive system of exploitation as well as those who defended free markets from any outside intervention. The Land of Enterprise is not only a comprehensive look into our past achievements, but offers clues as to how to confront the challenges of today’s world: globalization, income inequality, and technological change.

The best-selling investing "bible" offers new information, new insights, and new perspectives The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is the classic guide to getting smart about the market. Legendary mutual fund  pioneer John C. Bogle reveals his key to getting more out of investing: low-cost index funds. Bogle describes the simplest and most effective investment strategy for building wealth over the long term: buy and hold, at very low cost, a mutual fund that tracks a broad stock market Index such as the S&P 500. While the stock market has tumbled and then soared since the first edition of Little Book of Common Sense was published in April 2007, Bogle's investment principles have endured and served investors well.  This tenth anniversary edition includes updated data and new information but maintains the same long-term perspective as in its predecessor.  Bogle has also added two new chapters designed to provide further guidance to investors:  one on asset allocation, the other on retirement investing. A portfolio focused on index funds is the only investment that effectively guarantees your fair share of stock market returns. This strategy is favored by Warren Buffett, who said this about Bogle: "If a statue is ever erected to honor the person who has done the most for American investors, the hands-down choice should be Jack Bogle. For decades, Jack has urged investors to invest in ultra-low-cost index funds. . . . Today, however, he has the satisfaction of knowing that he helped millions of investors realize far better returns on their savings than they otherwise would have earned. He is a hero to them and to me." Bogle shows you how to make index investing work for you and help you achieve your financial goals, and finds support from some of the world's best financial minds: not only Warren Buffett, but Benjamin Graham, Paul Samuelson, Burton Malkiel, Yale's David Swensen, Cliff Asness of AQR, and many others. This new edition of The Little Book of Common Sense Investing offers you the same solid strategy as its predecessor for building your financial future. Build a broadly diversified, low-cost portfolio without the risks of individual stocks, manager selection, or sector rotation. Forget the fads and marketing hype, and focus on what works in the real world. Understand that stock returns are generated by three sources (dividend yield, earnings growth, and change in market valuation) in order to establish rational expectations for stock returns over the coming decade. Recognize that in the long run, business reality  trumps market expectations. Learn how to harness the magic of compounding returns while avoiding the tyranny of compounding costs. While index investing allows you to sit back and let the market do the work for you, too many investors trade frantically, turning a winner's game into a loser's game. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is a solid guidebook to your financial future.

A lively, inviting account of the history of economics, told through events from ancient to modern times and the ideas of great thinkers in the field What causes poverty? Are economic crises inevitable under capitalism? Is government intervention in an economy a helpful approach or a disastrous idea? The answers to such basic economic questions matter to everyone, yet the unfamiliar jargon and math of economics can seem daunting. This clear, accessible, and even humorous book is ideal for young readers new to economics and for all readers who seek a better understanding of the full sweep of economic history and ideas. Economic historian Niall Kishtainy organizes short, chronological chapters that center on big ideas and events. He recounts the contributions of key thinkers including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and others, while examining topics ranging from the invention of money and the rise of agrarianism to the Great Depression, entrepreneurship, environmental destruction, inequality, and behavioral economics. The result is a uniquely enjoyable volume that succeeds in illuminating the economic ideas and forces that shape our world.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER *  A revelatory journey inside the world of Fox News and Roger Ailes--the brash, sometimes combative network head who helped fuel the rise of Donald Trump When Rupert Murdoch enlisted Roger Ailes to launch a cable news network in 1996, American politics and media changed forever. With a remarkable level of detail and insight, New York magazine reporter Gabriel Sherman puts Ailes's unique genius on display, along with the outsize personalities--Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Megyn Kelly, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Gretchen Carlson, and others--who have helped Fox News play a defining role in the great social and political controversies of the past two decades. From the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal to the Bush-Gore recount, from the war in Iraq to the Tea Party attack on the Obama presidency, Roger Ailes developed an unrivaled power to sway the national agenda. Even more, he became the indispensable figure in conservative America and the man any Republican politician with presidential aspirations had to court. How did this man become the master strategist of our political landscape? In revelatory detail, Sherman chronicles the rise of Ailes, a frail kid from an Ohio factory town who, through sheer willpower, the flair of a showman, fierce corporate politicking, and a profound understanding of the priorities of middle America, built the most influential television news empire of our time. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with Fox News insiders past and present, Sherman documents Ailes's tactical acuity as he battled the press, business rivals, and countless real and perceived enemies inside and outside Fox. Sherman takes us inside the morning meetings in which Ailes and other high-level executives strategized Fox's presentation of the news to advance Ailes's political agenda; provides behind-the-scenes details of Ailes's crucial role as finder and shaper of talent, including his sometimes rocky relationships with Fox News stars such as O'Reilly, Hannity, and Carlson; and probes Ailes's fraught partnership with his equally brash and mercurial boss, Rupert Murdoch.   Roger Ailes's life is a story worthy of Citizen Kane. Featuring a new afterword about Ailes's epic downfall during the extraordinary 2016 election, The Loudest Voice in the Room is an extraordinary feat of reportage with a compelling human drama at its heart. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR "[An] actually fair and balanced, carefully documented biography."--Jacob Weisberg, The New York Times Book Review "The book excels at compiling data establishing Ailes's control freakishness and authoritarian nature. . . . A veteran of the New York media-reporting scene, Sherman nails the Fox News palace intrigue and brings to light interactions that Ailes clearly never wanted to go public."--Erik Wemple, The Washington Post "[An] enormously entertaining new biography."--The New Republic "A thoroughly reported look behind that curtain . . . Part of the reason [Ailes] and his allies have campaigned against the book is not because it is false, but because it tells a true story."--David Carr, The New York Times "Sherman is at his best writing with sweep about the history of cable news and placing Ailes in context."--Los Angeles Times

