Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2020 -

A former policy advisor for the British government, Susskind (Univ. of Oxford, UK) lays out a case for continued advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) that would radically disrupt the labor market and result in significantly less work for humans. Susskind argues that the number of jobs that cannot be accomplished by AI is much smaller than economists have traditionally thought, and he provides a comprehensive history of AI and points to recent AI advances like AlphaGo. He argues that technology could evolve in unexpected ways, and that AI could become a powerful tool for solving problems in ways that are unfamiliar to humans and do not rely on anything resembling human cognition. Susskind also provides an excellent analysis of how technology has affected the labor market in the past, resulting in the creation of new types of jobs. However, he points out that the future result could be different due to evolving social and technological trends. In the last section of the book the author offers recommendations on how to deal with problems of mass unemployment, among these ideas universal basic income, taxation, and government oversight of technology. Though Susskind's argument and conclusions are a minority opinion, the possibilities he sets forth should not be overlooked.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals.

A longtime professor of economics at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Gallman (1926-98) probably did more than any other scholar to build a firm empirical foundation of knowledge of the US economy in the 19th century--the period in which the US saw rapid economic growth and emerged as a global powerhouse. However, Gallman's publications on investment and the capital stock were scattered, and key supporting material remained unpublished at his death. In this indispensable volume, Gallman's former colleague Paul Rhode (Univ. of Michigan) brings this material together into a coherent, illuminating whole. Rhode documents Gallman's methods, uncovers some errors in his generally meticulous calculations, and explains his major findings. The volume shows that US capital stock rose roughly 276-fold between 1774 and 1900, as the capital-to-output ratio more than doubled. It shows that agriculture was more capital-intensive than manufacturing, and that in the early 1800s as much as a third of all investment was the mundane do-it-yourself agricultural project of clearing, breaking, and fencing the land. The volume is rich in detail. For example, fencing data are broken down by type of fence and a bonus chapter treats consumer durables ranging from cast iron stoves to furniture to tombstones.Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers.

In its various incarnations, dating to its origins as the Reichsbank in the late 19th century, the German central bank--today's Deutsche Bundesbank--has been through the wringer. The central bank encompasses the monetary, economic, political, social, and even military life of Germany. It continues to play a distinctive role in today's European Central Bank and in Germany's role in holding together the European Union in the face of Brexit and fiscal pressures in Italy and other member countries. Weathering storms from hyperinflation (1920s) though Nazism and WW II to Germany's currency reunification in 1989, the European debt crisis of the 2010s, and today's ECB governance issues, the German central bank achieved a powerful political franchise as the ultimate guardian of the value of the currency. It inevitably came into sometimes fierce conflict with its own government and pressure on its independence in carrying out monetary policies aligned with its perceived duty in the national interest. In today's vastly different Germany, people hold the Bundesbank in special regard, though few have first-hand knowledge of its key historical pressure points. Mee (University College Oxford, UK) details this turbulent history and German interactions with key contemporaneous figures. A fascinating book.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

To better understand one of the important problems of the current era, namely the declining life expectancies of middle-aged American males, this book offers multifold illuminating insights. Case (Princeton Univ.) and Deaton (emer., Princeton Univ.) link rising suicide rates, surging drug overdose deaths, and alcoholism-related mortalities, calling these fatalities "deaths of despair." They see this pattern over-represented among middle-aged white males, many of whom hold dead-end, low-paying, service-work jobs--if they are lucky enough to find jobs. Low educational attainments further reduce these workers' economic futures, along with their declining union memberships and attenuated religious affiliations, leading many to seek comfort from drugs to escape the pain of everyday life. The authors see this problem residing in the US exclusively, where most people are excluded from health and social services, which are primarily available to higher-status job holders. Only by drastically reforming the health care system into a single-payer system with more government regulations, comparable to health care systems in European countries, will the US be able to address these problems. With very convincing statistical analyses and excellent graphics, these authors have adroitly linked two important problem areas.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels.

