• The Best Economics Books of 2022 - The Journey of Humanity: The Origins of Wealth and Inequality by Oded Galor
  • The Best Economics Books of 2022 - Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century by Brad DeLong
  • The Best Economics Books of 2022 - Streets of Gold: America's Untold Story of Immigrant Success by Leah Boustan & Ran Abramitzky
  • The Best Economics Books of 2022 - Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It by Richard V Reeves
  • The Best Economics Books of 2022 - Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller

The Best Economics Books of 2022, recommended by Jason Furman

As we study the causes of economic prosperity over the millennia and particularly the last century-and-a-half, it’s worth remembering that humans are always the most important driver of economic growth. Jason Furman, a Harvard economics professor and former adviser to Barack Obama, picks out five of the best economics books of 2022, as well as topics he’d like to see books about in 2023.

  • The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks - Macroeconomics by Greg Mankiw
  • The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks - Macroeconomics by Stephen Williamson
  • The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks - Advanced Macroeconomics by David Romer
  • The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks - Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle: An Introduction to the New Keynesian Framework and its Applications by Jordi Gali
  • The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks - Recursive Macroeconomic Theory by Lars Ljungqvist and Thomas J Sargent

The Best Macroeconomics Textbooks, recommended by Raffaele Rossi

In its study of the broader economy, macroeconomics is a vital tool for understanding the world around us, offering insights into issues that affect us all, like inflation and unemployment. Which textbooks to read to learn more about it? Here, Raffaele Rossi, Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, recommends his top macroeconomics textbooks, starting with entry-level books aimed at undergraduates all the way through to the tough tomes you’ll need to plough through if you’re doing a doctorate and want to work at the frontier of the discipline.

  • The best books on Learning Economics - Free to Choose by Milton Friedman
  • The best books on Learning Economics - The Death of Economics by Paul Ormerod
  • The best books on Learning Economics - Inequality: What Can Be Done? by Tony Atkinson
  • The best books on Learning Economics - Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
  • The best books on Learning Economics - Good Economics for Hard Times by Abhijit V Banerjee and Esther Duflo

The best books on Learning Economics, recommended by John Quiggin

We live in a society where it’s vital to have a good grasp of economics, but that doesn’t mean you need an economics degree to understand what it’s all about. Australian economist John Quiggin, author of Economics in Two Lessons, recommends books for learning about economics, all accessible to the general reader, and tries to dispel some of the myths about what it is professional economists do.

  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order by Michael Casey & Paul Vigna
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency by Finn Brunton
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - A History of Money by Glyn Davies
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks, and Other Money Stuff Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz (eds)
  • The best books on Cryptocurrency - The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains by Antony Lewis

The best books on Cryptocurrency, recommended by David Birch

Proselytes for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin extol them as a liberation technology to free us from big government. Sceptics insist that while they have been the source of useful technologies, as units of value, account and exchange, they will remain marginal. Here, digital currency expert David Birch chooses five books to help you understand the utopian roots of cryptocurrencies, the technology behind how they work, their functions and uses, and their broader place in the long history of money.

  • The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation - Showdown at Gucci Gulch: Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform by Alan Murray & Jeffrey Birnbaum
  • The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation - The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 by John Brewer
  • The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation - Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe by David Stasavage & Kenneth Scheve
  • The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation - The Income Tax: A Study of the History, Theory, and Practice of Income Taxation at Home and Abroad by Edwin Seligman
  • The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation - Dimensions of Tax Design: The Mirrlees Review by Institute for Fiscal Studies

The Best Books on Taxes and Taxation, recommended by Joel Slemrod & Michael Keen

Many of us try to avoid thinking about taxes unless we have to, but the truth is taxation has had a profound effect on the course of history and will play a key in the future society we create, too. Here, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod, both public finance economists and authors of Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom Through the Ages, recommend books about taxes that are not only informative but also good reads.

  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia by E L Jones
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy by Kenneth Pomeranz
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress by Joel Mokyr
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
  • The best books on The Great Divergence - How the World Became Rich: The Historical Origins of Economic Growth by Jared Rubin & Mark Koyama

The best books on The Great Divergence, recommended by Davis Kedrosky

After a slow start, why did northwest Europe move ahead of the rest of the world in the early modern period and establish an economic dominance whose effects are felt to this day? Davis Kedrosky, a student at Berkeley and publisher of the economic history newsletter, Great Transformations, introduces ‘the Great Divergence’ and suggests some books that get to the heart of the question.

  • The best books on Neoliberalism - A Brief History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey
  • The best books on Neoliberalism - Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian
  • The best books on Neoliberalism - The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 by Michel Foucault
  • The best books on Neoliberalism - Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution by Wendy Brown
  • The best books on Neoliberalism - Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism by Melinda Cooper

The best books on Neoliberalism, recommended by Gary Gerstle

Neoliberalism is, arguably, the dominant political and economic ideology of the Western world, although its dominance is contested and the ills of the world are often laid at its door. Here Cambridge historian Gary Gerstle discusses five books that will help you understand neoliberalism’s origins, its ambitions and why it has been supported and opposed with such partisanship.