We live in strange times. A machine plays the strategy game Go better than any human; upstarts like Apple and Google destroy industry stalwarts such as Nokia; ideas from the crowd are repeatedly more innovative than corporate research labs.MIT's Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson know what it takes to master this digital-powered shift: we must rethink the integration of minds and machines, of products and platforms, and of the core and the crowd. In all three cases, the balance now favors the second element of the pair, with massive implications for how we run our companies and live our lives.In the tradition of agenda-setting classics like Clay Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, McAfee and Brynjolfsson deliver both a penetrating analysis of a new world and a toolkit for thriving in it. For startups and established businesses, or for anyone interested in what the future holds, Machine, Platform, Crowd is essential reading.

The incredible true story of the card-counting mathematics professor who taught the world how to beat the dealer and, as the first of the great quantitative investors, ushered in a revolution on Wall Street.   A child of the Great Depression, legendary mathematician Edward O. Thorp invented card counting, proving that you could do the seemingly impossible--beat the dealer at the blackjack table--and in doing so launched a gambling renaissance. His remarkable success--and mathematically unassailable method--caused such an uproar that the casinos altered the rules of the game to thwart him and the legions he inspired. They barred him from their premises, instituted new rules, and put his life in jeopardy. Nonetheless gambling was forever changed.   Thereafter, Thorp shifted his sights to "the biggest casino in the world": Wall Street. Devising and then deploying mathematical formulas to beat the market, Thorp ushered in the era of quantitative finance that we live in today. Along the way, the so-called godfather of the quants played bridge with Warren Buffett, crossed swords with a young Rudolph Giuliani, detected the Bernie Madoff scheme, and invented, with Claude Shannon, the world's first wearable computer to successfully beat the game of roulette.   Here, for the first time, Thorp tells the story of what he did, how he did it, his passions and motivations, and the curiosity that has always driven him to disregard conventional wisdom and devise game-changing solutions to seemingly insoluble problems. An intellectual thrill ride, replete with practical wisdom that can guide us all in uncertain financial waters, A Man for All Markets is an instant classic--a book that challenges its readers to think logically about a seemingly irrational world.

Explore the deadly elegance of finance's hidden powerhouse The Money Formula takes you inside the engine room of the global economy to explore the little-understood world of quantitative finance, and show how the future of our economy rests on the backs of this all-but-impenetrable industry. Written not from a post-crisis perspective ? but from a preventative point of view ? this book traces the development of financial derivatives from bonds to credit default swaps, and shows how mathematical formulas went beyond pricing to expand their use to the point where they dwarfed the real economy. You'll learn how the deadly allure of their ice-cold beauty has misled generations of economists and investors, and how continued reliance on these formulas can either assist future economic development, or send the global economy into the financial equivalent of a cardiac arrest. Rather than rehash tales of post-crisis fallout, this book focuses on preventing the next one. By exploring the heart of the shadow economy, you'll be better prepared to ride the rough waves of finance into the turbulent future. Delve into one of the world's least-understood but highest-impact industries Understand the key principles of quantitative finance and the evolution of the field Learn what quantitative finance has become, and how it affects us all Discover how the industry's next steps dictate the economy's future How do you create a quadrillion dollars out of nothing, blow it away and leave a hole so large that even years of "quantitative easing" can't fill it ? and then go back to doing the same thing? Even amidst global recovery, the financial system still has the potential to seize up at any moment. The Money Formula explores the how and why of financial disaster, what must happen to prevent the next one.

Born out of crisis a century ago, the Federal Reserve has become the most powerful macroeconomic policymaker and financial regulator in the world. The Myth of Independence traces the Fed's transformation from a weak, secretive, and decentralized institution in 1913 to a remarkably transparent central bank a century later. Offering a unique account of Congress's role in steering this evolution, Sarah Binder and Mark Spindel explore the Fed's past, present, and future and challenge the myth of its independence. Binder and Spindel argue that recurring cycles of crisis, blame, and reform propelled lawmakers to create and revamp the powers and governance of the Fed at critical junctures, including the Panic of 1907, the Great Depression, the postwar Treasury-Fed Accord, the inflationary episode of the 1970s, and the recent financial crisis. Marshaling archival sources, interviews, and statistical analyses, the authors pinpoint political and economic dynamics that shaped interactions between the legislature and the Fed, and that have generated a far stronger central bank than anticipated at its founding. The Fed today retains its unique federal style, diluting the ability of lawmakers and the president to completely centralize control of monetary policy. In the long wake of the financial crisis, with economic prospects decidedly subpar, partisan rivals in Congress seem poised to continue battling over the Fed's statutory mandates and the powers given to achieve them. Examining the interdependent relationship between America's Congress and its central bank, The Myth of Independence presents critical insights about the future of monetary and fiscal policies that drive the nation's economy.

