Economic thinking - about climate change, immigration, austerity, automation and much more - in its most digestible form For decades, a single free market philosophy has dominated global economics. But this is bland and unhealthy - like British food in the 1980s, when bestselling author and Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang first arrived in the UK from South Korea. Just as eating a wide range of cuisines contributes to a balanced diet, so too is it essential we listen to a variety of economic perspectives. In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside anecdotes about food from around the world. Beginning each chapter with a menu, Chang uses the stories behind key ingredients - where they come from, how they are cooked and consumed, what they mean to different cultures - to explore economic theory. For Chang, strawberries are delicious with cream, but they also prophesise a jobless future; chocolate is a wonderful pudding, but more exciting are the insights it offers into post-industrial knowledge economies. Explaining everything from the hidden cost of care work to the misleading language of the free market as he cooks dishes like anchovy and egg toast, Gambas al Ajillo and Korean dotori mook, Ha-Joon Chang serves up an easy-to-digest feast of bold ideas. Myth-busting, witty and thought-provoking, Edible Economics shows that getting to grips with the economy is like learning a recipe: if we understand it, we can change it - and, with it, the world.

For the first two thirds of the twentieth century, British government was among the most stable in the world. In the last three decades it has been a leader in innovation and its governing system has been in constant turmoil. This book, by one of Britain's leading political scientists, explains this transformation and traces its consequences. It will be essential reading for all those interested in British political development and, in particular, the central role of regulation in the modern state.

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust.
Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being.
The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence.

Tax "justice" has become an increasingly central issue of political debate in many countries, particularly following the cardiac arrest of global financial services in 2008 and the subsequent worldwide slump in trade and production. The evident abuse of tax systems by corporations and rich individuals through tax avoidance schemes and offshore shadow banking is increasingly in the public eye. Above all, the political challenges of recovery and structural reform have raised core issues of burden-sharing and social equity on the agendas of both civil society groups and political elites. Democratic states need tax revenue to fund public goods and combat public "bads" with any degree of legitimacy. The contributions to this book discuss the haphazard evolution of contemporary taxation systems, their contradictory effects in a globalized economy, and the urgency of their reform as a precondition for social justice.

G. J. Oliver provides a new assessment of the economic history of Athens in the Hellenistic era, when the city was no longer an imperial power and struggled to maintain its territory, both at home in Attica and overseas in the cleruchies. Oliver assesses how political and military change affected the fragile economies of the Athenian polis. Warfare in Attica required the Athenians to protect their domestic grain supply and seek out those beyond the city to provide commodities from abroad. Oliver stresses the economic importance of benefaction and civic honours, and shows how much the citizens of Athens contributed to the defence and finances of their city.

Japanese foreign direct investment surged into Western markets in the late 1980s provoking intense policy debates in Europe and America. How did the European authorities respond to this 'Japanese Challenge'? How did their response compare to the US policy record? Does this international business activity give any insights into the idea of increasing convergence of behaviour of the world's capitalist economies? To answer these questions, Mark Mason investigates European policies towards the Japanese Challenge in cross-national and historical perspectives. He compares the policy response of European governments with that of the US government by contrasting case studies in three key sectorsthe automobile industry, consumer electronics, and banking. The case studies are then examined in the context of wider policy patterns and models across the entire Triad throughout the postwar period. This book will be essential reading for anyone interested in international business history, Japanese investment policies, international trade, corporate strategy, and government-industry relations.

Known as the "economist's economist" for his work on creating a synthetic economic theory, Swedish economist Knut Wicksell was a controversial, but highly influential figure in modern economic thought. His contributions to marginal productivity theory, income distribution and, most notably, his theory of interest would come to have a profound impact upon twentieth century economic theory, not least in the work of John Maynard Keynes. First published in English in 1934 and 1935, this Routledge Revival set is a reissue of Wicksell's two volume work on political economy, first published in Sweden in 1901 and 1906. This work is aimed at both the professional economist and the advanced student alike, as well as all those interested in the theoretical development of political economy. Volume I concerns itself predominantly with issues of theory: specifically the theory of value, the theory of production and distribution and the theory of capital accumulation. Volume II deals with theories relating to money, currency and credit.

