Best Business Books: M

Robots are poised to transform today's society as completely as the Internet did twenty years ago. Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff argues that we must decide to design ourselves into our future, or risk being excluded from it altogether. In the past decade, Google introduced us to driverless cars; Apple debuted Siri, a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets; and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the Web. Robots have become an integral part of society on the battlefield and the road; in business, education, and health care. Cheap sensors and powerful computers will ensure that in the coming years, these robots will act on their own. This new era offers the promise of immensely powerful machines, but it also reframes a question first raised more than half a century ago, when the intelligent machine was born. Will we control these systems, or will they control us? In Machines of Loving Grace, John Markoff offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers. In recent years, the pace of technological change has accelerated dramatically, posing an ethical quandary. If humans delegate decisions to machines, who will be responsible for the consequences? As Markoff chronicles the history of automation, from the birth of the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation communities in the 1950s and 1960s, to the modern-day brain trusts at Google and Apple in Silicon Valley, and on to the expanding robotics economy around Boston, he traces the different ways developers have addressed this fundamental problem and urges them to carefully consider the consequences of their work. We are on the brink of the next stage of the computer revolution, Markoff argues, and robots will profoundly transform modern life. Yet it remains for us to determine whether this new world will be a utopia. Moreover, it is now incumbent upon the designers of these robots to draw a bright line between what is human and what is machine. After nearly forty years covering the tech industry, Markoff offers an unmatched perspective on the most drastic technology-driven societal shifts since the introduction of the Internet. Machines of Loving Grace draws on an extensive array of research and interviews to present an eye-opening history of one of the most pressing questions of our time, and urges us to remember that we still have the opportunity to design ourselves into the future—before it's too late.

In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smilpowerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the lossof American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smilargues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector andthe jobs it creates. Reversing a famous information economy dictum, Smil argues that serving potatochips is not as good as making microchips. The history of manufacturing in America, Smil tells us,is a story of nation-building. He explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behindAmerica's economic, strategic, and social dominance. He describes American manufacturing's rapidrise at the end of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization between the two worldwars, its role as an enabler of mass consumption after 1945, and its recent decline. Some economistsargue that shipping low-value jobs overseas matters little because the high-value work remains inthe United States. But, asks Smil, do we want a society that consists of a small population ofworkers doing high-value-added work and masses of unemployed? Smil assesses various suggestions forsolving America's manufacturing crisis, including lowering corporate tax rates, promoting researchand development, and improving public education. Will America act to preserve and reinvigorate itsmanufacturing? It is crucial to our social and economic well-being; but, Smil warns, the odds are nobetter than even.

Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned--and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever. Many of us know that our government failed to fix the banking system after the subprime mortgage crisis. But what few of us realize is how the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly toppled the global financial system have come to infiltrate ALL American businesses,  putting us on a collision course for another cataclysmic meltdown. Drawing on in-depth reporting and exclusive interviews at the highest rungs of Wall Street and Washington, Time assistant managing editor and economic columnist Rana Foroohar shows how the "financialization of America" - the trend by which finance and its way of thinking have come to reign supreme - is perpetuating Wall Street's reign over Main Street, widening the gap between rich and poor, and threatening the future of the American Dream. Policy makers get caught up in the details of regulating "Too Big To Fail" banks, but the problems in our market system go much broader and deeper than that. Consider that: · Thanks to 40 years of policy changes and bad decisions, only about 15 % of all the money in our market system actually ends up in the real economy - the rest stays within the closed loop of finance itself. · The financial sector takes a quarter of all corporate profits in this country while creating only 4 % of American jobs. · The tax code continues to favor debt over equity, making it easier for companies to hoard cash overseas rather than reinvest it on our shores. · Our biggest and most profitable corporations are investing more money in stock buybacks than in research and innovation. · And, still, the majority of the financial regulations promised after the 2008 meltdown have yet come to pass, thanks to cozy relationship between our lawmakers and the country's wealthiest financiers.        Exploring these forces, which have have led American businesses to favor balancing-sheet engineering over the actual kind and the pursuit of short-term corporate profits over job creation, Foroohar shows how financialization has so gravely harmed our society, and why reversing this trend is of grave importance to us all. Through colorful stories of both "Takers" and "Makers," she'll reveal how we change the system for a better and more sustainable shared economic future.

"Wired" magazine editor and bestselling author Anderson takes readers to the front lines of a new industrial revolution as today's entrepreneurs, using open source design and 3-D printing, bring manufacturing to the desktop. In an age of custom-fabricated, do-it-yourself product design and creation, the collective potential of a million garage tinkerers and enthusiasts is about to be unleashed, driving a resurgence of American manufacturing. A generation of “Makers” using the Web’s innovation model will help drive the next big wave in the global economy, as the new technologies of digital design and rapid prototyping gives everyone the power to invent -- creating “the long tail of things”.

A practical guide to navigating workplace conflicts by better understanding the power dynamics at play in every interaction Conflicts at work are as inevitable as they are frustrating. In Making Conflict Work, Peter Coleman and Robert Ferguson's leading experts in the field of conflict resolution address the key role of power in workplace tension. Whether you're butting heads with your boss or addressing a direct report's complaint, your relative position of power affects how you approach conflict. Coleman and Ferguson explain how power dynamics function, with step-by-step guidance to determining your standing in a conflict and identifying and applying the strategies that will lead to the best resolution. Drawing on the authors' years of research and consulting experience, the book gives readers effective strategies for negotiating disputes at all levels of an organization. Making Conflict Work includes self-assessment exercises and action plans to guide managers, mediators, consultants, and attorneys through any conflict. This powerful approach can turn workplace tensions into catalysts for creativity, innovation, and meaningful change.

America is the world leader in innovation, but many of the innovative ideas that arehatched in American start-ups, labs, and companies end up going abroad to reach commercial scale.Apple, the superstar of innovation, locates its production in China (yet still reaps most of itsprofits in the United States). When innovation does not find the capital, skills, and expertise itneeds to come to market in the United States, what does it mean for economic growth and jobcreation? Inspired by the MIT Made in America project of the 1980s, Making inAmerica brings experts from across MIT to focus on a critical problem for thecountry. MIT scientists, engineers, social scientists, and management expertsvisited more than 250 firms in the United States, Germany, and China. In companies acrossAmerica--from big defense contractors to small machine shops and new technology startups--theseexperts tried to learn how we can rebuild the industrial landscape to sustain an innovative economy.At each stop, they asked this basic question: "When you have a new idea, how do you get it intothe market?" They found gaping holes and missing pieces in the industrial ecosystem. Even in anInternet-connected world, proximity to innovation and users matters for industry. Making inAmerica describes ways to strengthen this connection, including public-privatecollaborations, new government-initiated manufacturing innovation institutes, and industry-communitycollege projects. If we can learn from these ongoing experiments in linking innovation toproduction, American manufacturing could have a renaissance.

