Best of
Economics

1986

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles


Thomas Sowell - 1986
    In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes this pattern. He describes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the "unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. A Conflict of Visions offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.

The Reckoning


David Halberstam - 1986
    Here are young Ford, renegade Iacocca, visionary Katayama--everyone needed to reveal the crucial nuances behind two nations competing for commercial supremacy. HC: Morrow.

No Contest: The Case Against Competition


Alfie Kohn - 1986
    Contrary to accepted wisdom, competition is not basic to human nature; it poisons our relationships and holds us back from doing our best. In this new edition, Alfie Kohn argues that the race to win turns all of us into losers.

Stabilizing an Unstable Economy: A Twentieth Century Fund Report


Hyman P. Minsky - 1986
    Minsky long argued markets were crisis prone. His 'moment' has arrived.” -The Wall Street JournalIn his seminal work, Minsky presents his groundbreaking financial theory of investment, one that is startlingly relevant today. He explains why the American economy has experienced periods of debilitating inflation, rising unemployment, and marked slowdowns-and why the economy is now undergoing a credit crisis that he foresaw. Stabilizing an Unstable Economy covers: The natural inclination of complex, capitalist economies toward instability Booms and busts as unavoidable results of high-risk lending practices “Speculative finance” and its effect on investment and asset prices Government's role in bolstering consumption during times of high unemployment The need to increase Federal Reserve oversight of banks Henry Kaufman, president, Henry Kaufman & Company, Inc., places Minsky's prescient ideas in the context of today's financial markets and institutions in a fascinating new preface. Two of Minsky's colleagues, Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, Ph.D. and president, The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and L. Randall Wray, Ph.D. and a senior scholar at the Institute, also weigh in on Minsky's present relevance in today's economic scene in a new introduction. A surge of interest in and respect for Hyman Minsky's ideas pervades Wall Street, as top economic thinkers and financial writers have started using the phrase “Minsky moment” to describe America's turbulent economy. There has never been a more appropriate time to read this classic of economic theory.

Economics of the Public Sector


Joseph E. Stiglitz - 1986
    Professor Stiglitz builds on the book's classic strengths: an integrated approach to public economics, a readable and inviting style, and careful attention to real-world problems and applications.

The Raven of Zurich: The Memoirs of Felix Somary


Felix Somary - 1986
    

The Control Revolution: Technological and Economic Origins of the Information Society


James R. Beniger - 1986
    In the USA, applications of steam power in the early 1800s brought a dramatic rise in the speed, volume and complexity of industrial processes, making them difficult to control. Many problems arose: train wrecks, misplacement of freight cars, loss of shipments, inability to maintain high rates of inventory turnover. Inevitably the Industrial Revolution, with its ballooning use of energy to drive material processes, required a corresponding growth in the exploitation of information: "the Control Revolution." Between the 1840s and the 1920s came most of the important information-processing and communication technologies still in use: telegraphy, modern bureaucracy, rotary power printing, postage stamps, paper money, typewriter, telephone, punchcard processing, motion pictures, radio and TV. Beniger shows that more recent developments in microprocessors, computers and telecommunications are only a smooth continuation of this Control Revolution. Along the way he touches on many fascinating topics: why breakfast was invented, how trademarks came to be worth more than the companies that own them, why some employees wear uniforms and whether time zones will always be necessary. The book is impressive not only for the breadth of its scholarship but also for the subtle force of its argument. It will be welcomed by sociologists, economists and historians of science and technology.

Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis


Harold L. Vogel - 1986
    Vogel examines the business economics of the major entertainment enterprises: movies, music, television programming, broadcasting, cable, casino gambling and wagering, publishing, performing arts, sports, theme parks, and toys and games. The seventh edition has been further revised and broadened and differs from its predecessors by restructuring and repositioning the previous Internet chapter, including new material on the economics of networks and advertising, adding a new section on policy implications, and further expanding the section on recent theoretical work pertaining to box-office behaviour. The result is a comprehensive up-to-date reference guide on the economics, financing, production, and marketing of entertainment in the United States and overseas. Investors, business executives, accountants, lawyers, arts administrators, and general readers will find that the book offers an invaluable guide to how entertainment industries operate.