The world of money is being transformed as households and organizations face changing economies, and new currencies and payment systems like Bitcoin and Apple Pay gain ground. What is money, and how do we make sense of it? Money Talks is the first book to offer a wide range of alternative and unexpected explanations of how social relations, emotions, moral concerns, and institutions shape how we create, mark, and use money. This collection brings together a stellar group of international experts from multiple disciplines--sociology, economics, history, law, anthropology, political science, and philosophy--to propose fresh explanations for money's origins, uses, effects, and future. Money Talks explores five key questions: How do social relationships, emotions, and morals shape how people account for and use their money? How do corporations infuse social meaning into their financing and investment practices? What are the historical, political, and social foundations of currencies? When does money become contested, and are there things money shouldn't buy? What is the impact of the new twenty-first-century currencies on our social relations? At a time of growing concern over financial inequality, Money Talks overturns conventional views about money by revealing its profound social potential.

How can a company that has never turned a profit have a multibillion dollar valuation? Why do some start-ups attract large investments while others do not? Aswath Damodaran, finance professor and experienced investor, argues that the power of story drives corporate value, adding substance to numbers and persuading even cautious investors to take risks. In business, there are the storytellers who spin compelling narratives and the number-crunchers who construct meaningful models and accounts. Both are essential to success, but only by combining the two, Damodaran argues, can a business deliver and sustain value. Through a range of case studies, Narrative and Numbers describes how storytellers can better incorporate and narrate numbers and how number-crunchers can calculate more imaginative models that withstand scrutiny. Damodaran considers Uber's debut and how narrative is key to understanding different valuations. He investigates why Twitter and Facebook were valued in the billions of dollars at their public offerings, and why one (Twitter) has stagnated while the other (Facebook) has grown. Damodaran also looks at more established business models such as Apple and Amazon to demonstrate how a company's history can both enrich and constrain its narrative. And through Vale, a global Brazil-based mining company, he shows the influence of external narrative, and how country, commodity, and currency can shape a company's story. Narrative and Numbers reveals the benefits, challenges, and pitfalls of weaving narratives around numbers and how one can best test a story's plausibility.

** Grand Prize Winner of the 2017 Nautilus Book Award ** Are you struggling to deal with conflict in your life? In Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, Harvard negotiation expert Daniel Shapiro introduces a groundbreaking method to bridge the toughest divides--whether with family members, colleagues, or in the polarized world of politics. He reveals the hidden power of identity in fueling conflict, and presents a practical framework to reconcile even the most contentious situations.  Field-tested around the world, the results are empowering.

In The Charisma Myth, Olivia Fox Cabane offered a groundbreaking approach to becoming more charismatic. Now she teams up with Judah Pollack to reveal how anyone can train their brain to have more eureka insights. The creative mode in your brain is like a butterfly. It's beautiful and erratic, hard to catch and highly valued as a result. If you want to capture it, you need a net. Enter the executive mode, the task-oriented network in your brain that help you tie your shoes, run a meeting, or pitch a client. To succeed, you need both modes to work together--your inner butterfly to be active and free, but your inner net to be ready to spring at the right time and create that "aha!" moment. But is there any way to trigger these insights, beyond dumb luck? Thanks to recent neuroscience discoveries, we can now explain these breakthrough moments--and also induce them through a series of specific practices. It turns out there's a hidden pattern to all these seemingly random breakthrough ideas. From Achimedes' iconic moment in the bathtub to designer Adam Cheyer's idea for Siri, accidental breakthroughs throughout history share a common origin story. In this book, you will learn to master the skills that will transform your brain into a consistent generator of insights. Drawing on their extensive coaching and training practice with top Silicon Valley firms, Cabane and Pollack provide a step-by-step process for accessing the part of the brain that produces breakthroughs and systematically removing internal blocks. Their tactics range from simple to zany, such as- A Imagine an alternate universe where gravity doesn't exist, and the social and legal rules thatagovern it. A Map Disney's Pocahontas story onto James Cameron's Avatar. A Rid yourself of imposter syndrome through mental exercises. A Literally change your perspective by climbing a tree. A Stimulate your butterfly mode by watching a foreign film without subtitles. By trying the exercises in this book, readers will emerge with a powerful new capacity for breakthrough thinking.