This is the definitive, extraordinary account of how the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland tipped Britain into its deepest economic downturn in decades. The collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which had to be bailed out by the taxpayer in the financial crisis of October 2008, played a leading role in tipping Britain into its deepest economic downturn in seven decades. The economy shrank, bank lending froze, hundreds of thousands lost their jobs, living standards are still falling, and Britons will be paying higher taxes for decades to pay the clean-up bill. How on earth had a small Scottish bank grown so quickly to become a global financial giant that could do such immense damage when it collapsed? At the center of the story was Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive known as "Fred the Shred" who terrorized some of his staff and beguiled others. Not a banker by training, he nonetheless was given control of RBS and set about trying to make it one of the biggest brands in the world. It was said confidently that computerization and new banking products had made the world safer—only they hadn't. In this account, senior executives, board members, Treasury insiders, and regulators reveal how the bank's mania for expansion led it to take enormous risks its leaders didn't understand. From the birth of the Royal Bank in 18th century Scotland, to the manic expansion under Fred Goodwin in the middle of a mad boom, and culminating in the epoch-defining collapse, here is the full, extraordinary story.

This book presents a bold, engaging and updated history of economics--the dramatic story of how the great economic thinkers built today's rigorous social science. Noted financial writer and economist Mark Skousen has revised this popular work, now in its third edition. This comprehensive, yet accessible introduction to the major economic philosophers of the past 225 years begins with Adam Smith and continues through the present day. The text examines the contributions made by each individual to our understanding of the role of the economist, the science of economics, and economic theory. Boxes in each chapter highlight little-known and entertaining facts about the economists' personal lives that had an influence on their work.

Thomas Robert Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population was an immediate succès de scandale when it appeared in 1798. Arguing that nature is niggardly and that societies, both human and animal, tend to overstep the limits of natural resources in "perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery," he found himself attacked on all sides--by Romantic poets, utopian thinkers, and the religious establishment. Though Malthus has never disappeared, he has been perpetually misunderstood. This book is at once a major reassessment of Malthus's ideas and an intellectual history of the origins of modern debates about demography, resources, and the environment. Against the ferment of Enlightenment ideals about the perfectibility of mankind and the grim realities of life in the eighteenth century, Robert Mayhew explains the genesis of the Essay and Malthus's preoccupation with birth and death rates. He traces Malthus's collision course with the Lake poets, his important revisions to the Essay, and composition of his other great work, Principles of Political Economy. Mayhew suggests we see the author in his later writings as an environmental economist for his persistent concern with natural resources, land, and the conditions of their use. Mayhew then pursues Malthus's many afterlives in the Victorian world and beyond. Today, the Malthusian dilemma makes itself felt once again, as demography and climate change come together on the same environmental agenda. Robert Mayhew gives historical depth to our current planetary concerns.

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.

The definitive biography of the most important economic statesman of our time   Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy meet. To understand Greenspan's story is to see the economic and political landscape of the last 30 years--and the presidency from Reagan to George W. Bush--in a whole new light. As the most influential economic statesman of his age, Greenspan spent a lifetime grappling with a momentous shift: the transformation of finance from the fixed and regulated system of the post-war era to the free-for-all of the past quarter century. The story of Greenspan is also the story of the making of modern finance, for good and for ill.    Greenspan's life is a quintessential American success story: raised by a single mother in the Jewish émigré community of Washington Heights, he was a math prodigy who found a niche as a stats-crunching consultant. A master at explaining the economic weather to captains of industry, he translated that skill into advising Richard Nixon in his 1968 campaign. This led to a perch on the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and then to a dazzling array of business and government roles, from which the path to the Fed was relatively clear. A fire-breathing libertarian and disciple of Ayn Rand in his youth who once called the Fed's creation a historic mistake, Mallaby shows how Greenspan reinvented himself as a pragmatist once in power. In his analysis, and in his core mission of keeping inflation in check, he was a maestro indeed, and hailed as such. At his retirement in 2006, he was lauded as the age's necessary man, the veritable God in the machine, the global economy's avatar. His memoirs sold for record sums to publishers around the world.   But then came 2008. Mallaby's story lands with both feet on the great crash which did so much to damage Alan Greenspan's reputation. Mallaby argues that the conventional wisdom is off base: Greenspan wasn't a naïve ideologue who believed greater regulation was unnecessary. He had pressed for greater regulation of some key areas of finance over the years, and had gotten nowhere. To argue that he didn't know the risks in irrational markets is to miss the point. He knew more than almost anyo≠ the question is why he didn't act, and whether anyone else could or would have. A close reading of Greenspan's life provides fascinating answers to these questions, answers whose lessons we would do well to heed. Because perhaps Mallaby's greatest lesson is that economic statesmanship, like political statesmanship, is the art of the possible. The Man Who Knew is a searching reckoning with what exactly comprised the art, and the possible, in the career of Alan Greenspan.

Hartley's casebook is rich in content with easy-to read case studies that are well-suited for business professionals. They'll learn every key aspect of management, from performance and crises to mergers and acquisitions. The tenth edition presents more new case studies to illustrate management concepts. These include Google's entrepreneurial strategy, Procter and Gamble, Starbucks, and more. Recent business failures and successes are also examined in a way that offers practical insights and strategic principles. By focusing on the mistakes and successes, this book helps business professionals learn how to become great business leaders

Based on primary research into the public lectures of management gurus, this fascinating new volume analyzes how such gurus disseminate their ideas, values and visions on the international management lecture circuit. Adopting a novel conceptual/theoretical perspective, it brings together insights from the fields of management, sociology, media studies, communications and social psychology.Written by leading figures in the field, this topical book covers such broad ranging areas as the live presentation of management ideas, using rhetoric, legitimating ideas, values and visions, the grammar of persuasion and charisma and oratory and is a valuable resource for students academics and researchers in the fields of management, sociology, and communications.

