Every year a slew of new economics books are published. But which ones are actually worth reading? We've picked out some of the books that have recently hit the shelves or are out in the next few months and explain what we like about them and why they're worth reading. (We've also included economics books that are new in paperback).
Cogs and Monsters: What Economics Is, and What It Should Be
by Diane Coyle
In Cogs and Monsters Diane Coyle argues persuasively that the economics profession—what it researches and teaches and its use in public policy—needs to change. She argues that popular criticisms of economists—that their forecasting is poor and their assumptions about human society and behaviour simplistic and wrong—misses more important failures of the profession. In the digital age, economists need to grapple with the new challenges thrown up by the relationship between the private and public sectors and inequalities in society. Welfare economics needs to be revived and rethought to deal with the digital age and economists need to accept that their work needs to be done in a world that is unavoidably political. This book is vital for professional economists and those studying the subject, but also to anyone interested in how the world is governed and the role of economics in that.
Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey toward Equity
by Claudia Goldin
In Career and Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey to Equity, Claudia Goldin one of the most eminent economists working on this issue, asks why men continue to earn more than women.
“The book is kind of ‘here’s the problem, here is how we got ourselves into this mess and here is Professor Dieter Helm’s idea of how we get ourselves out of it.’ We’re coming up to COP26 and he gives fairly short shrift to all the international efforts that we’ve made so far and says, ‘Here is what the UK could just get on and do.’ At the moment, we’re not counting the true cost of pollution. The person or the company that created it doesn’t pay for it. We’re also not counting properly the amount of emissions that we create offshore, which is pertinent at a time of free trade deals. We say, ‘It’s okay. We’re not growing chickens (or whatever it might be), we’re importing them. We can discount all those emissions because they happen in Australia. His point is, ‘yes, but they only happen because of us, so we should count them.’ I’m no economist, but it’s very readable and very clear, and quite angry. He is not happy. There’s a real sense of ‘Argh!’ throughout it.” Read more...
The Profit Paradox: How Thriving Firms Threaten the Future of Work
by Jan Eeckhout
In The Profit Paradox Jan Eeckhout, an economist at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, sets out to explore one of the challenges for our society and capitalism today: why, while many companies thrive, wages of a lot of the people working for them have stagnated. "There is a clear chain of events originating with dominant firms grabbing extreme market power," he writes. "This has profound implications for work, the source of income for the majority of people. Market power leads to wage stagnation and extreme wage inequality, and it stymies social mobility and economic dynamism." In short, the capitalism we have at the moment is not so much pro-market as pro-business. "To safeguard democracy and a just division of what society produces, we need regulation and institutions that foster pro-competitive capitalism," he argues. "We need that now, before it's too late!"
“The Price of Peace is a biography of an eminent, visionary economist, the story of how John Meynard Keynes came to his revolutionary ideas, refined and advanced them through his life and how they came to dominate economic thought. One may think of Keynes as economist, but Keynesianism is much more than that—he has views on war, art, culture and a vision of fairness. Keynes had a dream of a fairer and more fulfilling life for all. Carter’s writing about economic theory is so lucid, so colourful, and such a pleasant surprise for me.” Read more...
The Best Biographies: the 2021 NBCC Shortlist
Elizabeth Taylor, Biographer
Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue: Tax Follies and Wisdom through the Ages
by Joel Slemrod & Michael Keen
In Rebellion, Rascals, and Revenue, Michael Keen and Joel Slemrod achieve the impossible: a book about taxes that’s laugh-out-loud funny. The authors are serious economists (one at the University of Michigan, one at the IMF) and combine a delight in fiscal history with an ease of summarizing what you need to know about, say, the Laffer curve (the ideological underpinning for Reagan-era tax cuts) or what the impact of a wealth or carbon tax today might be. There's illustrations and quotations about tax from everyone from Joseph Schumpeter to PG Wodehouse (who apparently had a lot of tax troubles).
As a single prism to see world history through, taxes turn out to be a remarkably convincing focus, playing a role in everything from the emergence of writing in ancient Babylon to the French Revolution and Britain’s rise to global dominance in the 18th century. Understanding taxes is also critical today, and you'll finish the book understanding both what VAT is (as opposed to sales tax) and why global corporates are able to avoid taxes perfectly legally.
The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World
William Nordhaus, an economist at the University of Yale who won the 2018 Nobel Prize for economics, has written a book about environmentalism. His Nobel Prize was awarded "for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis" and the book is worth reading just to get a sense of what the tools of economics can do to analyze the climate crisis and provide solutions. The short answer: a lot.
Combating Inequality: Rethinking Government's Role
by Dani Rodrik & Olivier Blanchard (editors)
We've all become aware of the problem of inequality in recent years—with a few individuals now richer than entire countries. Where we've had less clarity is around what to do about it. Combating Inequality is a collection of essays by leading economists, edited by Olivier Blanchard (MIT) and Dani Rodrik (Harvard). It's based on a conference on inequality held at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington DC-based think tank. Consider it the collective wisdom of dozens of top economists, several of them also former policymakers. In short, the book we've all been waiting for.