A Wall Street Journal and Washington Post Bestseller, Own It is a new kind of career playbook for a new era of feminism, offering women a new set of rules for professional success: one that plays to their strengths and builds on the power they already have. Weren't women supposed to have "arrived"? Perhaps with the nation's first female President, equal pay on the horizon, true diversity in the workplace to come thereafter? Or, at least the end of "fat-shaming" and "locker room talk"?    Well, we aren't quite there yet. But does that mean that progress for women in business has come to a screeching halt?  It's true that the old rules didn't get us as far as we hoped. But we can go the distance, and we can close the gaps that still exist. We just need a new way.   In fact, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the future, says former Wall Street powerhouse-turned-entrepreneur Sallie Krawcheck.  That's because the business world is changing fast -driven largely by technology - and it's changing in ways that give us more power and opportunities than ever...and even more than we yet realize.     Success for professional women will no longer be about trying to compete at the men's version of the game, she says. And it will no longer be about contorting ourselves to men's expectations of how powerful people behave. Instead, it's about embracing and investing in our innate strengths as women - and bringing them proudly and unapologetically, to work.   When we do, she says, we gain the power to advance in our careers in more natural ways. We gain the power to initiate courageous conversations in the workplace. We gain the power to forge non-traditional career paths; to leave companies that don't respect our worth, and instead, go start our own. And we gain the power to invest our economic muscle in making our lives, and the world, better.   Here Krawcheck draws on her experiences at the highest levels of business, both as one of the few women at the top rungs of the biggest boy's club in the world, and as an entrepreneur, to show women how to seize this seismic shift in power to take their careers to the next level.   This change is real, and it's coming fast. It's time to own it.

What makes WiFi faster at home than at a coffee shop? How does Google order search results? Why do Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube use fundamentally different rating and recommendation methods--and why does it matter? Is it really true that everyone on Facebook is connected in six steps or less? And how do cat videos--or anything else--go viral? The Power of Networks answers questions like these for the first time in a way that all of us can understand and use, whether at home, the office, or school. Using simple language, analogies, stories, hundreds of illustrations, and no more math than simple addition and multiplication, Christopher Brinton and Mung Chiang provide a smart but accessible introduction to the handful of big ideas that drive the technical and social networks we use every day--from cellular phone networks and cloud computing to the Internet and social media platforms. The Power of Networks unifies these ideas through six fundamental principles of networking, which explain the difficulties in sharing network resources efficiently, how crowds can be wise or not so wise depending on the nature of their connections, how there are many building-blocks of layers in a network, and more. Understanding these simple ideas unlocks the workings of everything from the connections we make on Facebook to the technology that runs such platforms. Along the way, the authors also talk with and share the special insights of renowned experts such as Google's Eric Schmidt, former Verizon Wireless CEO Dennis Strigl, and "fathers of the Internet" Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. Networks are everywhere. The Power of Networks shows how they work--and what understanding them can do for you.

In this bold history and manifesto, a former White House director of economic policy exposes the economic, political, and cultural cracks that wealthy nations face and makes the case for transforming those same vulnerabilities into sources of strength--and the foundation of a national renewal. America and other developed countries, including Germany, Japan, France, and Great Britain are in desperate straits. The loss of community, a contracting jobs market, immigration fears, rising globalization, and poisonous partisanship--the adverse price of unprecedented prosperity--are pushing these nations to the brink. Acclaimed author, economist, hedge fund manager, and presidential advisor Todd G. Buchholz argues that without a sense of common purpose and shared identity, nations can collapse. The signs are everywhere: Reckless financial markets encourage people to gamble with other people's money. A coddling educational culture removes the stigma of underachievement. Community traditions such as American Legion cookouts and patriotic parades are derided as corny or jingoistic. Newcomers are watched with suspicion and contempt. As Buchholz makes clear, the United States is not the first country to suffer these fissures. In The Price of Prosperity he examines the fates of previous empires--those that have fallen as well as those extricated from near-collapse and the ruins of war thanks to the vision and efforts of strong leaders. He then identifies what great leaders do to fend off the forces that tear nations apart. Is the loss of empire inevitable? No. Can a community spirit be restored in the U.S. and in Europe? The answer is a resounding yes. We cannot retrieve the jobs of our grandparents, but we can embrace uniquely American traditions, while building new foundations for growth and change. Buchholz offers a roadmap to recovery, and calls for a revival of national pride and patriotism to help us come together once again to protect the nation and ensure our future.

Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments--and why we can't see it One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number probably would be even higher if we recognized most employers for what they are--private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives, on duty and off. We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more--and far more obtrusively--by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free--and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses. In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to workers' off-duty lives. Workers can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. Yet we continue to talk as if early advocates of market society--from John Locke and Adam Smith to Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln--were right when they argued that it would free workers from oppressive authorities. That dream was shattered by the Industrial Revolution, but the myth endures. Private Government offers a better way to talk about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom. Based on the prestigious Tanner Lectures delivered at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, Private Government is edited and introduced by Stephen Macedo and includes commentary by cultural critic David Bromwich, economist Tyler Cowen, historian Ann Hughes, and philosopher Niko Kolodny.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, economists around the world have advanced theories to explain the persistence of high unemployment and low growth rates. According to Roger E. A. Farmer, these theories can be divided into two leading schools of thought: the ideas of pre-Keynesian scholars who blame the recession on bad economic policy, and the suggestions of "New Keynesian" scholars who propose standard modifications to select assumptions of Keynes' General Theory. But Farmer eschews both these schools of thought, arguing instead that in order to mitigate current financial crises-and prevent future ones-macroeconomic theory must become attuned to present-day conditions. Governments need to intervene in asset markets in a manner similar to the recent behavior of central banks, and principal actors in the international economy need to pursue financial stability. The primary mechanism for securing such stability would be for sovereign nations to create sovereign wealth funds backed by the present value of future tax revenues. These funds would function along the lines in which exchange-traded funds currently operate, and in time, they would become the backbone for stabilizing financial markets. Written in clear, accessible language by a prominent macroeconomic theorist, Prosperity for All proposes a paradigm shift and policy changes that could successfully raise employment rates, keep inflation at bay, and stimulate growth.