What role did women play in the pre-industrial European economy? Sheilagh Ogilvie tackles this question in an original way, using a rich body of new evidence. By examining women's contribution to a particular pre-industrial economy - the German state of Württemberg - Ogilvie casts doubt on most of the extensive literature about pre-industrial women's work. She also refutes the theory of 'social capital' which claims that traditional networks, like guilds with their shared norms, benefited everyone. She shows how network insiders benefited at the expense of outsiders, especially women. The result was a 'bitter living' - not only for women, but for everyone.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller So You Want to Talk About Race, an "illuminating" (New York Times Book Review) history of white male identity. What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments? Through the last 150 years of American history -- from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics -- Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism. As provocative as it is essential, this book will upend everything you thought you knew about American identity and offers a bold new vision of American greatness.

In attaining economic globalization, China needs world economy, world economy also needs China. This book outlines the foundation of an analytically oriented public finance that intends to promote sound development of China, and discusses various contemporary topics, including the impacts of the tradition, the mechanisms of economic policies and operations, the modernization perspective and international trade conflict, as well as current rural issues and the legal environment in China. The book focuses on explaining China's special phenomena, and trying to provide answers to questions on 'why'. The intent of this book is to share the knowledge and experience that author has gained from working in China and the United States of America and to serve as an intellectual bridge for global investors, economists and market watchers in general to understand China better. "This Book is the story of an economic revival unlike anything seen before. It is the story of a "Mixed Economic System" that to date has achieved remarkable economic gains. It is a story of how directed investment with a purpose which combines Government to kick start free enterprise can work. It is also a story of trial and error and practical applications of capital flows based on measured results. It is a story that accentuates the value of pragmatism and flexibility to change course instead of slavish adherence to ideology. It is also a story of how much more needs to be done to spread the economic resurgence across all segments of the population and all regions of the Country. The Book is a "must study" for graduate students in economics and finance." A. Robert Abboud, former Chairmen of the First National Bank of Chicago, Chairman of First City Bank of Texas and President of Occidental Petroleum.

The leading professional accounting bodies in Britain today boast more than a quarter of a million qualified members and accountants are moving into top management positions in increasing numbers. Accountants have become the foremost professional grouping in British business management. The Priesthood of Industry documents the rise of the accountancy profession, from the handful of accountants listed in the trade directories of the major cities in the late-eighteenth century to the huge commercially-oriented firms of the late-twentieth century. The authors focus on the individual: the professional accountant, and adopt an economic determinist analysis to explain the rise of public practice and the transfer of staff to industry in increasing numbers. They also consider the routes through which this transfer of skills took place, and identify demand and supply side factors to explain the professional accountant's present hegemony in business management.

Since its inception in the late 19th century, Britain's mail order industry both exploited and generated social networks in building its businesses. The common foundation of the sector was the agency system; Sales were made through catalogs held by agents, ordinary people in families, neighborhoods, pubs, clubs and workplaces. Through this agency system mail order firms in Britain were able to tap social networks both to build a customer base, but also to obtain vital information on credit worthiness.
In this, the first comprehensive history of the British mail order industry, the authors combine business and social history to fully explain the features and workings of this industry. They show how British general mail order industry firms such as Kay and Co., Empire Stores, Littlewoods, and Grattan grew from a range of businesses as diverse as watch sales or football pools. A range of business innovations and strategies were developed throughout the twentieth century, including technological development and labor process rationalization. Indeed, the sector was in the vanguard of many aspects of change from supply chain logistics to computerization. The social and gender profile of the home shopper also changed markedly as the industry developed. These changes are charted, from the male-dominated origins of the industry to the growing influence of women both within the firm and, more importantly, as the centre of the mail order market. The book also draws parallels and contrasts with the much more widely studied mail order industry of the United States.
The final section of the book examines the rise of internet shopping and the new challenges and opportunities it provided forthe mail order industry. Here the story is one of continuity and fracture as the established mail order companies struggle to adjust to a business environment which they had partly created, but which also rested on a new range of core competencies and technological and demographic change.

