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  • About us
    • Who we are
    • Society activities
      • Annual Conference
      • Annual Dinner
      • Rybczynski Prize
        • Rybczynski Prize Terms & Conditions
        • Winning essays (Reading~Room)
        • Recent winners
      • Statistics Community
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  • What's on
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    • Winning Rybczynski Essays
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Reading Room
  • Book reviews
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Book reviews

Accidental Conflict

America, China and the Clash of False Narratives

Reviewer: Andrew Peaple

In the short span of four years, America and China have entered a trade war, a tech war, and a new Cold War. Outlining the disastrous toll of conflict escalation between China and America, Roach offers a new road map to restoring a mutually advantageous relationship

The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level

Reviewer: Melissa Davies, Redburn

John Cochrane aims to make fiscal theory useful as a conceptual framework and modeling tool, and for analyzing history and policy.

Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis

Reviewer: Kevin Gardiner, Rothschild & Co/Cardiff Capital Region Econ Growth Partnership

A sweeping intellectual history of the concept of economic scarcity―its development across five hundred years of European thought and its decisive role in fostering the climate crisis.

How Economics Can Save the World

Simple Ideas to Solve Our Biggest Problems

Reviewer: Lavan Mahadeva

With a healthy dose of optimism, and packed with stories of economics in everyday situations, Erik Angner demonstrates the methods he and his fellow economists use to help improve our lives and the society in which we live.

Demographics Unravelled

How Demographics Affect and Influence Every Aspect of Economics, Finance and Policy

Reviewer: William A Allen, NIESR

In Demographics Unravelled, renowned Macro-Demographics expert Amlan Roy delivers an insightful and timely exploration of the impact that "people characteristics" have on national economies.

Power and Progress

Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity

Reviewer: Leath Al Obaidi, British Business Bank

Power and Progress demonstrates that the path of technology was once - and can again be - brought under control.

The Power of Money

How Governments and Banks Create Money and Help Us All Prosper

Reviewer: Ian Bright

In The Power of Money, economist Paul Sheard distills what money is, how it comes into existence, and how it interacts with the real economy.

The Great Crashes

Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them

Reviewer: Bridget Rosewell

Since the Wall Street Crash in 1929, financial meltdowns have repeatedly sent shockwaves through our world. From the currency crises of the 1980s and 1990s, to Japan's housing crash, the dot com boom and bust, the global financial meltdown, the euro crisis and the COVID pandemic, The Great Crashes tells the stories of ten of these historic events.

Covid, Brexit and the Anglosphere

Frameworks for Future Trade and Economic Growth

Reviewer: Vicky Pryce

Using historical examples to demonstrate how complex forces interplay into virtuous or vicious cycles of cumulative causation, Simmons and Culkin suggest alternative trade approaches to drive economic growth.

Empire of Pain

The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

Reviewer: Bridget Rosewell

The Tyranny of Nostalgia

Half a Century of British Economic Decline

Reviewer: Ian Harwood

This book describes and interprets the economic and political history of the past half a century, examining the challenges confronted by successive governments and their chancellors, the policies employed for good or ill, and – running through it all – the desperate search for a panacea that could arrest the nation’s relative decline and return the country to its supposed former glories.

Megathreats

The ten trends that imperil our future, and how to survive them

Reviewer: Kevin Gardiner, Rothschild & Co/Cardiff Capital Region Econ Growth Partnership

World renowned economist Nouriel Roubini was nicknamed Dr. Doom until his warnings of the 2008 housing crisis and Great Financial Crisis came true - when it was too late. Now he's back with much scarier predictions, ones that we ignore at our peril.

The Money Revolution

How to Finance the Next American Century

Reviewer: Maximilian Magnacca

In The Money Revolution: How to Finance the Next American Century, economist and bestselling author Richard Duncan lays out a farsighted strategy to maximize the United States unmatched financial and technological potential.

Power and Influence of Economists

Contributions to the Social Studies of Economics

Reviewer: Anjalika Bardalai

The contributors to this book explore the complex and diverse methods and channels that economists have used to exert and expand their influence from different disciplinary and national perspectives.

Leveraged

The new economics of debt and financial fragility

Reviewer: William A Allen, NIESR

An authoritative guide to the new economics of our crisis-filled century. Published in collaboration with the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

How to be a Successful Economist

Reviewer: Kate Barker, USS

Exploring the wealth of career opportunities open to those with an interest in economics, Pryce, Ross, Birdi, and Harwood reflect on how students can become successful economists.

Follow the Money

How much does Britain cost?

Reviewer: Rosemary Connell

This is a forensic examination - by the man best placed to do so - of the way the state raises and spends £1 trillion of our money every year.

1 comment

The Illusion of Control

Why Financial Crises Happen, and What We Can (and Can’t) Do About It

Reviewer: Leath Al Obaidi

We Need to Talk About Inflation

Reviewer: Vicky Pryce

A myth-busting explanation of inflation, the desperate gullibility of central bankers and finance ministers―and our abject failure to learn from history

Politicians and Economic Experts

The Limits of Technocracy

Reviewer: Neil Reeder, Director, Head and Heart Economics

Based on interviews with politicians and advisers from France, Germany, Denmark, the UK and USA, this book reveals why deferring to the experts is neither viable nor desirable, and how we have to trust politicians to take the lead role in solving economic problems.

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Articles reflect the authors’ views which are not necessarily shared by the Society or the Editor. The Editor welcomes comments, ideas and articles on a wide range of applied economics topics and related issues of more general interest.

For Books and Reviews contact:
Ian Harwood
Book Reviews Editor, The Society of Professional Economists
harwoodfive@btinternet.com

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