This website sets essential cookies for the websites general capabilities. Do you consent to non-essential analytic cookies? For more information: cookies.

Opt-out of non-essential Accept non-essential

  • Contact us
  • Join us
  • Advertise
  • Log in

Society of Professional Economists

  • Home
  • 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
    • President & Vice Presidents
    • Councillors
    • Data Protection and Privacy
  • What's on
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past events
  • News
  • Reading Room
    • Book reviews
    • Articles & Shortlisted Essays
    • Salary surveys
    • Winning Rybczynski Essays
    • Members' Polls
  • Podcasts & Speakers
    • Podcasts
    • Speaker Series
    • Conference reports
    • Annual Dinner reviews
  • Careers
    • Professional development
    • SPE Courses
    • Jobs board
  • Membership
    • Membership of SPE
    • Membership directory
    • Society documents
    • Join the SPE
    • Subscriptions
  • Contact us
  • Join us
  • Advertise
  • Log in
  • Home
  • 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
    • President & Vice Presidents
    • Councillors
    • Data Protection and Privacy
  • What's on
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past events
  • News
  • Reading Room
    • Book reviews
    • Articles & Shortlisted Essays
    • Salary surveys
    • Winning Rybczynski Essays
    • Members' Polls
  • Podcasts & Speakers
    • Podcasts
    • Speaker Series
    • Conference reports
    • Annual Dinner reviews
  • Careers
    • Professional development
    • SPE Courses
    • Jobs board
  • Membership
    • Membership of SPE
    • Membership directory
    • Society documents
    • Join the SPE
    • Subscriptions
  • Reading Room
Reading Room
  • Book reviews
  • Articles & Shortlisted Essays
  • Salary surveys
  • Winning Rybczynski Essays
  • Members' Polls

Book reviews

Heroes or Villains?

The Blair Government reconsidered

Reviewer: Mario Pisani

Tony Blair was the political colossus in Britain for thirteen years, winning three elections in a row for New Labour, two of them by huge majorities. However, since leaving office he has been disowned by many in his own party, with the term 'Blairite' becoming an insult. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader in 2015 seemed to be, if not an equal, at least an opposite reaction to Blair's long dominance of the centre and left of British politics.

Financial Models and Society:

Villains or Scapegoats?

Reviewer: Lavan Mahadeva, Research Director, CRU International Ltd

Ekaterina Svetlova analyses the various patterns of the application of models in asset management, risk management and financial engineering to demonstrate that their power is far more fragile than widespread criticism would indicate. This unique and stimulating book furthers our understanding of the influence of financial models on markets and society more broadly.

The Technology Trap:

Capital, labour and power in the age of automation

Reviewer: Rosemary Connell

From the Industrial Revolution to the age of artificial intelligence, The Technology Trap takes a sweeping look at the history of technological progress and how it has radically shifted the distribution of economic and political power among society’s members.

Diary of the euro crisis in Cyprus:

Lessons for bank recovery and resolution

Reviewer: William Allen, NIESR

This book 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 book shows how the crisis unravelled through a series of key events that occurred during his tenure.

Productivity and Bonus Culture

Reviewer: Dame Kate Barker

Living standards in the UK and US are in danger of falling. A decline in growth due to poor productivity and an unfavourable change in demography has weakened the stand of liberal democracy, and voter dissatisfaction is encouraging populist policies that threaten even worse outcomes. Whilst living standards once grew faster than productivity they now grow more slowly, and the working population is no longer growing faster than the population as a whole. To avoid falling living standards the productivity problem must be addressed.

Forecasting: an essential introduction

Reviewer: Kevin Gardiner, Rothschild & Co

In this accessible and engaging guide, David Hendry, Michael Clements, and Jennifer Castle provide a concise and highly intuitive overview of the process and problems of forecasting.

The Bank of England and the Government Debt:

Operations in the Gilt‑Edged Market, 1928‑1972

Reviewer: John Shepperd, previously Economist, Mullens & Co

Drawing heavily on archival research, William A. Allen sheds light on little-known aspects of central-banking and monetary policy.

Currency, Credit and Crisis:

Central Banking in Ireland and Europe

Reviewer: William A Allen, NIESR

Drawing on his experiences as Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and in research and policy work at the World Bank, Patrick Honohan offers a detailed analytical narrative of the origins of the crisis and of policy makers' conduct during its most fraught moments.