Since the collapse of the USSR there has been a growing interest in the Stolypin Land Reform as a possible model for post-Communist agrarian development. Using recent theoretical and empirical advances in Anglo-American research, Dr Pallot examines how peasants throughout Russia received, interpreted, and acted upon the government's attempts to persuade them to quit the commune and set up independent farms. She shows how a majority of peasants failed to interpret the Reform in the way its authors had expected, with outcomes that varied both temporally and geographically. The result challenges existing texts which either concentrate on the policy side of the Reform or, if they engage with its results, use aggregated, official statistics which, this text argues, are unreliable indicators of the pre-revolutionary peasants reception of the Reform.

A new and distinctive analysis of Americanization in European and Japanese industry after the Second World War. The distinguished international contributors analyse the autonomous and creative role of local actors in selectively adapting US technology and management methods to suit local conditions and, strikingly, in creating new hybrid forms that combined indigenous and foreign practices in unforeseen, yet remarkably competitive ways. Of compelling interest in particular to historians and social scientists concerned with the dynamics of post-war economic growth and industrial development.

Many books on the 2008 financial crisis and the current recession focus on the financial sector. Unlike them, this book takes the real economy as the starting point and it situates the downturn within the societal context over the last several decades. Important elements of the story include global manufacturing overcapacity and declining profitability, failure of advanced industrial economies to make a quantum jump in discoveries and innovations across a broad range of technologies, ascent of neo-liberalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Asian financial crisis, the Japanese "lost decade", and the dot-com boom. This provides the backdrop of the birth of a market society, deregulation, easy credit, and financial excesses.The financial crisis reveals much that has gone astray in the business world over the last few decades - short term thinking, manipulation of figures and image management at the cost of the basics. The financial sector has become an arena for accounting shenanigans and corporate skullduggery. It is also a symptom of deeper social and cultural change. Crisis of a very serious nature functions as a cleansing exercise. Already we have seen debates which re-examine values and ideas, state policy and business practices. If the world could rise to the challenge, history will view the crisis as a blessing in disguise and thus render it in positive terms.

The Post-Human Society is a rich, unique, path-breaking, belletristic and literary 'crie de coeur' work - a lyrical expose of all the internal infelicities (social, political, aesthetic) of the United States of America. In its vivid contrasting of the mores of competition, avarice, and greed to communitarian, co-respecting and co-operative values, it abounds with colorful, vibrant, breathtaking images and tropes. Utilizing a novel, First Person Narrative, the author Rajani Kanth offers a poignant critique of the rabid, runaway materialism that has been the bane of all modernist, European societies, to date. It is evocative in its approach to the fading genre of the iconic anthropology/sociology classics of the yesteryear. Ultimately, it is a critique of the ruling ethos of our times: Eurocentrism - i.e., selfish and acquisitive materialism, of which the contemporary USA is the trend-setter and the unchallenged gold standard. DR. RAJANI KANTH has an MA in Social Anthropology from the Delhi School of Economics, India, and a PhD in Economics from the New School for Social Research, New York, USA. After serving as Economic Advisor to the UN in New York, he taught as University Professor, and is currently based at Harvard University.

A myth-busting explanation of inflation, the desperate gullibility of central bankers and finance ministers-and our abject failure to learn from history From investors and monetary authorities to governments and policy makers, almost everyone had assumed inflation was dead and buried. But now people the world over are confronting a poisonous new economic reality and, with it, the prospect of vast and increasing wealth inequality. How have we arrived in this situation? And what, if anything, can we do about it? Celebrated economist Stephen D. King-one of the few to warn ahead of time about the latest inflationary upheaval-identifies key lessons from the history of inflation that policy makers chose not to heed. From ancient Rome through the American Civil War and up to the asset bubbles of today, inflation stems from policy error, sovereign greed, and a collective loss of faith in currencies. We Need to Talk About Inflation cuts through centuries of bad judgment and misunderstanding, offering a means to intervene now-so we can begin to tackle the political and social upheaval unleashed by inflation.

The Economics of Inflation provides a comprehensive analysis of economic conditions in Germany under the Great Inflation and discusses inflationary conditions in general. The analysis is supported by extensive statistical material.
* For this translation the author thoroughly revised the original work
* Includes an appendix on German economic conditions in the years following the monetary reform, 1923-24.

