Good Economics For Hard Times : Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems

Shutting out immigrants, trade barriers, global warming and divisive politics for example are some hotly debated topics of the last decade. While everyone is interested in making this planet a better place to live in, narrow interests, misplaced political priorities and misguided populist rhetoric have sadly led to a highly polarized world.Sound economic theories have taken a backseat in such a scenario. This book debates key policy issues, slicing and dicing every topic from historical, social, political, and economic perspectives, with deep insights. It is an intellectual pursuit of making our planet a better place to live in.Unfortunately, Economics is not a perfect science either. It operates in a constant flux of diverse social, political, and cultural scenarios. Hence, when one policy succeeds in one nation, it fails miserably elsewhere. It is in this context that the authors’ randomized control trials won them the Nobel Prize in Economics 2019.Public perception of different professions differs widely. It is not surprising that politicians end up at the bottom of the pack, while nurses top the list in terms of whom we can trust. Surprisingly, economists too are at the bottom, slightly above politicians.Populist nationalism overrides sound economic principles as seen in recent times. In the USA, there is now a public perception that is averse to immigration. The land of immigrants has forgotten the greatness of the land created by the melting pot of global cultures. It is this unique character that has created a land of opportunities and a great nation. Immigrants are hardworking and entrepreneurs at heart. It is shown that migrant labour does not depress wages as widely feared. In fact, their work frees up higher paid professionals to work more, on more productive pursuits, thereby raising all boats. Immigrants top the list of all professionals and Silicon Valley billionaires. Yet, this fact was recently trumped by political campaigns creating fear about immigration, and resentment in society.Global trade is another example. While self-reliance is a great objective, it often narrows down into inward looking protectionist policies that shun imports and raise tariffs. This makes good politics in the short term, protects local businesses but eventually hurts consumers, blunts the nation’s global competitiveness and stunts economic growth. In fact, labour working in poorer nations are bigger beneficiaries of free trade, as amply demonstrated by the IT and ITES companies in India. It also brings in better technologies, creates a talent pool, attracts foreign investments, and leads to export led growth, as in the case of South Korea. The Stolper-Samuelson theorem is a brilliant academic work in this area.The chapters on concepts on economic growth, global warming and automation are equally interesting. Rich in content, unbiased, bold, and brilliant, this book is unputdownable.Ultimately, sound reason and good economics prevail, as we have seen recently. Let us unite, and not divide. ‘There are no blue states or red states, but only Unites States of America.’ Let us not build walls but spread love. Let us strive to make this most beautiful planet a better home for all.

Wonderfully written book, the continuity maintained by the authors in presenting the ideas is amazing.Even if you do not know much about economics you can go for the books.The book basically tackles the popular economic ideas and after testing them on thr envils of reality tries to modify the ideas so that it can be more effective when implemented.The most important aspect of the book is that it is total based on field experiments and rooted on ideological leanings of the authors. They have tried their best to do justice to both Laissez-faire and conservative ideas of economics.I have come to this book after reading their old book Poor Economics and believe me both are as good as they can be.Just go for it. If you are really interested in economics and poverty problems you will not regret it.

It has good analysis of problems with common issues. The political biasing of the writers is sometimes clearly visible but if you leave them apart, it's a good read. Some things like TFR are confusing and worth giving a miss apart from examples.

With the current economic slowdown in India and global recession, newspaper articles, editorials etc have tried their best to confine people's understanding of economics within the GDP factor while Economics is more of a humanitarian discipline. Despite the fall of proletarian revolution, educated classes are becoming aware of the fact that capitalism should not exist the way it has existed and still exists, to avoid misery in people's lives. But the real-world issues are more complicated than the fight between total capitalism and total communism. The solution is not exactly a capitalism communism ratio of 80:20 or 20:80 either as some people claim.With that in context, the book aims to develop a perspective based on improving people's lives to solve the issues that are torturing the humankind inside out. The references to literature and research papers help us negate the popular opinions that exist without empirical evidence. The book can be understood by more or less anyone who can understand English. After all,"Economics is too important to be left to economists."

Ease of readingA. It uses fairly simple language and it's not stuck in jargons and complicated modelsB. Gives lots of examples and view points to elaborate and support pointsHigh Rationale and Clarity.A. Forces one to question common beliefs and current policies. Does not use ideology or personal preferences to push an argument.B. Is empirical based.. though one can always weave data to prove ones point. What is important is that there is a logical set of arguments that are based on some data points and randomised control tests..

I've just completed reading this book and It's truly a masterpiece. It talks about the real world economic problems and emphasizes more on the poorer sections of the society rather. It's practical and just doesn't mentions Theories. However, there are some technical terms which you don't have to bother about if you're an economics student(like me) or related to the field. The authors have closely examined what today's economic challenges are with facts and figures and suggest balanced(neither left nor right wing) solutions. It's a great read for people who really want to understand today's(as well as near future) economic crisis.

The outer cover was damaged. Inner pages were in perfect condition. Initially I thought seller send an old one but after looking inside and went through all pages, it was good. So, only outer cover was torned out which I personally don't like for my books. I'm the one who keeps book in good condition for lifetime. So, I would rate good for delivery but outer cover by seller wasn't good so 3 stars from my side.

Me lo enviaron en una caja grande y suelto de esta forma me imagino que se estuvo deslizando a lo largo del viaje y llego ligeramente maltratado pero lo limpié y ya quedo bien.