Are Chief Executives Overpaid?

Reviewer: Dame Kate Barker, Chairman, British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme

In this hard-hitting book, Deborah Hargreaves explains why pay for the top 0.1% has sky-rocketed in the past 20 years.

The Art of Statistics:

Learning from Data

Reviewer: Bridget Rosewell, Volterra Partners

In The Art of Statistics, David Spiegelhalter guides the reader through the essential principles we need in order to derive knowledge from data.

Crashed: how a Decade of Financial Crisis changed the World

Reviewer: Ian Harwood

Crashed is a brilliantly original and assured analysis of what happened and how we were rescued from something even worse - but at a price which continues to undermine democracy across Europe and the United States.

People, Power and Profits:

Progressive Capitalism for an age of Discontent

Reviewer: Rosemary Connell

From Nobel Prize-winning economist and bestselling author Joseph Stiglitz, this account of the dangers of free market fundamentalism reveals what has gone so wrong, but also shows us a way out.

Inequalities in the UK:

New Discourses, Evolutions and Actions

Reviewer: Kevin Gardiner, member, Cardiff Capital Region City Deal Growth Partnership

Unelected Power

The quest for legitimacy in central banking and the regulatory state

Reviewer: Ian Bright

Central bankers have emerged from the financial crisis as the third great pillar of unelected power alongside the judiciary and the military. They pull the regulatory and financial levers of our economic well-being, yet unlike democratically elected leaders, their power does not come directly from the people. Unelected Power lays out the principles needed to ensure that central bankers, technocrats, regulators, and other agents of the administrative state remain stewards of the common good and do not become overmighty citizens.

The Great Economists

How their ideas can help us today

Reviewer: Christine Shields

Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have grappled with a series of familiar problems - but often their ideas are hard to digest, before we even try to apply them to today's issues. Linda Yueh is renowned for her combination of erudition, as an accomplished economist herself, and accessibility, as a leading writer and broadcaster in this field; and in The Great Economists she explains the key thoughts of history's greatest economists, how their lives and times affected their ideas, how our lives have been influenced by their work, and how they could help with the policy challenges that we face today

Belt and Road

A Chinese World Order

Reviewer: Rosemary Connell

China’s Belt and Road strategy is acknowledged to be the most ambitious geopolitical initiative of the age. Covering almost seventy countries by land and sea, it will affect every element of global society, from shipping to agriculture, digital economy to tourism, politics to culture.

The Regulation of the London Clearing Banks, 1946‑1971

Stability and Compliance

Reviewer: William A Allen, National Institute of Economic & Social Research

This book explores the way in which banks were regulated in the UK in the period from 1946 until 1971. It focuses upon a group of 11 banks known as the London clearing banks. These banks included the ‘Big Five’ – Barclays, Lloyds, Midland, National Provincial and Westminster – and were the equivalent to today’s retail banks.

The Chinese Economy

Adaption and Growth

Reviewer: Lavan Mahadeva, Research Director, CRU

The new edition of a comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy, revised to reflect the end of the “miracle growth” period.

The Cost‑Benefit Revolution

Reviewer: Jonah P Adaun

Why policies should be based on careful consideration of their costs and benefits rather than on intuition, popular opinion, interest groups, and anecdotes. Opinions on government policies vary widely. Some people feel passionately about the child obesity epidemic and support government regulation of sugary drinks. Others argue that people should be able to eat and drink whatever they like. Some people are alarmed about climate change and favor aggressive government intervention. Others don't feel the need for any sort of climate regulation. In The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Cass Sunstein argues our major disagreements really involve facts, not values

Federal Central Banks

A comparison of the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank

Reviewer: James Smith, Director of Research, Resolution Foundation

Federal Central Banks is a unique study that critically examines the role and impact of central banks in federal and confederal political systems.

<1…891011121314151617…20>

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

Reading Room
  • Book reviews
  • Articles & Shortlisted Essays
  • Salary surveys
  • Winning Rybczynski Essays
  • Members' Polls

© Society of Professional Economists

Site Policies, FAQs  |  Website by ODC  &  BB