Mintzberg shows that in the real world managers cannot be the reflective, systematic planners idealized in most management books—realities like the unrelenting pace, the frequent interruptions, and the dizzying variety of activity make that impossible. Recognizing this, he outlines a new model of management: not a list of tasks but a dynamic process in which managers accomplish their purpose working through information, through people, and, more rarely, through direct action. Mintzberg describes the various roles managers adopt to function on these three planes, emphasizing that they must work on all of three simultaneously, determining the balance best suited to their specific, unique situation. Which is why management, Mitzberg insists, is not a profession—“it is a practice” he writes, “learned primarily through experience, and rooted in context.”

How to Resolve the Really Hard Problems Every manager makes tough calls--it comes with the job. And the hardest decisions are the "gray areas”--situations where you and your team have worked hard to find an answer, you’ve done the best analysis you can, and you still don’t know what to do. But you have to make a decision. You have to choose, commit, act, and live with the consequences and persuade others to follow your lead. Gray areas test your skills as a manager, your judgment, and even your humanity. How do you get these decisions right? InManaging in the Gray, Joseph Badaracco offers a powerful, practical, and even radical way to resolve these problems. Picking up where conventional tools of analysis leave off, this book providestools for judgment in the form of five revealing questions. Asking yourself these five questions provides a simple yet profound way to broaden your thinking, sharpen your judgment, and develop a fresh perspective. What makes these questions so valuable is that they have truly stood the test of time--they’ve guided countless men and women, across many centuries and cultures, to resolve the hardest questions of work, responsibility, and life. You can use the five-question framework on your own or with others on your team to help you cut through complexities, understand critical trade-offs, and develop workable solutions for even the grayest issues.

The first edition of Charles Kindleberger's brilliant, panoramic history, published in 1978, summarized the pattern of market developments and the five stages in the evolution of a financial crisis. Robert Z. Aliber probes the sequence of four waves of crises that have involved more than forty countries since the early 1980s and shows that implosions of their banking systems do not follow from the decisions of 'bad actors' but instead are symptomatic of a dysfunctional international monetary arrangement. With an updated Foreword from Robert M. Solow and a new Afterword from Lord Robert Skidelsky, this seventh edition exemplifies the continued importance of Kindleberger's work and Aliber's ongoing examination of financial crises around the world.  

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day. Very often, however, we’re steering by out-of-date maps, when we’re not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control. The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the author’s own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can’t.The book probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges. No map is the territory, but Greenspan’s approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state.

Bestselling author, Jack Schwager, challenges the assumptions at the core of investment theory and practice and exposes common investor mistakes, missteps, myths, and misreads When it comes to investment models and theories of how markets work, convenience usually trumps reality. The simple fact is that many revered investment theories and market models are flatly wrong-that is, if we insist that they work in the real world. In this engaging new book, Jack Schwager, bestselling author of Market Wizards and The New Market Wizards, takes aim at the most perniciously pervasive academic precepts, money management canards, market myths and investor errors. Like so many ducks in a shooting gallery, Schwager picks them off, one at a time, revealing the truth about many of the fallacious assumptions, theories, and beliefs at the core of investment theory and practice. A sobering dose of real-world insight for investment professionals and a highly readable source of information and guidance for general readers interested in investment, trading, and finance Spans both traditional and alternative investment classes, covering both basic and advanced topics As in his best-selling Market Wizard series, Schwager manages the trick of covering material that is pertinent to professionals, yet writing in a style that is clear and accessible to the layman.

Why do advertising campaigns and new products often fail? Why do consumers feel that companies don't understand their needs? Because marketers themselves don't think deeply about consumers' innermost thoughts and feelings. Marketing Metaphoria is a groundbreaking book that reveals how to overcome this "depth deficit" and find the universal drivers of human behavior so vital to a firm's success.Marketing Metaphoria reveals the powerful unconscious viewing lenses--called "deep metaphors"-- that shape what people think, hear, say, and do.Drawing on thousands of one-on-one interviews in more than thirty countries, Gerald Zaltman and Lindsay Zaltman describe how some of the world's most successful companies as well as small firms, not-for-profits, and social enterprises have successfully leveraged deep metaphors to solve a wide variety of marketing problems. Marketing Metaphoria should convince you that everything consumers think and do is influenced at unconscious levels--and it will give you access to those deeper levels of thinking.

This best-selling casebook, now in its 11th edition, presents a series of fascinating scenarios that let you learn from some of today’s most prominent business players. In an engaging, conversational style, Robert Hartley provides detailed analyses of the decisions and practices that led to major marketing wars, comebacks, mistakes, and successes. These real-life accounts are packed with practical tips, insider insights, and marketing advice.As a supplement or main text, this book can be used in a variety of courses, both undergraduate and graduate, ranging from introduction to marketing, marketing management and strategic marketing.

In this book, Nobel Prize-winning economist Edmund Phelps draws on a lifetime of thinking to make a sweeping new argument about what makes nations prosper--and why the sources of that prosperity are under threat today. Why did prosperity explode in some nations between the 1820s and 1960s, creating not just unprecedented material wealth but "flourishing"--meaningful work, self-expression, and personal growth for more people than ever before? Phelps makes the case that the wellspring of this flourishing was modern values such as the desire to create, explore, and meet challenges. These values fueled the grassroots dynamism that was necessary for widespread, indigenous innovation. Most innovation wasn't driven by a few isolated visionaries like Henry Ford; rather, it was driven by millions of people empowered to think of, develop, and market innumerable new products and processes, and improvements to existing ones. Mass flourishing--a combination of material well-being and the "good life" in a broader sense--was created by this mass innovation. Yet indigenous innovation and flourishing weakened decades ago. In America, evidence indicates that innovation and job satisfaction have decreased since the late 1960s, while postwar Europe has never recaptured its former dynamism. The reason, Phelps argues, is that the modern values underlying the modern economy are under threat by a resurgence of traditional, corporatist values that put the community and state over the individual. The ultimate fate of modern values is now the most pressing question for the West: will Western nations recommit themselves to modernity, grassroots dynamism, indigenous innovation, and widespread personal fulfillment, or will we go on with a narrowed innovation that limits flourishing to a few? A book of immense practical and intellectual importance, Mass Flourishing is essential reading for anyone who cares about the sources of prosperity and the future of the West.