This is an informative study of an important subject: the role of international trade and its relationship to financial investment and economic development, as it pertains to BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Rolland (Northwestern Univ.) and Trubek (Univ. of Wisconsin) are both law professors, and in this volume they review the origin of the neoliberal economic order that emerged in the post-WW II era. Given the major world powers' economic advantage, the less-developed states initially played on the periphery of the global economic order. The authors fully cover what altered the relationship. They discuss how less-developed states employed the WTO to respond to liberal economic policies and transform the hold over the global economic system into a more pluralistic one. The authors detail the law on investment strategies and the international trade regime, and they make a real contribution in looking at the future of international economic law. The narrative is supported by a host of valuable references to related treaties, cases (specifically WTO cases), and a substantial bibliography. Required reading for anyone involved with international political economics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

A policy wonk's paradise, this volume could not be more timely. The 18 essays were all written by federal government policy makers active during the 2007-08 financial crisis and the Great Recession. Each essay focuses on a specific type of policy/situation--e.g., rescuing mortgage giants, crisis-era housing programs--and captures the challenges, proposed solutions, and broader lessons to be learned. This reviewer found "Recapitalizing the Banking System" and "The Rescue and Restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler" particularly fascinating for their illuminating insider insights. The introductory essay was written by editors Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Henry Paulson, the primary decision makers during the period. Their essay is a synopsis of their Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its Lessons (2019). The present volume fleshes out the details of that earlier work in a most insightful manner. The final essay, "Evidence on the Outcomes from the Financial Crisis Response," evaluates the outcomes of the varied policies in terms of both macroeconomic impact and financial market stability and opines that without the extensive intervention, the Great Recession could well have become another Great Depression. Those seeking insights into crisis policy should read this book.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals.

The path to global economic integration has not always been smooth. In the 1800s, advances in communications and transportation made trade cheaper. Exports of goods outpaced growth in world output, capital moved freely across borders, and the US experienced a surge in immigration. But the interwar period saw globalization decline, only to be succeeded, after WW II, by yet another powerful surge in economic integration, as institutions such as the GATT (precursor to the World Trade Organization) helped dismantle trade barriers around the world. The "hyperglobalization" of the 1990s, however, ended with the global financial crisis of 2008-09. In the years since, the puissant trade linkages of earlier periods have not reestablished themselves. The contributors to this excellent volume ask why. Concerns about unequal gains from globalization, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and adverse effects of immigration have come to the fore. The book dissects the problem and globalization's latest discontents, and proposes remedies: governments must do more in the areas of education and worker training, and the WTO will have to deal with the more complicated issues of state subsidies, digital trade, and intellectual property rights.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

By the early 20th century, many Americans believed the private banking system was exploitative and undemocratic and the cause of the economic instability and inequality plaguing the nation. In this engaging and well-researched study, historian Christopher Shaw examines what he calls "banking politics," the political force emerging from the activism of ordinary people who joined together to challenge financial institutions. Making excellent use of newspapers, organizational records, periodicals, correspondence, and oral histories, Shaw analyzes the efforts of ordinary citizens to reform banking and remake it into a democratic institution that emphasized their economic welfare. Dissatisfied with the existing financial order, farm and worker organizations, many in the Midwest and West, formed the core of banking politics. Ordinary citizens believed the government could curtail the banking elites and make finance more responsive to popular needs. The Depression revealed the influence of banking politics, as popular pressure led to finance reform legislation that separated investment and commercial banking, the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation to guarantee deposits, the Farm Credit System, expansion of postal savings banks, better distribution of currency nationwide, and credit unions. Shaw contends that these reforms brought a long period of financial stability, nearly eliminating earlier boom and bust cycles, and led to the decline of banking politics.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.

A respected scholar/journalist with a PhD in mathematical economics, Szpiro examines how theories of economic decision-making have evolved over the three centuries since Nikolaus Bernoulli discovered a paradox (eventually called the St. Petersburg paradox): people are not willing to pay much to take a bet whose expected payoff is infinity. Over time new insights were added by brilliant and colorful figures, but they strained to explain the rationality of decision-making because, as Szpiro writes in the introduction, "it turns out that, in general, people are not rational." Szpiro, a superb storyteller, recounts--in a distinctly idiosyncratic manner--the quest to understand people's choices in the face of risk and uncertainty. He engagingly explains theories related to the nature and shape of the "utility function"--theories of such luminaries as Jeremy Bentham, Ernst Weber, Gustav Fechner, W. S. Jevons, Leon Walras, Carl Menger, Frank Ramsay, John von Neumann, Oskar Morgenstern, Milton Friedman, Kenneth Arrow, Maurice Allais, Herbert Simon, and (surprisingly) Daniel Ellsberg. Szpiro's heroes are Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman, and Richard Thaler, who finally got it right by exploring the irrational biases of people. Unfortunately, Szpiro does not include a chapter detailing criticisms of his heroes' theories.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

