Combating Inequality – Rethinking Government’s Role
By: Olivier Blanchard, Dani Rodrik – MIT, Harvard University
In Combating Inequality, leading economists, many of them current or former policymakers, bring good news: we have the tools to reverse the rise in inequality. In their discussions, they consider which of these tools are the most effective at doing so. The contributors express widespread agreement that we need to aim policies at economic inequality itself; deregulation and economic stimulus will not do the job. No longer does anyone ask, in relation to expanded social programs, “Can we pay for it?” And most believe that US taxes will have to rise—although they debate whether the progressivity should focus on the revenue side or the expenditure side, through broad-based taxes like the VAT or through a wealth tax aimed at the very top of the income scale. They also consider the philosophical aspects of inequality—whether it is bad in itself or because of its consequences; the risks and benefits of more radical interventions to change the nature of production and trade; and future policy directions.
Mission Economy
By: Mariana Mazzucato – UCL
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, capitalism was stuck. It had no answers to a host of problems, including disease, inequality, the digital divide and, perhaps most blatantly, the environmental crisis. Taking her inspiration from the ‘moonshot’ programmes which successfully co-ordinated public and private sectors on a massive scale, Mariana Mazzucato calls for the same level of boldness and experimentation to be applied to the biggest problems of our time. We must, she argues, rethink the capacities and role of government within the economy and society, and above all recover a sense of public purpose.
Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich – How the bourgeois deal enriched the world
By: Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Art Carden – University of Illinois at Chicago, Samford University
Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich draws in entertaining fashion on history, economics, literature, philosophy, and popular culture, from growth theory to the Simpsons. It is the perfect introduction for a broad audience to McCloskey’s influential explanation of how we got rich. At a time when confidence in the economic system is under challenge, the book mounts an optimistic and persuasive defense of liberal innovism, and of the modern world it has wrought.
At a time when the mood – and reality – of the times is swinging toward state intervention in the economy – and rightly so, given the potentially Hobbesian world to which the combination of market power and pandemic have brought us – it’s all the more important to keep an open mind and take these arguments from economic liberty seriously. . . The sweep of McCloskey’s historical knowledge is such that the book is just a good read (if you like the tone), and a fraction of the length of the [Bourgeois] trilogy!
Diane Coyle, University of Cambridge
Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World
By: Axel Börsch-Supan, Courtney C. Coile – Max Planck Institute, Wellesley College
In the past two decades, men’s labor force participation at older ages has increased, reversing a long-term pattern of decline; participation rates for older women have increased dramatically as well. While better health, more education, and changes in labor-supply behavior of married couples may have affected this trend, these factors alone cannot explain the magnitude of the employment increase or its large variation across countries. The studies in this volume explore how financial incentives to work at older ages have evolved as a result of public pension reforms since 1980 and how these changes have affected retirement behavior. Utilizing a common template to analyze the developments across countries, the findings suggest that social security reforms have strengthened the financial returns to working at older ages and that these enhanced financial incentives have contributed to the rise in late-life employment.