Applied econometrics, known to aficionados as 'metrics, is the original data science. 'Metrics encompasses the statistical methods economists use to untangle cause and effect in human affairs. Through accessible discussion and with a dose of kung fu–themed humor, Mastering 'Metrics presents the essential tools of econometric research and demonstrates why econometrics is exciting and useful. The five most valuable econometric methods, or what the authors call the Furious Five--random assignment, regression, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity designs, and differences in differences--are illustrated through well-crafted real-world examples (vetted for awesomeness by Kung Fu Panda's Jade Palace). Does health insurance make you healthier? Randomized experiments provide answers. Are expensive private colleges and selective public high schools better than more pedestrian institutions? Regression analysis and a regression discontinuity design reveal the surprising truth. When private banks teeter, and depositors take their money and run, should central banks step in to save them? Differences-in-differences analysis of a Depression-era banking crisis offers a response. Could arresting O. J. Simpson have saved his ex-wife's life? Instrumental variables methods instruct law enforcement authorities in how best to respond to domestic abuse. Wielding econometric tools with skill and confidence, Mastering 'Metrics uses data and statistics to illuminate the path from cause to effect. Shows why econometrics is important Explains econometric research through humorous and accessible discussion Outlines empirical methods central to modern econometric practice Works through interesting and relevant real-world examples

In 1996, having completed a two-year research study, longtimeEconomistjournalists and editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge publishedThe Witch Doctors, an explosive critique of management theory and its legions of evangelists and followers. The book became a bestseller, widely praised by reviewers and devoured by readers confused by the buzzwords and concepts the management ?industry? creates. At the time, ideas about ?reengineering,? ?the search for excellence,? ?quality,? and ?chaos? both energized and haunted the world of business, just as ?the long tail,? ?black swans,? ?the tipping point,? ?the war for talent,? and ?corporate responsibility? do today. For decades, since the rise of MBA programs on campuses across the country, the field of management has operated in a dubious space. Many of its framers clamor for respect within the academy while making millions of dollars pedaling ideas, some brilliant and some nonsensical, in speeches, consulting arrangements, and books. AlthoughThe Witch Doctorswas a damning critique (?a scalpel job,? according to theWall Street Journal), it also argued that much of management theory is valuable'making companies more effi-cient and productive, improving organizational life for workers, and providing sound ways for companies to innovate while defending more entrenched plans. Building upon all that made the original such a phenomenal success, this fully revised and updated edition,Masters of Management, takes into account the rise of the Internet, the growing power of emerging markets, the Great Recession of 2008, and the more recent developments in management theory. The result is an indispensable volume for any manager.

How did American and British policymakers become so enamored with free markets, deregulation, and limited government? This book--the first comprehensive transatlantic history of the rise of neoliberal politics--presents a surprising answer. Based on archival research and interviews with leading participants in the movement,Masters of the Universetraces the ascendancy of neoliberalism from the academy of interwar Europe to supremacy under Reagan and Thatcher and in the decades since. Fascinating, important, and timely, this is a book for anyone who wants to understand the history behind the Anglo-American love affair with the free market, as well as the origins of the current economic crisis.

Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and ride-sharing apps do the same for drivers and riders. Although matchmakers have been around for millennia, they’re becoming more and more popular--and profitable--due to dramatic advances in technology, and a lot of companies that have managed to crack the code of this business model have become today’s power brokers. Don’t let the flashy successes fool you, though. Starting a matchmaker is one of the toughest business challenges, and almost everyone who tries to build one, fails. In Matchmakers, David Evans and Richard Schmalensee, two economists who were among the first to analyze multisided platforms and discover their principles, and who’ve consulted for some of the most successful platform businesses in the world, explain how matchmakers work best in practice, why they do what they do, and how entrepreneurs can improve their chances for success. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an investor, a consumer, or an executive, your future will involve more and more multisided platforms, and Matchmakers--rich with stories from platform winners and losers--is the one book you’ll need in order to navigate this appealing but confusing world.

Can money buy happiness? Is income a reliable measure for life satisfaction? In the West after World War II, happiness seemed inextricably connected to prosperity. Beginning in the 1960s, however, other values began to gain ground: peace, political participation, civil rights, environmentalism. "Happiness economics" -- a somewhat incongruous-sounding branch of what has been called "the dismal science" -- has taken up the puzzle of what makes people happy, conducting elaborate surveys in which people are asked to quantify their satisfaction with "life in general." In this book, three economists explore the happiness-prosperity connection, investigating how economists measure life satisfaction and well-being. The authors examine the evolution of happiness research, considering the famous "Easterlin Paradox," which found that people's average life satisfaction didn't seem to depend on their income. But they question whether happiness research can measure what needs to be measured. They argue that we should not assess people's well-being on a "happiness scale," because that necessarily obscures true social progress. Instead, rising income should be understood as increasing opportunities and alleviating scarcity. Economic growth helps societies to sustain freedom and to finance social welfare programs. In this respect, high income may not buy happiness with life in general, but it gives individuals the opportunity to be healthier, better educated, better clothed, and better fed, to live longer, and to live well.

"Utterly fascinating. Tim Harford shows that if you want to be creative and resilient, you need a little more disorder in your world." --Adam Grant, New York Times-bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take "Engrossing." --New York Times From the award-winning columnist and author of the national bestseller The Undercover Economist comes a provocative big idea book about the genuine benefits of being messy: at home, at work, in the classroom, and beyond. Look out for Tim's next book, Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy. Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it's important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value - creativity, responsiveness, resilience - are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them. From the music studio of Brian Eno to the Lincoln Memorial with Martin Luther King, Jr., from the board room to the classroom, messiness lies at the core of how we innovate, how we achieve, how we reach each other - in short, how we succeed. In Messy, you'll learn about the unexpected connections between creativity and mess; understand why unexpected changes of plans, unfamiliar people, and unforeseen events can help generate new ideas and opportunities as they make you anxious and angry; and come to appreciate that the human inclination for tidiness - in our personal and professional lives, online, even in children's play - can mask deep and debilitating fragility that keep us from innovation. Stimulating and readable as it points exciting ways forward, Messy is an insightful exploration of the real advantages of mess in our lives.