  • The best books on Industrial Revolution - The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present by David S Landes
  • The best books on Industrial Revolution - Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History by Eric Jones
  • The best books on Industrial Revolution - The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective by Robert C. Allen
  • The best books on Industrial Revolution - The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700–1850 by Joel Mokyr
  • The best books on Industrial Revolution - Forging Ahead, Falling Behind and Fighting Back: British Economic Growth from the Industrial Revolution to the Financial Crisis by Nicholas Crafts

The best books on Industrial Revolution, recommended by Sheilagh Ogilvie

The Industrial Revolution transformed the world forever by enabling self-perpetuating economic growth. But historians are still at odds about why the industrial revolution happened where it did and when it did. Here, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Chichele Professor of Economic History at All Souls College, Oxford, guides us through the debates and why they are still relevant today.

  • The best books on Pay - The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Improve It by David Weil
  • The best books on Pay - Why Wages Don't Fall During a Recession by Truman F. Bewley
  • The best books on Pay - Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
  • The best books on Pay - The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America by Rick Wartzman
  • The best books on Pay - Relational Inequalities: An Organizational Approach by Donald Tomaskovic-Devey & Dustin Avent-Holt

The best books on Pay, recommended by Jake Rosenfeld

Economists have tended to assume that the value of our personal contribution—our marginal product—largely determines what we get paid. In reality, there are many other factors involved that have nothing to do with our qualifications or personal performance. Here Jake Rosenfeld, Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St Louis, explains why it is that senior executive pay growth has shot up in recent decades and why, for workers at the bottom, it has flatlined.

  • The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults - Money: A User's Guide by Laura Whateley
  • The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults - Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
  • The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults - The Richest Man In Babylon by George S Clason
  • The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults - Manage Your Money Like a F*cking Grownup by Sam Beckbessinger
  • The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults - Uncommon Sense by Mark Homer

The Best Finance Books for Teens and Young Adults, recommended by Darren Collins

Financial literacy is an essential life skill, but it is not routinely taught at school and not everybody has good role models to look to for financial behaviour. Reading can certainly help. Finance teacher Darren Collins recommends his top books for teens and young adults to learn the fundamentals for making sound personal finance decisions in life.

  • The Best Books on the Classical Economists - The Passions and the Interests by Albert Hirschman
  • The Best Books on the Classical Economists - The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L Heilbroner
  • The Best Books on the Classical Economists - The Classical Economists Revisited by D. P. O'Brien
  • The Best Books on the Classical Economists - Economic Sentiments:‭ ‬Adam Smith,‭ ‬Condorcet and the Enlightenment by Emma Rothschild
  • The Best Books on the Classical Economists - Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life by Jonathan Sperber

The Best Books on the Classical Economists, recommended by Brad DeLong

They were an eclectic bunch, including, among others, a stock market speculator, a moral philosopher, a cleric, a lawyer and a journalist. From the late-18th to the mid-19th century, they provided the first systematic explanations of how economies work, where they fail and how they might be made to work better. Here, Brad DeLong, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, introduces the classical economists, and suggests books to read to learn more about them and what they were trying to achieve.

  • The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology - The Great Demarcation: The French Revolution and the Invention of Modern Property by Rafe Blaufarb
  • The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology - Gold and Freedom: The Political Economy of Reconstruction by Nicolas Barreyre
  • The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology - Citizenship between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945-1960 by Frederick Cooper
  • The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology - Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India by Nicholas B. Dirks
  • The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology - The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain and the United States, 1939–1950 by Or Rosenboim

The best books on Historical Change and Economic Ideology, recommended by Thomas Piketty

Throughout history, social and economic inequalities have been fueled and justified by different ideologies. French economist Thomas Piketty’s latest book, Capital and Ideology, looks at the advent and fall of these ideologies, and how they could evolve in the future. He recommends five great books to better understand these complex and always-evolving ideas, and their consequences for the world.

  • The Best Books on the Future of Work - The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market by Frank Levy & Richard J Murnane
  • The Best Books on the Future of Work - The Race between Education and Technology by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F Katz
  • The Best Books on the Future of Work - Essays in Persuasion by John Maynard Keynes
  • The Best Books on the Future of Work - Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech by Jamie Susskind
  • The Best Books on the Future of Work - Marienthal: The Sociography of an Unemployed Community by Hans Zeisel, Marie Jahoda & Paul F Lazarsfeld

The Best Books on the Future of Work, recommended by Daniel Susskind

For many us, work is not only a vital source of income, but also an important part of our identity. As computers become ever better at doing jobs that used to be the exclusive preserve of humans, the work available to us and the rewards for doing it will change dramatically. As economist Daniel Susskind explains, these developments are going to force us to rethink how society as a whole works at a very fundamental level, changing the role of the state, the way we think about how individuals contribute to society and how they can, or should, be rewarded.

