Five Books has interviewed three Nobel economics laureates – Robert Shiller, Eric Maskin and Paul Krugman – and Muhammad Yunus who (although also an economist, among other things) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Beyond that many of our interviews recommend the work of laureates or discuss their significance. In literature the works of Bob Dylan (2016), Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), Gabriel Garcia Marques (1982), J M Coetzee (2003), V S Naipaul (2001), Seamus Heaney (1995), Saul Bellow (1976), T S Eliot (1948), Ernest Hemingway (1954) and Winston Churchill (1953) to name a small handful are all recommended or discussed.
As well as our interview with Muhammad Yunus, we have book recommendations that assess the contribution of other Nobel Peace Prize laureates, such as Woodrow Wilson (1919) and Nelson Mandela (1993).
In her interview on Chemistry books Michelle Francl discusses the contribution of George Smith, Greg Winter and Frances Arnold (Chemistry 2018) and Donna Strickland (Physics 2018).
The best books on Capitalism and Human Nature, recommended by Robert J Shiller
“You have to understand people first before you can understand how to devise an economic system for them” argues Robert J Shiller, the Yale economics professor and Nobel laureate. He chooses five books that explore who we fundamentally are, as human beings, and how that will determine the shape of a successful capitalism.
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1
Bank Runs, Deposit Insurance and Liquidity (Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 91, No. 3, June 1983)
by Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig -
2
Private and Public Supply of Liquidity (Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 106, No. 1, February 1998)
by Bengt Holmstrom and Jean Tirole -
3
The Prudential Regulation of Banks
by Mathias Dewatripont and Jean Tirole -
4
Credit Cycles (Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 105, No. 2, April 1997)
by Nobuhiro Kiyotaki and John Moore -
5
Leverage Cycles and the Anxious Economy (American Economic Review, Vol. 98, No. 4, September 2008)
by Ana Fostel and John Geanakoplos
Economic Theory and the Financial Crisis: A Reading List, recommended by Eric Maskin
Economic Theory and the Financial Crisis: A Reading List, recommended by Eric Maskin
The 2007 Nobel Economics Prize winner says that, contrary to popular perception, economic theory did a good job of predicting the financial crisis, it’s just that no one was paying any attention. Eric Maskin talks us through four journal articles and one book on ‘economic theory and the financial crisis.’
Books that Inspired a Liberal Economist, recommended by Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman, Nobel prize-winning economist, Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times, and Emeritus Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton, discusses the books that most influenced his formation as a liberal economist.
The best books on Nelson Mandela and South Africa, recommended by John Carlin
Nelson Mandela was a most unusual and unusually astute leader, says journalist and author of Playing the Enemy, John Carlin. He chooses the best books to understand Nelson Mandela, who used forgiveness as a political tool, and South Africa, the country he brought peacefully out of apartheid.
The Best Books About Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, recommended by Michael Nicholson
Russian literature specialist Michael Nicholson, Emeritus Fellow at University College, Oxford, talks us through the best books to learn more about the great Soviet dissident and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