Microeconomics - individuals' choices of where to live and work, how much to save, what to buy, and firms' decisions about location, hiring, firing, and investment - involves issues that concern us on a daily basis. But when people think about economics, they tend to place importance on thebigger picture - macroeconomics - including issues such as unemployment, inflation, and the competitiveness of nations. In this Very Short Introduction, Avinash Dixit argues that the microeconomy has a large impact on the economic world, arguably as much as the issues of macroeconomics. Dixit steers a clear path through the huge number of issues related to microeconomics, explaining what happens when things go well, as well as showing how they fail, why that happens, and what can be done about it. Using real-life examples from around the world, using the minimum of mathematics andincluding simple graphs, he provides insights into economics from psychology and sociology to explain economic behaviour and rational choice. An ideal introduction for anyone interested in business and economics. 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.

Thomas C. Schelling's Micromotives and Macrobehavior has long been recognized as a classic work, one that has influenced many twenty-first-century scholars and commentators.The anecdotes and stories that drive the narrative feel as fresh today as the day they were written. More importantly, the central theme of those stories-that a person reacting to their surroundings often fails to perceive how their actions combine with the actions of others to produce unintended, yet significant and often problematic, results for a large group-is more important than ever." "In a famous section of the book, Schelling demonstrates how a slight-but-not-malicious preference to have neighbors of the same race eventually leads to completely segregated populations. Micromotives and Macrobehavior opens a profoundly important window on social behavior of all kinds. Book jacket."--BOOK JACKET.

Economic historians have made great progress in unraveling the causes of the Great Depression, but not until Scott Sumner came along has anyone explained the multitude of twists and turns the economy took. In The Midas Paradox: Financial Markets, Government Policy Shocks, and the Great Depression, Sumner offers his magnum opus--the first book to comprehensively explain both monetary and non-monetary causes of that cataclysm.    Drawing on financial market data and contemporaneous news stories, Sumner shows that the Great Depression is ultimately a story of incredibly bad policymaking--by central bankers, legislators, and two presidents--especially mistakes related to monetary policy and wage rates. He also shows that macroeconomic thought has long been captive to a false narrative that continues to misguide policymakers in their quixotic quest to promote robust and sustainable economic growth.   The Midas Paradox is a landmark treatise that solves mysteries that have long perplexed economic historians, and corrects misconceptions about the true causes, consequences, and cures of macroeconomic instability. Like Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, it is one of those rare books destined to shape all future research on the subject.

In this eye-opening exploration, author and psychologist Michael Shermer uncovers the evolutionary roots of our economic behavior. Drawing on the new field of neuroeconomics, Shermer investigates what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and establishing trust in business. He scrutinizes experiments in behavioral economics to understand why people hang on to losing stocks, why negotiations disintegrate into tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. He brings together astonishing findings from psychology, biology, and other sciences to describe how our tribal ancestry makes us suckers for brands, why researchers believe cooperation unleashes biochemicals similar to those released during sex, why free trade promises to build alliances between nations, and how even capuchin monkeys get indignant if they don't get a fair reward for their work.--From publisher description

A New York Times reporter reveals what business leaders around the country are already discovering: Meditation may be the key to fostering a happier, more productive workplace. For the past few years, mindfulness has begun to transform the American workplace. Many of our largest companies, such as General Mills, Ford, Target, and Google, have built extensive programs to foster mindful practices among their workers. Mindful Work is the first book to explain how all sorts of businesses and any kind of worker can benefit from meditation, yoga, and other mindful techniques. As a business reporter for the New York Times who has also practiced meditation for two decades, David Gelles is uniquely qualified to chart the growing nexus between these two realms. As he proves, mindfulness lowers stress, increases mental focus, and alleviates depression among workers. He also offers real-world examples of how mindfulness has benefited companies that have adopted it -- from the millions of dollars Aetna has saved in health-care costs to the ways Patagonia has combined leadership in its market with a pervasively mindful outlook. Gelles's revelatory book picks up where bestsellers like Thrive and 10% Happier leave off, by detailing how mindfulness works in and for the companies that adopt it, revealing the profound impact mindfulness can have on the world of work. Mindful Work goes beyond other books on the subject by providing evidence for the practical benefits of mindfulness and showing readers how to become more mindful themselves.

"The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world." -Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review Scientific and philosophical concepts can change the way we solve problems by helping us to think more effectively about our behavior and our world. Surprisingly, despite their utility, many of these tools remain unknown to most of us. In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard E. Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail. Nisbett has made a distinguished career of studying and teaching such powerful problem-solving concepts as the law of large numbers, statistical regression, cost-benefit analysis, sunk costs and opportunity costs, and causation and correlation, probing the best methods for teaching others how to use them effectively in their daily lives. In this groundbreaking book, Nisbett shows us how to frame common problems in such a way that these scientific and statistical principles can be applied to them. The result is an enlightening and practical guide to the most essential tools of reasoning ever developed-tools that can easily be used to make better professional, business, and personal decisions.

Minority women start new businesses in the U.S. at four times the rate of non-minority men and women. Though minority women entrepreneurs in the United States are thriving, their stories are very seldom told, and few think of minority women as successful entrepreneurs. Minority Women Entrepreneurs gives voice and visibility to this group of business owners. The second purpose of this book is to explain what makes these women different from the standard white, male business owners with whom most people are familiar. Through in-depth interviews and firsthand accounts from minority women entrepreneurs, the authors found that minority women use their outsider status to develop socially conscious business practices that support their communities in innovative and exciting ways. They reject the idea that business values are separate from personal values, and instead balance profits with social good and environmental sustainability. This pattern is repeated in statistical evidence from around the globe: women contribute a much higher percentage of their earnings to social good than do men. But, until now, there was no clear explanation of why. Using sociological and psychological theories, the authors explain the tendency for women, especially minority women, to create socially responsible businesses. The findings in this book suggest fresh solutions to economic inequality and humanistic alternatives to exploitative business policies. Herein lays a radically new, socially integrated model that can be used by businesses everywhere.

In little more than a generation, Asia has emerged from centuries of stagnation to become the rising force of the global economy. This transformation has been so spectacular that some have called it a miracle. How did it happen? The Miracle details the courageous decisions and heroic self-sacrifice that made Asia's ascent possible. Spanning nine countries and probing major historical currents, this account illuminates not only Asia's extraordinary economic rise but also how its causes might emancipate the developing world from poverty and guide the developed world to further prosperity. Michael Schuman uncovers how outsourcing to Asia began; how Asia's most famous companies, such as Sony and Honda, became global corporations; and how technological changes and global economic shifts made Asia's boom possible. He reveals the compelling human side to this economic story, introducing readers to the political strongmen, entrepreneurs, and policymakers who made the Miracle a reality. This engaging historical narrative brings to life the ideas and actions of a diverse group of Asians dictators and democrats, generals and technocrats, economists and engineers. The Miracle not only offers profound insight into Asia and its increasing wealth and power; it also reveals how these seismic shifts continue to reverberate through the global economy. The implications of Asia's economic ascent for the rest of the world are surprising, promising, and inspiring. Readers of The Miracle will gain a deep understanding of Asia's place in the global economy and of their own.

Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans--predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth--and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments.Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioral economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV game shows, the NFL draft, and businesses like Uber.Laced with antic stories of Thaler's spirited battles with the bastions of traditional economic thinking, Misbehaving is a singular look into profound human foibles. When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers, and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

Before 2007, economists thought that financial crises would never happen again in the United States, that such upheavals were a thing of the past. Gary B. Gorton, a prominent expert on financial crises, argues that economists fundamentally misunderstand what they are, why they occur, and why there were none in the U.S. from 1934 to 2007. Misunderstanding Financial Crisesoffers a back-to-basics overview of financial crises, and shows that they are not rare, idiosyncratic events caused by a perfect storm of unconnected factors. Instead, Gorton shows how financial crises are, indeed, inherent to our financial system. Economists, Gorton writes, looked from a certain point of view and missed everything that was important: the evolution of capital markets and the banking system, the existence of new financial instruments, and the size of certain money markets like the sale and repurchase market. Comparing the so-called "Quiet Period" of 1934 to 2007, when there were no systemic crises, to the "Panic of 2007-2008," Gorton ties together key issues like bank debt and liquidity, credit booms and manias, moral hazard, and too-big-too-fail--all to illustrate the true causes of financial collapse. He argues that the successful regulation that prevented crises since 1934 did not adequately keep pace with innovation in the financial sector, due in part to the misunderstandings of economists, who assured regulators that all was well. Gorton also looks forward to offer both a better way for economists to think about markets and a description of the regulation necessary to address the future threat of financial disaster.

Concern about the role and the limits of modeling has heightened after repeated questions were raised regarding the dependability and suitability of the models that were used in the run-up to the 2008 financial crash. In this book, Lawrence Boland provides an overview of the practices of and the problems faced by model builders to explain the nature of models, the modeling process, and the possibility for and nature of their testing. In a reflective manner, the author raises serious questions about the assumptions and judgments that model builders make in constructing models. In making his case, he examines the traditional microeconomics-macroeconomics separation with regard to how theoretical models are built and used and how they interact, paying particular attention to the use of equilibrium concepts in macroeconomic models and game theory and to the challenges involved in building empirical models, testing models, and using models to test theoretical explanations.

A revealing, no-holds-barred portrait of Eileen Ford—the legendary entrepreneur who transformed the business of modeling and helped invent the celebrity supermodel. Eileen Ford, working with her husband, Jerry, created the twentieth century's largest and most successful modeling agency, representing some of the fashion world's most famous names—Suzy Parker, Carmen Dell'Orefice, Lauren Hutton, Rene Russo, Christie Brinkley, Jerry Hall, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell. Her relentless ambition turned the business of modeling into one of the most glamorous and desired professions, helping to convert her stable of beautiful faces into millionaire superstars. Model Woman chronicles the Ford Modeling Agency's meteoric rise to the top of the fashion and beauty business, and paints a vibrant portrait of the uncompromising woman at its helm in all her glittering, tyrannical brilliance. Outspoken and controversial, Ford was never afraid to offend in defense of her stringent standards. When she chose, she could deliver hauteur in the grand tradition of fashion's battle-axes, from Coco Chanel to Diana Vreeland—just ask John Casablancas or Janice Dickinson. But she was also a shrewd businesswoman with a keen eye for talent and a passion for serving her clients. Drawing on more than four years of intensive interviews with Ford and her intimates, associates, and rivals, as well as exclusive access to agency documents and memorabilia, Robert Lacey weaves an unforgettable tale of a determined entrepreneur and the empire she built—a story of beauty, ambition, business, and popular culture as powerful and complex as the woman at its center.

Emanuel Derman was one of the financial engineers whose mathematical models became crucial for Wall Street. The reliance investors put on such quantitative analysis was catastrophic for the economy, setting off the ongoing string of financial crises that began with the mortgage market in 2007 and continues today. Here Derman looks at why people—bankers in particular—still put so much faith in these models, and why it’s a terrible mistake to do so. Though financial models imitate the style of physics and employ the language of mathematics, ultimately they deal with human beings. In physics, theories aim for a description of reality; in finance, at best, models can shoot only for a simplistic and very limited approximation to it. Physicists and economists have been too enthusiastic to acknowledge the limits of their equations in the sphere of human behavior—which of course is what economics is all about. Describing the collapse of the subprime mortgage CDO market in 2007, Derman urges us to stop the naïve reliance on these models, and offers suggestions for mending them. This is a fascinating, lyrical, and very human look behind the curtain at the intersection between mathematics and human nature.

In Money and Tough Love Liaquat Ahamed offers brilliant insight into the heart of one the world's most influential institutions. At turns factual and informative, and others emotive and anecdotal, Ahamed joins in on the IMF's world missions to Washington, Tokyo, and Dublin in true James Bond meets The Financial Times style. Pulitzer prize-winning author and pre-eminent financial thinker, Ahamed reveals the human stories behind the headlines, ranging from chatting about the state of the economy to Irish cab drivers, to Dior with none other than the IMF's Christine Lagarde.

In Money At Work, Kevin Delaney explores how we think about money and, particularly, how our jobs influence that thinking. By spotlighting people for whom money is the focus of their work, Delaney illuminates how the daily practices experienced in different jobs create distinct ways of thinking and talking about money and how occupations and their work cultures carry important symbolic, material, and practical messages about money. From hedge fund trading rooms in New York, to poker players at work in Las Vegas casinos, to a "Christian money retreat" in a monastery in rural Pennsylvania, Delaney illustrates how the underlying economic conditions of various occupations and careers produce what he calls "money cultures", or ways of understanding the meaning of money, which in turn shape one's economic outlook. Key to this is how some professionals, such as debt counsellors, think very differently than say poker players in their regard to money--Delaney argues that it is the structure of these professions themselves that in turn influences monetary attitudes. Fundamentally,Money at Workshows that what people do for a living has a profound effect on how people conceive of money both at work and in their home lives, making clear the connections between the economic and the social, shedding light on some of our most basic values. At a time when conversations about money are increasingly important, Delaney shows that we do not merely learn our attitudes toward money in childhood, but we also learn important money lessons from the work that we do.

