Book Recommendation Thread

[jay21]

Starting a thread for all book recommendations.

 

I would like to see if anyone can recommend good books on policy (non-monetary). Examples include:

 

- Fiscal policy -> E.g. regulation, the New Deal, reaganomics, etc

- The fall of mercantilism and rise of capitalism

- Public Policy

- Pensions

 

Basically, I would some books that describe some debate and explores the pros and cons of each side and then describes the implementation of the victor's policy or a book that describes some shift in policy and the results from that new policy.

[alwaysinvert]

- Fiscal policy -> E.g. regulation, the New Deal, reaganomics, etc

 

Pretty much anything about this will be loaded with politics or at the very least coloured by what school of economics you subscribe to (and yes monetary policy, too). I like Friedman, though. Throw in some Keynes and Hayek for good measure, maybe? 

 

- The fall of mercantilism and rise of capitalism

 

That's very specific but some authors who are at least tangential: Marx, Weber, Malthus, David Landes, Jared Diamond, Deirde McCloskey, Gregory Clark. Maybe there are some good history books on this specifically but I don't know of one. 

 

- Public Policy

 

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. Bryan Caplan (The Myth of the Rational Voter etc). Public choice theory. Lee-Kuan Yew. The Sachs-Easterly debate on foreign aid (featured in a couple of Econtalk episodes if you don't want to read whole books on it) .

 

- Pensions

 

Don't know.

[Parsad]

Starting a thread for all book recommendations.

 

I would like to see if anyone can recommend good books on policy (non-monetary). Examples include:

 

 

This is the purpose behind the whole section we have on books. 

 

I would recommend that you post a book, analysis of the book, and recommendation individually in that section.  That way it is far more useful and is permanent.  This thread will get lost in a few weeks and will serve no purpose.  Cheers!

[jay21]

Starting a thread for all book recommendations.

 

I would like to see if anyone can recommend good books on policy (non-monetary). Examples include:

 

 

This is the purpose behind the whole section we have on books. 

 

I would recommend that you post a book, analysis of the book, and recommendation individually in that section.  That way it is far more useful and is permanent.  This thread will get lost in a few weeks and will serve no purpose.  Cheers!

 

Sorry if my post was unclear.

 

I meant it is a thread for asking for recommendations as that is not allowed in the book forum. Although, I think it would be a great sticky and all other posts could deal with individual books.

[portfolio14]

- The fall of mercantilism and rise of capitalism

 

Lets invert. :-)

 

I'm currently reading Chang's "Bad Samaritans" which argues why free trade is bad (for developing countries). I'm only 20% into it. So far, I think the problems of free trade he points out are correct and but he jumps to wrong conclusions. Still reading. I shall see.

 

Chang is a professor (a Reader in UK) at Cambridge. He used to work for World Bank.

 

I'm looking forward to his "Economics: The User's Guide".

[meiroy]

 

Portfolio14,

 

Could you recommend some books about Australian history, economy, society etc.? I hardly know anything about Australia and would love to learn more. Thanks!

 

[portfolio14]

 

Portfolio14,

 

Could you recommend some books about Australian history, economy, society etc.? I hardly know anything about Australia and would love to learn more. Thanks!

 

Hi,

 

I don't think I can help here. I haven't read anything in these areas. Australia is a young country founded less than 200 years ago. It doesn't have much history or heritage.