“What I like about the book is that Henderson is very clearly not an enemy of capitalism. She believes that the solutions lie in harnessing the good things about business: the entrepreneurialism, the desire and need to collaborate, the great power of consumer companies as a way of solving big problems. She looks, for example, at the way the German economy was rebuilt after the Second World War, and the forced collaboration between employers, government and trade unions.” Read more...
The Best Business Books of 2020: the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Andrew Hill, Journalist
Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital
by Kimberly Clausing
Kimberly Clausing makes the progressive case for free trade and globalisation, arguing that free trade is overwhelming beneficial. She advocates particular measures to equip workers and business to meet the challenges of a globalised economy.
Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism
by Mariana Mazzucato
Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of economics at UCL, gives her analysis of how to change capitalism for the better, drawing analogies from the space race in the 1960s.
You’re Paid What You’re Worth: And Other Myths of the Modern Economy
by Jake Rosenfeld
In You're Paid What You're Worth Jake Rosenfeld, a Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, explores a key issue in modern society: why it is that people get paid the amount they do. We spoke to Jake about the best books on a subject that affects all of us: our pay.
“This is really about the way that, in lots of different areas of the economy, there is a concentration of power by people who have bought particular kinds of assets, and they’re extracting monopoly rents—in effect—through that ownership. It covers land, housing, private equity, and infrastructure ownership. And, when you see it all together, it’s quite a striking reminder of the way—in the UK economy in this case—concentration of ownership has continued to increase in recent decades.” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2020
Diane Coyle, Economist
Capital and Ideology
by Thomas Piketty
"I find the study of belief systems to be a lot more fun than calculating ratios between deciles of income." —Thomas Piketty.
Following on from his bestselling (and often recommended on Five Books) Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty turns his attention in his latest book to the grand forces of history and politics and how they underpin the global economy. Piketty argues for a new "participatory" socialism.
We interviewed French economist Thomas Piketty on the books that inspired Capital and Ideology.
“It’s a really important book. It pulls together the work that they’ve been doing for a number of years now, looking at the fact that, for the first time, life expectancy in the US is falling, and that decrease is falling very unequally. They have identified this phenomenon of white high-school dropouts who are falling victim to deaths of despair—suicides, opioids and other overdoses, and alcoholism. By bringing together all of this evidence, they have put a spotlight on the phenomenon.” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2020
Diane Coyle, Economist
“There are loads of books around about financial bubbles and related issues. But what I like about this one is the way they have developed a framework for thinking about any bubble anywhere, anytime. It’s reasonably short and really well written, a really enjoyable read. So, if you want to learn something about why financial markets behave the way they do, it’s a great place to start.” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2020
Diane Coyle, Economist
Economics in Two Lessons
by John Quiggin
"If you understand opportunity cost—that the price of something really is what you have to give up to get it—you’re further along than the vast majority of economics graduates and quite a few professional economists" —John Quiggin.
In 1946, a book appeared called Economics in One Lesson by American journalist Henry Hazlitt. It's been in print ever since, and sold more than one million copies. Economics in Two Lessons is Australian economist John Quiggin's effort to explain what economics is about from a 21st century perspective. Hazlitt's one lesson, Quiggin argues, did not give the whole picture, "So, we need Economics in Two Lessons."
A highly respected academic economist, John Quiggin recommended the Best Books for Learning Economics for us.
Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society
by E. Glen Weyl & Eric A. Posner
We spoke to Glen Weyl, one of the authors of Radical Markets, about the book, how his thinking has evolved, and what's happened to their ideas in the real world since the book was published in May, 2018.
“Carl’s work is about what the impact of this new wave of technology and automation is going to be on everybody’s jobs and standards of living. He does that by taking a historical perspective and looking at the Industrial Revolution. The fact is that for quite a long period there wasn’t any increase in average standards of living and indeed, as we know from literature, there was a period of great misery for lots of people as they moved from the countryside to work in the mills and so on. The question he’s asking is, ‘Is it going to be the same this time? Is history going to repeat itself?’ and ‘Are there things we can try and think about in terms of policy that will stop history repeating itself?’” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2019
Diane Coyle, Economist
Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
by Stuart Russell
Human Compatible is a book about AI written for the layperson by Stuart Russell, a professor at Berkeley and the author (along with Peter Norvig) of the top-ranked computer science/AI textbook (according to the Open Syllabus Project).
“This book is about the philosophical origins of neoliberalism in 1930s Vienna and logical positivism and how it spread globally, particularly into Anglo-Saxon and American universities, and also about the way it underpinned the philosophy of globalization that we have seen take over the world since the 1980s. It’s really interesting to understand that the ideas that we think of as ‘natural’ actually have very specific historic and cultural origins. They spread through actual social networks and institutions. The book therefore also offers insight into how you can change that public philosophy.” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2019
Diane Coyle, Economist
“This book is a series of rip-roaring tales about what you might classify as ‘informal’ economies in different contexts and the way that some of them work really well and some of them work really badly. The compare and contrast gives you real insights into what perhaps makes a formal, official economy work very well or very badly.” Read more...