The Great Crash of 1929 profoundly disrupted the United States' confident march toward becoming the world's superpower. The breakneck growth of 1920s America--with its boom in automobiles, electricity, credit lines, radio, and movies--certainly presaged a serious recession by the decade's end, but not a depression. The totality of the collapse shocked the nation, and its duration scarred generations to come. In this lucid and fast-paced account of the cataclysm, award-winning writer Charles R. Morris pulls together the intricate threads of policy, ideology, international hatreds, and sheer individual cantankerousness that finally pushed the world economy over the brink and into a depression. While Morris anchors his narrative in the United States, he also fully investigates the poisonous political atmosphere of postwar Europe to reveal how treacherous the environment of the global economy was. It took heroic financial mismanagement, a glut-induced global collapse in agricultural prices, and a self-inflicted crash in world trade to cause the Great Depression. Deeply researched and vividly told, A Rabble of Dead Money anatomizes history's greatest economic catastrophe--while noting the uncanny echoes for the present.

A surprising and revealing look at what Americans really believe about taxes Conventional wisdom holds that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. Bringing together national survey data with in-depth interviews, Read My Lips presents a surprising picture of tax attitudes in the United States. Vanessa Williamson demonstrates that Americans view taxpaying as a civic responsibility and a moral obligation. But they worry that others are shirking their duties, in part because the experience of taxpaying misleads Americans about who pays taxes and how much. Perceived "loopholes" convince many income tax filers that a flat tax might actually raise taxes on the rich, and the relative invisibility of the sales and payroll taxes encourages many to underestimate the sizable tax contributions made by poor and working people. Americans see being a taxpayer as a role worthy of pride and respect, a sign that one is a contributing member of the community and the nation. For this reason, the belief that many Americans are not paying their share is deeply corrosive to the social fabric. The widespread misperception that immigrants, the poor, and working-class families pay little or no taxes substantially reduces public support for progressive spending programs and undercuts the political standing of low-income people. At the same time, the belief that the wealthy pay less than their share diminishes confidence that the political process represents most people. Upending the idea of Americans as knee-jerk opponents of taxes, Read My Lips examines American taxpaying as an act of political faith. Ironically, the depth of the American civic commitment to taxpaying makes the failures of the tax system, perceived and real, especially potent frustrations.

A leading behavioral economist reveals the tools that will improve our decision making on screens Office workers spend the majority of their waking hours staring at screens. Unfortunately, few of us are aware of the visual biases and behavioral patterns that influence our thinking when we're on our laptops, iPads, smartphones, or smartwatches. The sheer volume of information and choices available online, combined with the ease of tapping "buy," often make for poor decision making on screens. In The Smarter Screen, behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi reveals a tool kit of interventions for the digital age. Using engaging reader exercises and provocative case studies, Benartzi shows how digital designs can influence our decision making on screens in all sorts of surprising ways. For example:  * You're more likely to add bacon to your pizza if you order online.  * If you read this book on a screen, you're less likely to remember its content.  * You might buy an item just because it's located in a screen hot spot, even if better options are available.  * If you shop using a touch screen, you'll probably overvalue the product you're considering.  * You're more likely to remember a factoid like this one if it's displayed in an ugly, difficult-to-read font.  Drawing on the latest research on digital nudging, Benartzi reveals how we can create an online world that helps us think better, not worse.

Society and Economy--a work of exceptional ambition by the founder of modern economic sociology--is the first full account of Mark Granovetter's ideas about the diverse ways in which society and economy are intertwined. The economy is not a sphere separate from other human activities, Granovetter writes. It is deeply embedded in social relations and subject to the same emotions, ideas, and constraints as religion, science, politics, or law. While some actions can be understood in traditional economic terms as people working rationally toward well-defined ends, much human behavior is harder to fit into that simple framework. Actors sometimes follow social norms with a passionate faith in their appropriateness, and at other times they conform without conscious thought. They also trust others when there is no obvious reason to do so. The power individuals wield over one another can have a major impact on economic outcomes, even when that power arises from noneconomic sources. Although people depend on social norms, culture, trust, and power to solve problems, the guidance these offer is often murky and complicated. Granovetter explores how problem solvers improvise to assemble pragmatic solutions from this multitude of principles. He draws throughout on arguments from psychology, social network studies, and long-term historical and political analysis and suggests ways to maneuver back and forth among these approaches. Underlying Granovetter's arguments is an attempt to move beyond such simple dualisms as agency/structure to a more complex and subtle appreciation of the nuances and dynamics that drive social and economic life.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER "A mind-blowing tour along the path from sex and drugs to R&D." - Financial Times It's the biggest revolution you've never heard of, and it's hiding in plain sight. Over the past decade, Silicon Valley executives like Eric Schmidt and Elon Musk, Special Operators like the Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, and maverick scientists like Sasha Shulgin and Amy Cuddy have turned everything we thought we knew about high performance upside down. Instead of grit, better habits, or 10,000 hours, these trailblazers have found a surprising short cut. They're harnessing rare and controversial states of consciousness to solve critical challenges and outperform the competition. New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler and high performance expert Jamie Wheal spent four years investigating the leading edges of this revolution--from the home of SEAL Team Six to the Googleplex, the Burning Man festival, Richard Branson's Necker Island, Red Bull's training center, Nike's innovation team, and the United Nations' Headquarters. And what they learned was stunning: In their own ways, with differing languages, techniques, and applications, every one of these groups has been quietly seeking the same thing: the boost in information and inspiration that altered states provide. Today, this revolution is spreading to the mainstream, fueling a trillion dollar underground economy and forcing us to rethink how we can all lead richer, more productive, more satisfying lives. Driven by four accelerating forces--psychology, neurobiology, technology and pharmacology--we are gaining access to and insights about some of the most contested and misunderstood terrain in history. Stealing Fire is a provocative examination of what's actually possible; a guidebook for anyone who wants to radically upgrade their life.