  • The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List - Free Trade Under Fire by Douglas A Irwin
  • The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List - A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 by Anna Schwartz & Milton Friedman
  • The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List - The Liquidation of Government Debt (Economic Policy, Volume 30, Issue 82, April 2015) by Carmen Reinhart & M. Belen Sbrancia
  • The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List - The Great Reversal: How America Gave up on Free Markets by Thomas Philippon
  • The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List - Hard Head, Soft Hearts: Tough-minded Economics for a Just Society by Alan S Blinder

The Economics of Coronavirus: A Reading List, recommended by Ricardo Reis

As we deal with the economic fallout of coronavirus, what lessons can economic theory and economic history teach us as we navigate the months ahead? Ricardo Reis, professor of economics at the London School of Economics—and consultant to both the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve—recommends four books and one article to help us think through the economic challenges posed by Covid-19.

  • The best books on Money - Currency and Credit by R. G. Hawtrey
  • The best books on Money - Credit and State Theories of Money: The Contributions of A. Mitchell Innes by L. Randall Wray
  • The best books on Money - The Nature of Money by Geoffrey Ingham
  • The best books on Money - History of Economic Analysis by Joseph A. Schumpeter
  • The best books on Money - The New Lombard Street: How the Fed Became the Dealer of Last Resort by Perry Mehrling

The best books on Money, recommended by Samuel A. Chambers

Economists have offered two contrasting explanations of what money is and what it is for. For a long time, its function as a commodity, a store of value and a medium of exchange dominated economics textbooks. But, as Professor Samuel A. Chambers explains, understanding money as something closer to credit is more convincing and supported by other social sciences and what we’ve learned from the 2008 financial crisis.

  • The best books on Digital Africa - Invisible Users: Youth in the Internet Cafés of Urban Ghana by Jenna Burrell
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Digital Entrepreneurship in Africa: How a Continent Is Escaping Silicon Valley's Long Shadow by Mark Graham, Michel Wahome & Nicholas Friederici
  • The best books on Digital Africa - China Africa and the Future of the Internet by Iginio Gagliardone
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya by Nanjala Nyabola
  • The best books on Digital Africa - Africa's Information Revolution by James Murphy & Padraig Carmody

The best books on Digital Africa, recommended by Mohammad Amir Anwar

The internet and digital technology are transforming not only the way African countries trade and conduct business but also how they cohere socially and politically. Mohammad Amir Anwar, Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the University of Edinburgh, recommends books that investigate the opportunities for Africa from the growth of technology—but focus on specifics and avoid the hype.

  • The best books on Behavioral Science - Love at Goon Park by Deborah Blum
  • The best books on Behavioral Science - How We Know What Isn’t So by Thomas Gilovich
  • The best books on Behavioral Science - Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine
  • The best books on Behavioral Science - Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
  • The best books on Behavioral Science - Nudge by Cass Sunstein & Richard Thaler

The best books on Behavioral Science, recommended by Nicholas Epley

What can we draw from behavioral science to help us better understand each other? Nicholas Epley, Professor of Behavioral Science and Faculty Director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, recommends the five best books for learning about an interdisciplinary field that draws from psychology, sociology, economics and anthropology.

  • Parenting: A Social Science Perspective - Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life by Annette Lareau
  • Parenting: A Social Science Perspective - How Children Succeed. Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough
  • Parenting: A Social Science Perspective - Intelligence and How To Get It: Why Schools and Culture Count by Richard E. Nisbett
  • Parenting: A Social Science Perspective - Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage by Kathryn Edin & Maria Kefalas
  • Parenting: A Social Science Perspective - Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster

Parenting: A Social Science Perspective, recommended by Nate G. Hilger

We think of parenting as a level playing field because loving your kids and doing everything you can for them comes naturally and isn’t determined by socio-economic status. The problem is that it may not be enough, says economist Nate G. Hilger. Here, he argues for a more activist approach so that kids across society have an equal opportunity to do well in life.

  • The best books on The Slave Trade - The Interesting Narrative by Olaudah Equiano
  • The best books on The Slave Trade - Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams
  • The best books on The Slave Trade - The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas by David Eltis
  • The best books on The Slave Trade - Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving Port 1727-1892 by Robin Law
  • The best books on The Slave Trade - American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia by Edmund S Morgan

The best books on The Slave Trade, recommended by William A. Pettigrew

In the 17th and 18th century millions of Africans were shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas as slaves. This trade took place at the same time as ‘liberal’ ideas about the importance of human freedom took root in Great Britain and North America. Here, historian William A. Pettigrew recommends five books to help understand the slave trade, how it was established, why it flourished and why it was eventually abolished.