Taxation is a complicated subject, but Dieterle (economics, Walsh College) does an admirable job of explaining technical material in understandable prose. The introductory narrative and the chronology are concise and lay the groundwork for the 11 chapters that follow. Throughout Dieterle discusses applicable philosophies, breaking them down in ways that are easily comprehensible. His presentation is objective, and he does not push any political or economic agenda. Instead he provides an overview of competing schools of thought and how they have manifested throughout US history. He also includes a chapter on the tax forms and terms used in everyday life. Published in the "Student Guides to Business and Economics" series, the book is not meant to be an original contribution to scholarship, but it is well documented. Each chapter includes endnotes, and the general bibliography at the back of the book is arranged by chapter to facilitate focused further reading and research. The "Questions for Further Exploration" section, which is also arranged by chapter, enhances this work's utility as a learning aid. This book is required reading for those seeking a basic understanding of taxation in the US, and how it has developed.Summing Up: Essential. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; students in technical programs; general readers.

Those who believe that market competition is the dominant benchmark for allocating productive resources and aligning with people's definition of economic welfare have been keeping a suspicious eye on the structure of industries for several years. Key sectors of the economy--from banking to mining to air transport--have drifted toward oligopoly market structures that give an edge to rent-seeking (redistribution via market power) against income and wealth creation--reslicing the pie instead of baking a bigger pie. Technology has turbocharged this pattern, with tech firms themselves evolving into networks with great monopoly power operating platforms that others can use in their own search for "manufactured" competitive advantage. In the process, old metrics of economic structure have been supplanted by new tech-driven metrics that nobody is yet sure how to define. This has made procompetitive public policy far more difficult. The US is among the laggards in defending the broad public interest; the Europeans are evidently much more awake to the key threats. This readable volume--along with others such as Thomas Philippon's The Great Reversal (CH, Apr'20, 57-2644)--represents a new wave of thinking about these issues, a wave that may eventually lead to a revival of procompetitive public policies, just as noteworthy waves of competition enforcement have done in the past.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates; graduate students; general readers.

This book focuses on public finance and several myths associated with how governments tax, spend, and manage their budgets. Most people have misguided views of how governments make and spend money. Political ideologues push their own narratives about public finance; knowledgeable economists have done little to dispel these misconceptions and some economists, unfortunately, propagate the myths. Weeks (emer., SOAS, Univ. of London, UK) argues that much of what people assume about public finance is wrong, and he makes a bold attempt to explain, in clear language, why that is so. One myth is that federal governments are like households that must live within their means and balance their budgets. This myth is so ingrained that it seems impossible to overturn; however, Weeks lays out the arguments clearly. The worry is that Weeks is preaching to the choir, in that ideologues will not read past the introduction because they will immediately dismiss the ideas. But this is an excellent book for open-minded people who want to know how public finance actually works.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

Throughout his career, in influential books like like Choosing the Right Pond (1985) and Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess (CH, Jul'99, 36-6391), Frank (Cornell) has examined the importance of status-seeking and social interactions in society and the economy. Continuing with that theme, Under the Influence argues that social context shapes choices far more than many people realize. Policymakers have a duty to encourage socially beneficial behaviors and discourage harmful ones because, for example, the greatest harm from someone's smoking may not be the smoke itself but the fact that it encourages others to smoke. Likewise, one person's obesity ignites a behavioral contagion that triggers others to become obese, and one person's wasteful consumption cascades to influence others' wasteful consumption. Frank champions specific targeted taxes (e.g., on sugary soft drinks) in conjunction with high carbon taxes and steeply progressive consumption taxes to rein in excess consumption and avert a potential climate-change cataclysm. Individuals need support to make the right choices, and taxes often work better than regulations in achieving these ends. As usual, Frank's book is full of information and insights that will interest even those who do not agree with his policy agenda.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.

In Women vs Capitalism, British economist Vicky Pryce (former chief economic adviser, Centre for Economics and Business Research, UK) investigates gender inequality under capitalism. She argues that gender inequality is a form of market failure and that resources are wasted when half the population is unable to work to its potential. The reason for the market failure is the fixation of the capitalist market economy on short-term profit maximization as opposed to long-term thinking. Pryce presents data in three basic categories, devoting a chapter to each. General evidence is presented in "Women under Capitalism," and more specific information is discussed in "Motherhood and Caring" and "Bias." In part 4, she explores a variety of proposed solutions to the problem before presenting her own conclusions. As is usual in instances of market failure, the answer lies in government intervention. A switch to long-term thinking would do much to improve the flexibility of the workplace and address women's needs. Although most of the data is from the UK, the points Pryce makes are relevant for all economies trying to make the best use of limited resources.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.