Showing titles in Economic History

It may be as important for investors to know what not to do in investing as to know what to do. While investors are bombarded with the "buy me, buy me" books, little is said to train them in what to avoid. Nobody Knows Anything teaches investors what to avoid and how to trade using their own knowledge and experience rather than simply following the lemmings over the cliff of the latest investment craze.

Critics of contemporary economics complain that belief in free markets - among economists as well as many ordinary citizens - is a form of religion. And, it turns out, that in a deeper, more historically grounded sense there is something to that idea. Contrary to the conventional historical view of economics as an entirely secular product of the Enlightenment, Benjamin M. Friedman demonstrates that religion exerted a powerful influence from the outset.

The Austrian School of Economics - a movement that has had a vast impact on economics, politics, and society, especially among the American right - is poorly understood by supporters and detractors alike. Defining themselves in opposition to the mainstream, economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Joseph Schumpeter built the School’s international reputation with their work on business cycles and monetary theory. In this collective biography, Janek Wasserman brings these figures to life....

The End of Wall Street is a blow-by-blow account of America's biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Drawing on 180 interviews, including sit-downs with top government officials and Wall Street CEOs, Lowenstein tells, with grace, wit, and razor-sharp understanding, the full story of the end of Wall Street as we knew it.

"The History of the Standard Oil Company" is a book written by journalist Ida Tarbell in 1904. It was an exposé of the Standard Oil Company, run at that time by oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller the richest figure in America's history. Originally serialized in 19 parts in McClure's magazine, the book was a seminal example of muckraking, and inspired many other journalists to write about trusts, large businesses that (in the absence of strong antitrust law in the 19th century) attempted to gain monopolies in various industries.

The trailblazing story of Janet Yellen, the Ruth Bader Ginsburg of economics, and her lifelong advocacy for an economics of empathy that delivers the fruits of a prosperous society to people at the bottom half of the economic ladder.

In Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist of The New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.

The Economists’ Hour by Binyamin Appelbaum is the biography of a revolution: the story of how economists who believed in the power and the glory of free markets transformed the business of government, the conduct of business and, as a result, the patterns of everyday life. In the four decades between 1969 and 2008, these economists played a leading role in reshaping taxation and public spending and clearing the way for globalization.

Immigration is a fraught and misunderstood topic in America’s social discourse, with much of what we believe based largely on myth. Ran Abramitzky and Leah Boustan have spent the last decade searching for the facts. Their pioneering research digs deep into the data on immigration, linking the experiences of immigrants from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to those of immigrants today. Using powerful storytelling alongside big data, they provide new evidence about the past and present of the American Dream that will change our thinking and policies.

In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the Transcontinental Railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. Once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, America's railways soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by a pageant of speculators, crooks, and visionaries. The vicious competition between empire builders such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, J. P. Morgan, and E. H. Harriman sparked stock market frenzies, panics, and crashes; provoked strikes; transformed the nation's geography; and culminated in a ferocious two-man battle....

In this fascinating new history, Judith Stein argues that in order to understand our current economic crisis we need to look back to the 1970s and the end of the age of the factory - the era of postwar liberalism, created by the New Deal, whose practices, high wages, and regulated capital produced both robust economic growth and greater income equality.

The Money Game by Adam Smith is a timeless classic that provides an insider’s account of the intricacies of money and how the stock market impacts every area of our lives. The book takes readers to Wall Street to learn about the role of intuition and the psychology of guilt in making wise, lucrative investments. Smith’s Irregular Rules shatter common myths and misconceptions, revealing why nothing works all the time and illustrating how greed and fear fuel the market.

Global trade is of vital interest to citizens as well as policymakers, yet it is widely misunderstood. This compact exposition of the market forces underlying international commerce addresses both of these concerned groups, as well as the needs of students and scholars. Although it contains no equations, it is almost mathematical in its elegance, precision, and power of expression. Understanding Global Trade provides a thorough explanation of what shapes the international organization of production and distribution and the resulting trade flows.

The bailouts during the recent financial crisis enraged the public. They felt unfair - and counterproductive: people who take risks must be allowed to fail. If we reward firms that make irresponsible investments, aren't we encouraging them to continue to act irresponsibly? Bailouts have happened throughout economic history and are unavoidable in any modern, market-based economy. And they're actually good. Contrary to popular belief, the financial system cannot operate properly unless the government stands ready to bail out banks and other firms.

This audiobook tells the story of the euro crisis in Cyprus from the inside. Written by the former Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, Panicos Demetriades, who was in office during this turbulent period, this audiobook shows how the crisis unravelled through a series of key events that occurred during his tenure. Written in chronological order and broadly based on the author’s personal diary, starting from his first day in office, this volume brings together economics, banking, regulation, governance, history, politics and international relations.

For a while, it seemed impossible to lose money on real estate. But then the bubble burst. The financial sector was paralyzed and the economy contracted. State and federal governments struggled to pay their domestic and foreign creditors. Washington was incapable of decisive action. The country seethed with political and social unrest. In America's First Great Depression, Alasdair Roberts describes how the United States dealt with the economic and political crisis that followed the Panic of 1837.

The Communist Manifesto of 1848 - the blueprint for modern totalitarian government - promises utopia but delivers dictatorship, poverty and misery everywhere it's tried. Yet many of the tenets of this ideology endure among leftist thinkers, despite repeated and universal failure. The question is why? From barter to free markets, Wolfram explains the nature of money, the creation of wealth and the brilliance of a system based not on the state but rather on millions of unique individuals deciding what is best.

Financial crises happen time and again in post-industrial economies - and they are extraordinarily damaging. Building on insights gleaned from many years of work in the banking industry and drawing on a vast trove of data, Richard Vague argues that such crises follow a pattern that makes them both predictable and avoidable. A Brief History of Doom examines a series of major crises over the past 200 years in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, and China - including the Great Depression and the economic meltdown of 2008.

"Les questions économiques sont trop importantes pour être laissées à une petite classe de spécialistes et de dirigeants. La réappropriation citoyenne de ce savoir est une étape essentielle pour transformer les relations de pouvoir.", Thomas Piketty. En présentant l'évolution en longue durée des inégalités entre classes sociales dans les sociétés humaines, Thomas Piketty propose une perspective nouvelle sur l'histoire de l'égalité.

Hayek defende que todas as formas de coletivismo levam inevitavelmente à tirania e à supressão das liberdades, como se observou no nazismo alemão, no regime socialista da União Soviética e nos países do bloco comunista. O autor demonstra como a concentração do poder nas mãos de um limitado número de burocratas provoca divergências acerca da implementação das políticas econômicas, incitando o uso da força pelo governo para que suas medidas sejam toleradas. “O caminho tão defendido da liberdade se tornaria então o caminho da servidão”.