An honest discussion of free trade and how nations can sensibly chart a path forward in today's global economy Not so long ago the nation-state seemed to be on its deathbed, condemned to irrelevance by the forces of globalization and technology. Now it is back with a vengeance, propelled by a groundswell of populists around the world. In Straight Talk on Trade, Dani Rodrik, an early and outspoken critic of economic globalization taken too far, goes beyond the populist backlash and offers a more reasoned explanation for why our elites' and technocrats' obsession with hyper-globalization made it more difficult for nations to achieve legitimate economic and social objectives at home: economic prosperity, financial stability, and equity. Rodrik takes globalization's cheerleaders to task, not for emphasizing economics over other values, but for practicing bad economics and ignoring the discipline's own nuances that should have called for caution. He makes a case for a pluralist world economy where nation-states retain sufficient autonomy to fashion their own social contracts and develop economic strategies tailored to their needs. Rather than calling for closed borders or defending protectionists, Rodrik shows how we can restore a sensible balance between national and global governance. Ranging over the recent experiences of advanced countries, the eurozone, and developing nations, Rodrik charts a way forward with new ideas about how to reconcile today's inequitable economic and technological trends with liberal democracy and social inclusion. Deftly navigating the tensions among globalization, national sovereignty, and democracy, Straight Talk on Trade presents an indispensable commentary on today's world economy and its dilemmas, and offers a visionary framework at a critical time when we need it most.

How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today's world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption--like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children's growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption," Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.

ONE OF BLOOMBERG'S BEST BOOKS, 2016 FOREWORD BY NOURIEL ROUBINI $UPERHUBS is a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how the world's most powerful titans, the -superhubs- pull the levers of our global financial system. Combining insider's knowledge with principles of network science, Sandra Navidi offers a startling new perspective on how superhubs build their powerful networks and how their decisions impact all our lives. $UPERHUBS reveals what happens at the exclusive, invitation-only platforms - The World Economic Forum in Davos, the meetings of the International Monetary Fund, think-tank gatherings and exclusive galas. This is the most vivid portrait to date of the global elite: the bank CEOs, fund managers, billionaire financiers and politicians who, through their interlocking relationships and collective influence are transforming our increasingly fragile financial system, economy and society.

An urgent, absorbing expose;--why Americans are fleeing our broken banking system in growing numbers, and how alternatives are rushing in to do what banks once did What do an undocumented immigrant in the South Bronx, a high‑net‑worth entrepreneur, and a twenty‑something graduate student have in common? All three are victims of our dysfunctional mainstream bank and credit system. Today nearly half of all Americans live from paycheck to paycheck, and income volatility has doubled over the past thirty years. Banks, with their high monthly fees and overdraft charges, are gouging their low- and middle-income customers, while serving only the wealthiest Americans.    Lisa Servon delivers a stunning indictment of America's banks, together with eye-opening dispatches from inside a range of banking alternatives that have sprung up to fill the void. She works as a teller at RiteCheck, a check‑cashing business in the South Bronx, and as a payday lender in Oakland. She looks closely at the workings of atanda, an informal lending club.  And she delivers fascinating, hopeful portraits of the entrepreneurs reacting to the unbanking of America by designing systems to creatively serve many of us.  Banks were once essential pillars of our lives; now we can no longer count on them to do right by us. "Required reading for fans of muckraking authors like Barbara Ehrenreich, this fascinating look at the future of money management insists that the 'unbanked' are a sector deserving of respect and solid options." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

Computers are everywhere. Some of them are highly visible, in laptops, tablets, cell phones, and smart watches. But most are invisible, like those in appliances, cars, medical equipment, transportation systems, power grids, and weapons. We never see the myriad computers that quietly collect, share, and sometimes leak vast amounts of personal data about us. Through computers, governments and companies increasingly monitor what we do. Social networks and advertisers know far more about us than we should be comfortable with, using information we freely give them. Criminals have all-too-easy access to our data. Do we truly understand the power of computers in our world? Understanding the Digital World explains how computer hardware, software, networks, and systems work. Topics include how computers are built and how they compute; what programming is and why it is difficult; how the Internet and the web operate; and how all of these affect our security, privacy, property, and other important social, political, and economic issues. This book also touches on fundamental ideas from computer science and some of the inherent limitations of computers. It includes numerous color illustrations, notes on sources for further exploration, and a glossary to explain technical terms and buzzwords. Understanding the Digital World is a must-read for all who want to know more about computers and communications. It explains, precisely and carefully, not only how they operate but also how they influence our daily lives, in terms anyone can understand, no matter what their experience and knowledge of technology.

Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred, systematically, when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. Kahneman and Tversky are more responsible than anybody for the powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms. The Undoing Project is about the fascinating collaboration between two men who have the dimensions of great literary figures. They became heroes in the university and on the battlefield—both had important careers in the Israeli military—and their research was deeply linked to their extraordinary life experiences. In the process they may well have changed, for good, mankind’s view of its own mind.

Unlikely Partners recounts the story of how Chinese politicians and intellectuals looked beyond their country's borders for economic guidance at a key crossroads in the nation's tumultuous twentieth century. Julian Gewirtz offers a dramatic tale of competition for influence between reformers and hardline conservatives during the Deng Xiaoping era, bringing to light China's productive exchanges with the West. When Mao Zedong died in 1976, his successors seized the opportunity to reassess the wisdom of China's rigid commitment to Marxist doctrine. With Deng Xiaoping's blessing, China's economic gurus scoured the globe for fresh ideas that would put China on the path to domestic prosperity and ultimately global economic power. Leading foreign economists accepted invitations to visit China to share their expertise, while Chinese delegations traveled to the United States, Hungary, Great Britain, West Germany, Brazil, and other countries to examine new ideas. Chinese economists partnered with an array of brilliant thinkers, including Nobel Prize winners, World Bank officials, battle-scarred veterans of Eastern Europe's economic struggles, and blunt-speaking free-market fundamentalists. Nevertheless, the push from China's senior leadership to implement economic reforms did not go unchallenged, nor has the Chinese government been eager to publicize its engagement with Western-style innovations. Even today, Chinese Communists decry dangerous Western influences and officially maintain that China's economic reinvention was the Party's achievement alone. Unlikely Partners sets forth the truer story, which has continuing relevance for China's complex and far-reaching relationship with the West.

In a riveting, hilarious account, reporter Alexandra Wolfe exposes a world that is not flat but bubbling—the men and women of Silicon Valley, whose hubris and ambition are changing the world. Each year, young people from around the world go to Silicon Valley to hatch an idea, start a company, strike it rich, and become powerful and famous. In Valley of the Gods, Wolfe follows three of these upstarts who have "stopped out" of college and real life to live and work in Silicon Valley in the hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. No one has yet documented the battle for the brightest kids, kids whose goals are no less than making billions of dollars—and the fight they wage in turn to make it there. They embody an American cultural transformation: A move away from the East Coast hierarchy of Ivy Leagues and country clubs toward the startup life and a new social order. Meet the billionaires who go to training clubs for thirty-minute "body slams" designed to fit in with the start-up schedu≤ attend parties where people devour peanut butter-and-jelly sushi rolls; and date and seduce in a romantic culture in which thick glasses, baggy jeans, and a t-shirt is the costume of any sex symbol (and where a jacket and tie symbolize mediocrity). Through Wolfe's eyes, we discover how they date and marry, how they dress and live, how they plot and dream, and how they have created a business world and an economic order that has made us all devotees of them. A blistering, brilliant, and hysterical examination of this new ruling class, Valley of the Gods presents tomorrow's strange new normal where the only outward signs of tech success are laptops and ideas.

In an era of Citizens United and 8-figure paychecks for CEOs, most of us imagine that corporations have never been more powerful. Yet public corporations--companies that sell shares to the public, rather than being privately owned--are in retreat in the US, while alternative ways of organizing business, are on the rise. To many this will sound like good news--but Gerald Davis points out that there's a considerable downside. In their heyday public corporations provided good salaries, benefits, training, lifetime employment, and retirement pensions--features that are conspicuously absent from newer models championed by companies like Uber. The consequences of corporate decline in the US are stark: greater inequality, less mobility, and a frayed social safety net. This book explains the rise of the large American corporation, it's role in greatly expanding the middle class, and the economic pressures that are making it unsustainable. The future could see either increasing polarization, as careers turn into jobs and jobs turn into tasks, or a more democratic economy built from the grassroots. Davis explains how we got here and lays out the choices ahead of us.

Recognize Wall Street tactics for what they are, and make smarter decisions with your money Wall Street Potholes shares insights into the money management industry, revealing the shady practices that benefit the salesman far more than the client. Bestselling author Simon Lack brings together a team of experienced money managers to give you straight-from-the-source intel, and teach you how to recognize bad advice and when it's better to just walk away. Investors are rightly suspicious that many products are sold more because of the fees they generate than their appropriateness to the client's situation, and that's only the beginning. This book lays it all bare so you can walk into your next deal with your eyes wide open. You'll learn just how big the profit margin is on different products, and why Wall Street intentionally makes things as complicated as possible. You'll learn expert tactics for combatting these practices, so you can avoid buying overpriced products and confidently discriminate against advisors who put their own interests first. For all the volumes of investment advice on the market, dissatisfaction with the financial services industry has never been higher. This book describes the reason for that disconnect, and tells you how to see through the smoke and mirrors to make the best decisions for your money. Discover the profit margin built into some popular products Learn the reason behind bundling and why Wall Street fears comparison shopping Consider the importance of benchmarking, and why so many firms avoid it Become better informed so you can easily recognize poor investment advice If asking questions of your financial advisor only nets more confusion, if you want to have more control over your money, you need a firm grasp of how these firms manipulate your trust. Wall Street Potholes tells you what you need to know to become a smarter investor.