In Athens and the Cyclades: Economic Strategies 540-314 BC, Brian Rutishauser examines the history and economy of the island region known as the Cyclades during the late sixth to late fourth centuries BC. While certain aspects of geography in the Cyclades remained constant through ancient Greek history, the islanders were able to adapt to changing conditions and to changing hegemony imposed from outside the region, in order to increase economic prosperity. By the time of the Persian Wars many of these islands had their own naval forces, coinage, and monumental architecture. During the fifth century Athens established a naval hegemony over the region, which put an end to these practices. Until the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians maintained stability but redirected wealth generated from commerce and the export of local island products through the payment of tribute and other forms of taxation. The end of the Peloponnesian War saw a period of Spartan rule, followed by a resurgence of Athenian power and a period of shifting hegemonies. During the second half of the fourth century, many of the Cyclades renewed local monumental construction and the issue of local coinage. The Cyclades may have prospered during this period due to their mutual economic interests with Athens, a symbiotic relationship which persisted after the collapse of the Second Athenian League to the end of Athenian control of the temple of Delian Apollo.

Comprising a series of unique and informative interviews, this original book focuses on the evolution and current state of the economic literature on the Great Depression. Renowned economists assess the status of the remaining debates, evaluate what economists do and do not know about the economics of the interwar era, and examine the new directions economic research is taking in attempting to better understand this important economic epoch. Every generation of economists tries to understand the Depression, but the interwar generation of economists who lived through it left several issues unresolved. Often scholars from the generation that follows a particular event are the ones who provide fresh and disinterested evaluations of the historical period. We are now at that point in our evaluation of the economics of the interwar era. This book contains interviews with 12 American economists who have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the economics of the Great Depression: Peter Temin, Ben Bernanke, James Hamilton, Robert Lucas, Lee Ohanian, Christina Romer, Barry Eichengreen, Stephen Cecchetti, James Butkiewicz, Michael Bordo, Charles Calomiris and Allan Meltzer. Together and individually, they provide an enlightening account of what we have learned about the Great Depression from the post-World War II generation of economists. This accessible, highly readable book continues and extends the discussion of the Great Depression, appealing to students and scholars of both economics and history.

The Emergence of the two-party system in the 1830s led to the democratization of the nation and to decades of heated dispute about democracy. In Democratizing the Old Dominion, the first comprehensive study of antebellum Virginia politics, William G. Shade demonstrates that Virginia typified the nation more closely than did any other state both in the emergence and development of the two-party system and in economic development. Shade places the antebellum debate over slavery and states' rights in the context of early discussion on these subjects by Jefferson and Madison. He shows how the diversity of opinion on these issues was shaped by politics. Discussing the many conflicts within Virginia and the South, he debunks the myth of the unique South and argues that the similarities between North and South were more numerous than the differences. The author also provides a thorough analysis of Virginia's many regional cultures, looking at them comparatively as well as in the context of national party conflicts.

This volume presents a collection of studies focussing on population and settlement patterns in the Roman empire in the perspective of the economic development of the Mediterranean world between 100 BC and AD 350. The analyses offered here highlight the issues of regional and temporal variation in Italy, Spain, Britain, Egypt, Crete, and Asia Minor from classical Greece to the early Byzantine period. The chapters fall into two main groups, the first dealing with the evidence for rural settlement, as revealed by archaeological field surveys, and the attendant methodological problems of extrapolating from that evidence a view of population; and the second with city populations and the phenomenon of urbanization. They proceed to consider hierarchies of settlement in the characteristic classical pattern of city plus territory, and the way in which those entities are defined from the highest to the lowest level: the empire as 'city of Rome plus territory', then regional and local hierarchies, and, more precisely, the identity and the nature of the 'instruments' which enables them to function in economic cohesion.

Lin Foxhall explores the cultivation of the olive as an extended case study for understanding ancient Greek agriculture in its landscape, economic, social, and political settings. Evidence from written sources, archaeology, and visual images is assembled to focus on what was special about the cultivation and processing of the olive in classical and archaic Greece, and how and why these practices differed from Roman ones. This investigation opens up new ways of thinking about the economies of the archaic and classical Greek world.