The Best Economics Books of 2019
Diane Coyle, Economist
“One of the key aspects of Eric’s book is this idea that libraries—and he’s really talking about public libraries—are social infrastructure. He talks very eloquently about the New York Public Library system, and particularly about the branch libraries, how they are places where public education can take place, where the patrons are not judged by how much money they have, but are treated equally, no matter what segment of society they come from. They are open long hours, sometimes they’re there simply to provide a warm place for people to gather…In the 19th century, libraries began to be established as a legal requirement by public authorities. I think the public library is evolving from being simply a place for self-service, to being a place which is much more proactive in communities. So, during lockdown, lots of public libraries in the UK and in the US would know their elderly clientele and they had a rota to telephone them.” Read more...
Richard Ovenden, Librarian
The Triumph of Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay
by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman
Saez and Zucman lay bare the tax avoidance of the rich and suggest ways to tackle the problem in the context of a globalised economy.
The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
by Katharina Pistor
Katharina Pistor looks at how the law shapes the creation of capital and how this affects the distribution of wealth.
The Great Reversal: How America Gave up on Free Markets
by Thomas Philippon
Thomas Philippon argues that the central problems of the US economy are the consequences, not of globalisation, but of the increasing concentration of corporate power across the economy.
Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World
by Branko Milanovic
Branko Milanovic charts the global rise of capitalism and assesses the relative merits of liberal capitalism, as it exists in the "West" and political capitalism, as exemplified by China.
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
by Anand Giridharadas
Does the philanthropy of the top 1% benefit society as a whole? No, by and large, it benefits the 1%, argues Anand Giridharadas.
Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do about It
by Heather Boushey
Heather Boushey argues that inequality is bad for the economy, restricting the supply of talent and ideas, leaving it dominated by monopolistic corporations and prey to financial instability.
The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age
by Roger Bootle
Roger Bootle argues that our AI-dominated future is bright. We will be better off and, although a lot of jobs will disappear, plenty more will be created.
Euro Tragedy: A Drama in Nine Acts
by Ashoka Mody
Professor Ashoka Mody, a former deputy director of the IMF's Europe department, charts the history of the EU's single currency from the birth of an idea in the 1960s, to its creation at the end of the century and the 2008-13 financial crisis, which brutally exposed the currency's weaknesses.
99%: Mass Impoverishment And How We Can End It
by Mark E Thomas
Mark Thomas investigates why, for an awful lot of people, the economic outlook is increasingly bleak, even though the economy is growing. He suggests ways to remedy the situation.
Schism: China, America and the Fracturing of the Global Trading System
by Paul Blustein
Paul Blustein looks at the consequences of China's accession to the WTO in 2001. He explores the impact on the global economy and the dynamics of global trade.
The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty
by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, authors of Why Nations Fail, explore the conditions under which liberty thrives and why some countries fail to establish a stable free society.
Markets, State, and People: Economics for Public Policy
by Diane Coyle
"It’s billed as a textbook and it’s built on a course that I developed myself and have been teaching for some years. But it’s not technical and I hope is well enough written that anybody could enjoy reading it...What I try to do is demonstrate that there are some problems and some circumstances in which there isn’t a single right answer about how you do things, and there are choices and trade-offs to be made."
Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral & Drive Major Economic Events
by Robert J Shiller
In this book Nobel-prize winning economist Robert J Shiller looks at the influence of popular story-telling (narratives) on economic activity and explores how research in this area could improve our understanding of financial crashes and other major economic events.
Our interview with Robert Shiller was on 'capitalism and human nature', with some excellent book recommendations.
Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream
by Jonathan Gruber & Simon Johnson
Jump-Starting America is the ambitious new book written by two distinguished MIT economists, Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson. They examine why the US economy has stagnated over the past two decades, including in the innovation sector, because of the collapse in Cold War defense spending. They propose their nationwide plan to “jump-start” it again, creating more jobs and reducing inequality in the process.
As the full title — Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream — indicates, this book is a call to action for strategic investing in science and technology. This would amount to reversing the federal cuts undertaken in the 1980s, and if orchestrated in the right way, returning (or even exceeding) postwar levels of economic prosperity.
Jonathan Gruber spoke to Five Books about the best books on public policy.
Simon Johnson spoke to Five Books about the best books on why economic history matters.
“Dani Rodrik is somebody who, for a long time, has been cautioning about the very gung-ho attitude many economists had towards liberalising trade, including financial flows. For a long time, certainly up until the financial crisis and for a bit afterwards, he was a bit of an outlier among economists because, for most economists, more free trade is without question better. I think now a lot more people would take that point of view…He is another really clear writer, so it’s very accessible. He’s probably still a bit outside the mainstream in his views about this, but he’s somebody who has been much more ‘right’ than many other economists and should absolutely be taken seriously about this.” Read more...
Diane Coyle, Economist