A timely, counterintuitive defense of Wall Street and the big banks as the invisible--albeit flawed--engines that power our ideas, and should be made to work better for all of us Maybe you think the banks should be broken up and the bankers should be held accountable for the financial crisis in 2008. Maybe you hate the greed of Wall Street but know that it's important to the proper functioning of the world economy. Maybe you don't really understand Wall Street, and phrases such as "credit default swap" make your eyes glaze over. Maybe you are utterly confused by the fact that after attacking Wall Street mercilessly during his campaign, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street veterans. But if you like your smart phone or your widescreen TV, your car or your morning bacon, your pension or your 401(k), then--whether you know it or not--you are a fan of Wall Street. William D. Cohan is no knee-jerk advocate for Wall Street and the big banks. He's one of America's most respected financial journalists and the progressive bestselling author of House of Cards. He has long been critical of the bad behavior that plagued much of Wall Street in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, and because he spent seventeen years as an investment banker on Wall Street, he is an expert on its inner workings as well. But in recent years he's become alarmed by the cheap shots and ceaseless vitriol directed at Wall Street's bankers, traders, and executives--the people whose job it is to provide capital to those who need it, the grease that keeps our economy humming. In this brisk, no-nonsense narrative, Cohan reminds us of the good these institutions do--and the dire consequences for us all if the essential role they play in making our lives better is carelessly curtailed. Praise for William D. Cohan "Cohan writes with an insider's knowledge of the workings of Wall Street, a reporter's investigative instincts and a natural storyteller's narrative command."--The New York Times "[Cohan is] one of our most able financial journalists."--Los Angeles Times "A former Wall Street man and a talented writer, [Cohan] has the rare gift not only of understanding the fiendishly complicated goings-on, but also of being able to explain them in terms the lay reader can grasp."--The Observer (London)

"A fascinating new perspective on modern finance," --Oliver Hart, 2016 Nobel Laureate in Economics "Lucid, witty and delightfully erudite...From the French revolution to film noir, from the history of probability to Jane Austen andThe Simpsons, this is an astonishing intellectual feast." --Sebastian Mallaby, author ofThe Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan In 1688, essayist Josef de la Vega described finance as both "the fairest and most deceitful business . . . the noblest and the most infamous in the world, the finest and most vulgar on earth." The characterization of finance as deceitful, infamous, and vulgar still rings true today - particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But, what happened to the fairest, noblest, and finest profession that de la Vega saw?  De la Vega hit on an essential truth that has been forgotten: finance can be just as principled, life-affirming, andworthy as it can be fraught with questionable practices.  Today, finance is shrouded in mystery for outsiders, while many insiders are uneasy with the disrepute of their profession.  How can finance become more accessible and also recover its nobility? Harvard Business School professor Mihir Desai, in his "last lecture" to the graduating Harvard MBA class of 2015, took up the cause of restoring humanity to finance. With incisive wit and irony, his lecture drew upon a rich knowledge of literature, film, history, and philosophy to explain the inner workings of finance in a manner that has never been seen before. This book captures Desai's lucid exploration of the ideas of finance as seen through the unusual prism of the humanities. Through this novel, creative approach, Desai shows that outsiders can access the underlying ideas easily and insiders can reacquaint themselves with the core humanity of their profession. The mix of finance and the humanities creates unusual pairings: Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope are guides to risk management; Jeff Koons becomes an advocate of levera≥ and Mel Brooks'sThe Producers teaches us about fiduciary responsibility. In Desai's vision, the principles of finance also provide answers to critical questions in our lives. Among many surprising parallels, bankruptcy teaches us how to react to failure, the lessons of mergers apply to marriages, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model demonstrates the true value of relationships. THE WISDOM OF FINANCE is a wholly unique book, offering a refreshing new perspective on one of the world's most complex and misunderstood professions.    

In recent decades game theory--the mathematics of rational decision-making by interacting individuals--has assumed a central place in our understanding of capitalist markets, the evolution of social behavior in animals, and even the ethics of altruism and fairness in human beings. With game theory's ubiquity, however, has come a great deal of misunderstanding. Critics of the contemporary social sciences view it as part of an unwelcome trend toward the marginalization of historicist and interpretive styles of inquiry, and many accuse its proponents of presenting a thin and empirically dubious view of human choice.             The World the Game Theorists Made seeks to explain the ascendency of game theory, focusing on the poorly understood period between the publication of John von Neumann and Oscar Morgenstern's seminal Theory of Games and Economic Behavior in 1944 and the theory's revival in economics in the 1980s. Drawing on a diverse collection of institutional archives, personal correspondence and papers, and interviews, Paul Erickson shows how game theory offered social scientists, biologists, military strategists, and others a common, flexible language that could facilitate wide-ranging thought and debate on some of the most critical issues of the day.