In the aftermath of recent financial crises, it's easy to see finance as a wrecking ball: something that destroys fortunes and jobs, and undermines governments and banks. In Money Changes Everything, leading financial historian William Goetzmann argues the exact opposite—that the development of finance has made the growth of civilizations possible. Goetzmann explains that finance is a time machine, a technology that allows us to move value forward and backward through time; and that this innovation has changed the very way we think about and plan for the future. He shows how finance was present at key moments in history: driving the invention of writing in ancient Mesopotamia, spurring the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome to become great empires, determining the rise and fall of dynasties in imperial China, and underwriting the trade expeditions that led Europeans to the New World. He also demonstrates how the apparatus we associate with a modern economy—stock markets, lines of credit, complex financial products, and international trade—were repeatedly developed, forgotten, and reinvented over the course of human history. Exploring the critical role of finance over the millennia, and around the world, Goetzmann details how wondrous financial technologies and institutions—money, bonds, banks, corporations, and more—have helped urban centers to expand and cultures to flourish. And it's not done reshaping our lives, as Goetzmann considers the challenges we face in the future, such as how to use the power of finance to care for an aging and expanding population. Money Changes Everything presents a fascinating look into the way that finance has steered the course of history.

Money Makers illuminates the often secretive industries of the private sector that drive the modern economy. David Snider and Chris Howard draw on their interviews with top executives- such as Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; David Rubenstein, Cofounder of the Carlyle Group; and Shona Brown, Senior Vice President of Business Operations at Google- to reveal the histories, mechanics, operations and challenges of investment banking, venture capital, private equity, hedge funds, management consulting, and the management of Fortune 500 companies. Money Makers is an indispensable on-the-ground guide that puts today’s financial landscape into perspective.

Why do policies and business practices that ignore the moral and generous side of human nature often fail? Should the idea of economic man--the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus--determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no." Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire.   But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends.

Wealthy, powerful, and potentially dangerous, hedge fund moguls have become the It Boys of twenty-first- century capitalism. Beating the market was long thought to be impossible, but hedge funds cracked its mysteries and made fortunes in the process. Drawing on his unprecedented access to the industry, esteemed financial writer Sebastian Mallaby tells the inside story of the hedge funds, from their origins in the 1960s to their role in the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009.

Since Luca Pacioli wrote the first accounting text back in 1494, thousands of books have been published to explain the how's of accounting—how to value assets, audit financial statements, comply with tax laws, estimate product costs, evaluate corporate performance, and so on. Missing in this journey has been a work that discusses the major why's of accounting practice. In More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting, author and financial expert Tom King fills this void by examining key issues and events that have transformed accounting from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud during the Internet and telecom frenzy. More Than a Numbers Game revolves around a history of ideas associated with accounting's use by U.S. corporations.This book not only examines the purposes and limitations of financial, cost, tax, and regulatory accounting, it also provides context for many of accounting's most divisive issues. More Than a Numbers Game also reveals how economics, finance, law, and business customs have contributed to accounting's overall development. With this book as your guide, you'll discover that accounting is not a static discipline, but an evolving tool full of idiosyncrasies. More Than a Numbers Game takes a detailed look at more than one hundred years of corporate accounting history in the United States—from the initial use of double-entry bookkeeping to Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)—and shows how accounting has solved numerous financial problems as well as created substantial controversy along the way.

"A leading economist and researcher report from the front lines of a revolution in solving the world's most persistent problem. When it comes to global poverty, people are passionate and polarized. At one extreme: We just need to invest more resources. At the other: We've thrown billions down a sinkhole over the last fifty years and accomplished almost nothing. Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel present an entirely new approach that blazes an optimistic and realistic trail between these two extremes. In this pioneering book Karlan and Appel combine behavioral economics with worldwide field research. They take readers with them into villages across Africa, India, South America, and the Philippines, where economic theory collides with real life. They show how small changes in banking, insurance, health care, and other development initiatives that take into account human irrationality can drastically improve the well-being of poor people everywhere. We in the developed world have found ways to make our own lives profoundly better. We use new tools to spend smarter, save more, eat better, and lead lives more like the ones we imagine. These tools can do the same for the impoverished. Karlan and Appel's research, and those of some close colleagues, show exactly how. In America alone, individual donors contribute over two hundred billion to charity annually, three times as much as corporations, foundations, and bequests combined. This book provides a new way to understand what really works to reduce poverty; in so doing, it reveals how to better invest those billions and begin transforming the well-being of the world"--

Is poverty inevitable? No, says author Paul Godfrey. More than Money shows how organizations can win the fight against poverty and create prosperity for people at the base of the pyramid in the developing and developed world. This book presents a novel framework that shows how five types of interrelated capital#151;institutional, human, social, organizational, and physical#151;enable development and sustainable growth. In addition to a widely-applicable model, Godfrey provides principles to guide application. Core chapters articulate each specific form of capital and provide examples of how it contributes to the triple bottom line. Not just a theoretical examination of poverty, More than Money delivers timely advice to organizations that produce goods and services, implement policies, and create meaningful change on the ground. This book will guide social innovators and entrepreneurs in business, government, and civil society settings as they create a vision, assemble a team of strong partners, and effectively measure social innovation.

Howard Marks's The Most Important Thing distilled the investing insight of his celebrated client memos into a single volume and, for the first time, made his time-tested philosophy available to general readers. In this edition, Marks's wisdom is joined by the comments, insights, and counterpoints of four renowned investors and investment educators: Christopher C. Davis (Davis Funds), Joel Greenblatt (Gotham Capital), Paul Johnson (Nicusa Capital), and Seth A. Klarman (Baupost Group). These experts lend insight into such concepts as "second-level thinking," the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Marks also adds his own annotations, expanding on his book's original themes and issues. A new chapter addresses the importance of reasonable expectations, and a foreword by Bruce C. Greenwald, called "a guru to Wall Street's gurus" by the New York Times, speaks on value investing, productivity, and the economics of information.