In the past, economics is seemed primarily based on theory. Adam Smith had an idea that the invisible hand would improve economic output and thereby the lifestyles on which it would depend. Milton Freedman wanted a return to the economic freedom proposed by Smith as the best way to fix stagflation of the 1970s and early 80s. Marx believed that each should give according to their ability and receive according to their needs. And, of course, John Maynard Keynes believed in a little of each. However, these theories are so overarching that gathering data to support a particular proposed policy is not always possible.For example, the proposition that decreasing taxes to the rich improves economic output or GDP is completely debunked by this husband and wife team. They say there’s no data to support. It simply means a transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich and very rich. Tying aid to the poor to conditions such as food stamps is less efficient than just giving them money. As well, the poor as less likely to take advantage of aid if it’s tied to conditions. People may find jobs after they lose them to automation but they won’t find jobs of equal pay and the older employees are unlikely to ever find jobs. They state that it took 65 years for the wages of craftsman who lost their jobs during the industrial return to return to what they were.Economic dislocation and the need for providing people with the support when that happens is necessary should we want to live in a society where people are happy and provided for. As well, we need to tackle the problem of climate change immediately along with help for those whose jobs are displaced by that change. People need to be paid when they are training for those new positions as well as been given financial help should relocation be necessary.Abhijit and Esther argue for these and other solutions to our present problems and provide the data for support. They really do provide good economics for hard times. The do provide answers to some seemingly impossible questions.

This book arrived a little late but I’ll still give 5 stars based on the content for the authors sake and not the sellers.Firstly the edition of this book is one of the nicest I’ve held recently, it’s a really nice paper bound hardback, the paper is high gsm and feels really nice to touch.This is the second book I’ve read on economics from someone who had no real understanding beforehand, I bought it as it was one of the bill gates summer reading list books, really glad I bought it!The book starts off with talking about the public perception of economists and how there is a large distrust, usually pedalled by ‘bad economics’ and politicians.Some fascinating things I’ve learned since reading:- Economics is not a perfect science, it’s hard to compare data between countries and periods in time, however most often things improve because we learn from past mistakes (e.g. the Great Depression).- Immigration IS a good thing, the argument that the more people arrive to our developed countries the more people are out of work as the supply demand model would indicate, though this isn’t true as when people move to a new location for work, they earn a wage, pay tax and then spend their money on the local economy which boosts growth. Though remittance has a negative effect on the economy.- Interesting points about the efficiency wage, generally most employers won’t pay minimum wage and there is no evidence that most of them do due to the fact that it’s often costlier to keep re-hiring new people and they would rather pay a better wage and keep the employee.- Fascinating comparisons between western economics (mostly focusing on France the U.K. and the states) vs China and India’s economies.- Lower paid workers in SE and developing countries aren’t necessarily worse off, i.e if you stop buying cheap goods for moral reasons you’re reducing the income to these countries and families. Actually the more we spend having products manufactured in the developing world the more the inflow of cash and so the higher the standard of living for the residents. This is seen in China which less than 100 years ago experienced extreme famine under the Mao regime, now the huge growth (The China Shock) is seeing China moving away from large scale cheap labour manufacturing and more into new growth areas in tech (think Huwawie, Zoom and TikTok).- Interesting reads on automation and the replacement of humans in the workforce. As someone that works in the tech sector this really made me revaluate things. Simply put, some jobs can be replaced by machines but it’s not necessarily a good thing to do so. Companies would opt to do this for cost saving reasons, however doing this would cause a huge slump in the labour market. I.e poorer people would be out of work and therefore not paying tax, or claiming welfare and not spending much on the local economy. The results being the companies get bigger and richer but the people don’t. Some predictions actually say large scale automation would have a negative effect on GDP. Fascinating chapter.Last chapter (and I’ve not mentioned them all such as likes wants and needs, climate change and trade) was about universal basic income. This is relatively new turf but I think we’ll see a lot more of it in the future. Essentially people would get a guaranteed income regardless of their employment status. This is fascinating as it eliminates the survival instinct for work, meaning people would be less risk averse in their job often coming up with newer riskier ideas etc. Which is essential for growth (as shown by the Solow model). An interesting concept exists in Denmark called Flexicurity, whereby workers don’t have job security and companies can fire people without legal protection but they automatically receive UBI if they are found out of work. This in essence allows businesses to refine and streamline their business models and allows workers to move onto other work. In essence it’s the complete opposite of a ‘job for life’ mentality which Japan proved doesn’t work that well in the 1990s.I’m going to end this review here but thanks for reading all this if you have!! I’ve actually been inspired to start studying economics with the open university as a result of reading this book. Thanks very much to Abhijit and Esther for their work on this!!

Mais à quoi cela sert il de gagner 0,2 ou 0,3% de croissance en plus par an (le troisième chapitre est sur la croissance), comme s'est vanté récemment le ministre français de l'économie en comparant le pays à l'Allemagne, quand une catastrophe non préparée fait baisser de 10% le PIB. A fortiori quand les 0,2% ou 0,3% de croissance ont été gagnés en faisant des économies sur le système de santé.Mis à part cette polémique, ce livre étudie en profondeur les mécanismes de croissance et les mécanismes de redistribution pour éviter l'extrème pauvreté. Ceci avec des exemples concrets principalement en Inde (l'un des auteurs est indien) et aux États Unis, et un peu aussi en France car Esther Duflo est notre prix Nobel d'ecomomie 2019

Il libro e fantastico, merita di essere letto. Ti da una visione completamente nuova rispetto ai tempi caldi dei nostri giorni.Per quanto riguarda le condizioni del libro, è un po' schiacciato sopra (credo a causa del trasporto), ma per il resto e in condizioni ottimali.