William Rosen tells the story of the men responsible for the Industrial Revolution and the machine that drove it-the steam engine. In the process he tackles the question that has obsessed historians ever since: What made eighteenth-century Britain such fertile soil for inventors? Rosen's answer focuses on a simple notion that had become enshrined in British law the century before: that people had the right to own and profit from their ideas. The result was a period of frantic innovation revolving particularly around the promise of steam power. Rosen traces the steam engine's history from its early days as a clumsy but sturdy machine, to its coming-of-age driving the wheels of mills and factories, to its maturity as a transporter for people and freight by rail and by sea. Along the way we enter the minds of such inventors as Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, scientists including Robert Boyle and Joseph Black, and philosophers John Locke and Adam Smith-all of whose insights, tenacity, and ideas transformed first a nation and then the world. William Rosen is a masterly storyteller with a keen eye for the "aha!" moments of invention and a gift for clear and entertaining explanations of science.The Most Powerful Idea in the Worldwill appeal to readers fascinated with history, science, and the hows and whys of innovation itself.

Americans are stuck. We live with travel delays on congested roads, shipping delays on clogged railways, and delays on repairs, project approvals, and funding due to gridlocked leadership. These delays affect us all, whether you are a daily commuter, a frequent flyer, an entrepreneur, an online shopper, a job-seeker, or a community leader. If people can't move, if goods are delayed, and if information networks can't connect, then economic opportunity deteriorates and social inequity grows. We have been stuck for too long, writes Harvard Business School professor and best-selling author Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In Move, Kanter visits cities and states across the country to tackle our challenges—and reveal solutions—on the roads and rails, and in our cities, skies, and the halls of Washington, D.C. We meet a visionary engineer and public servant spearheading an underwater tunnel in Miami to streamline port operations and redirect constant traffic from the city center. We see mayors partnering with large corporations and nimble entrepreneurs to unveil parking apps, bike-sharing programs, and seamless Wi-Fi networks in greener, more vibrant, more connected cities. And we learn about much-needed efforts—such as dynamic tolls on highways and fees based on vehicle miles traveled—to reduce our dependence on the outmoded gasoline tax in our new electric car age. It all adds up to a new vision for American mobility, where local leaders shape initiatives without waiting for Congress to act, and ambitious companies partner with governments to tackle projects that serve the public good, create jobs, and improve quality of life while providing healthy sources of investment. With unique insight and unrivaled expertise, Kanter gives us a sweeping look across America, revealing the innovative projects, vital leaders, and bold solutions that are moving our transportation infrastructure toward a cleaner, faster, and more prosperous future.

Rupert Murdoch is the most significant media tycoon the English-speaking world has ever known. No one before him has trafficked in media influence across those nations so effectively, nor has anyone else so singularly redefined the culture of news and the rules of journalism. In a stretch spanning six decades, he built News Corp from a small paper in Adelaide, Australia into a multimedia empire capable of challenging national broadcasters, rolling governments, and swatting aside commercialrivals. Then, over two years, a series of scandals threatened to unravel his entire creation.Murdoch's defenders questioned how much he could have known about the bribery and phone hacking undertaken by his journalists in London. But to an exceptional degree, News Corp was an institution cast in the image of a single man. The company's culture was deeply rooted in an Australian buccaneering spirit, a brawling British populism, and an outsized American libertarian sensibility-at least when it suited Murdoch's interests.David Folkenflik, the media correspondent for NPR News, explains how the man behind Britain's take-no-prisoners tabloids survived the scandals-and the true cost of this survival. There were moments when the global news chief panicked. But as long as Rupert Murdoch remains the person at the top, Murdoch's World will be making news.

America-bashing predates even America itself, with French Enlightenment philosophes claiming that the colony was doomed, and one critic reporting that the colony's population was "astonishingly idiotic [and] enervated." As the United States became a superpower after World War II, a more virulent, politically charged form of declinism emerged in the 1950s amid hysteria that "the Russians are coming." It was followed by the European miracle, Japan's "Rising Sun," and now the looming Chinese behemoth. While declinism may be catnip for the media and gloating Europeans eager to play up America's "has-been" status, the actual facts do not corroborate the contentions, as Josef Joffe, a leading German commentator and American academic, demonstrates in this history of American declinism from the age of Sputnik to Obama. The result is a highly provocative examination of how the United States, for all its failings, continues to be an unending force of rejuvenation today.

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.

"Do consumers really care where products come from and how they are made? Is there such a thing as an 'ethical consumer'? Corporations and policy makers are bombarded with international surveys purporting to show that most consumers want ethical products. Yet when companies offer such products they are often met with indifference and limited uptake. It seems that survey radicals turn into economic conservatives at the checkout. This book reveals not only why the search for the 'ethical consumer' is futile but also why the social aspects of consumption cannot be ignored. Consumers are revealed to be much more deliberative and sophisticated in how they do or do not incorporate social factors into their decision making. Using first-hand findings and extensive research, The Myth of the Ethical Consumer provides academics, students and leaders in corporations and NGOs with an enlightening picture of the interface between social causes and consumption"--. "The Ethical Consumer and Myth The notion of ethical consumers has evolved over the last 25 or more years from an almost exclusive focus on environmental issues to a concept that more broadly incorporates matters of conscience, only to return to its "green" roots with the recent concerns about global climate change"--

Chronicling the rise and fall of the efficient market theory and the century-long making of the modern financial industry, Justin Fox's The Myth of the Rational Market is as much an intellectual whodunit as a cultural history of the perils and possibilities of risk. The book brings to life the people and ideas that forged modern finance and investing, from the formative days of Wall Street through the Great Depression and into the financial calamity of today. It's a tale that features professors who made and lost fortunes, battled fiercely over ideas, beat the house in blackjack, wrote bestselling books, and played major roles on the world stage. It's also a tale of Wall Street's evolution, the power of the market to generate wealth and wreak havoc, and free market capitalism's war with itself. The efficient market hypothesis has evolved into a powerful myth. The theory holds that the market is always right, and that the decisions of millions of rational investors, all acting on information to outsmart one another, always provide the best judge of a stock's value. That myth is crumbling. Celebrated journalist and columnist Fox introduces a new wave of economists and scholars who no longer teach that investors are rational or that the markets are always right. Many of them now agree with Yale professor Robert Shiller that the efficient markets theory “represents one of the most remarkable errors in the history of economic thought.” Today the theory has given way to counterintuitive hypotheses about human behavior, psychological models of decision making, and the irrationality of the markets. In his landmark treatment of the history of the world's markets, Fox uncovers the new ideas that may come to drive the market in the century ahead.