Six Galleons for the King of Spain: Imperial Defense in the Early Seventeenth Century


Carla Rahn Phillips - 1986
    The author traces the ships from their construction through a decade of service, incorporating a history of Spain's Golden Age. This book was awarded the Spain and America in Quincentennial Year of Discovery prize.

Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change and Capitalist Development


James L. Dietz - 1986
    Interweaving findings of the "new" Puerto Ricanhistoriography with those of earlier historical studies, and usingthe most recent theoretical concepts to interpret them, James Dietzexamines the complex manner in which productive and class relationswithin Puerto Rico have interacted with changes in its placein the world economy.Besides including aggregate data on Puerto Rico's economy, theauthor offers valuable information on workers' living conditionsand women workers, plus new interpretations of development sinceOperation Bootstrap. His evaluation of the island's export-orientedeconomy has implications for many other developing countries.

Land Of Lost Content: The Luddite Revolt, 1812


Robert Reid - 1986
    

Efficiency Wage Models of the Labor Market


George A. Akerlof - 1986
    Efficiency Wage Models of the Labor Market explores the reasons why there are labor market equilibria with employers preferring to pay wages in excess of the market-clearing wage and thereby explains involuntary unemployment. This volume brings together a number of the important articles on efficiency wage theory. The collection is preceded by a strong, integrative introduction, written by the editors, in which the hypothesis is set out and the variations, as described in subsequent chapters, are discussed.

John Clare: Selected Poetry and Prose


John Clare - 1986
    Although he was briefly famous in the 1820s, his later and better work was ignored. In 1840, pronounced 'mad', he entered Northampton Asylum, where he remained until his death.Much of Clare's best work was published for the first time in the twentieth century. His descriptions of birds and animals, the seasons and the daily life of an English village just before the Industrial Revolution are among the finest in literature. His 'mad' poems, several of which are included here, are moving expressions of fear, loneliness and alienation. This edition by Merryn and Raymond Williams presents a selection of the poetry and prose exactly as Clare wrote it.

The Next Left: The History of a Future


Michael Harrington - 1986
    

Poverty and Wealth: Why Socialism Doesn't Work


Ronald H. Nash - 1986
    Nash shows that market economies lead inevitably to abundance and political freedom because they are based on reality.

Understanding Capital: Marx's Economic Theory


Duncan K. Foley - 1986
    Duncan Foley builds an understanding of the theory systematically, from first principles through the definition of central concepts to the development of important applications. All of the topics in the three volumes of Capital are included, providing the reader with a complete view of Marxist economics.Foley begins with a helpful discussion of philosophical problems readers often encounter in tackling Marx, including questions of epistemology, explanation, prediction, determinism, and dialectics. In an original extension of theory, he develops the often neglected concept of the circuit of capital to analyze Marx's theory of the reproduction of capital. He also takes up central problems in the capitalist economy: equalization of the rates of profit (the "transformation problem"); productive and unproductive labor and the division of surplus value; and the falling rate of profit. He concludes with a discussion of the theory of capitalist crisis and of the relation of Marx's critique of capitalism to his conception of socialism.Through a careful treatment of the theory of money in relation to the labor theory of value, Foley clarifies the relation of prices to value and of Marx's categories of analysis to conventional business and national income accounts, enabling readers to use Marx's theory as a tool for the analysis of practical problems. The text is closely keyed throughout to the relevant chapters in Capital and includes suggestions for further reading on the topics discussed.

Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises


Peter A. Gourevitch - 1986
    

Markets and Market Logic


J. Peter Steidlmayer - 1986
    Ships anywhere 7 days a week

The Scourge Of Monetarism


Nicholas Kaldor - 1986
    Now thoroughly revised and updated, this edition also includes a new introduction which places Britain's experience of monetarism into a world context.

The Capitalist Revolution: Fifty Propositions About Prosperity, Equality, & Liberty


Peter L. Berger - 1986
    Berger, explains why capitalism is the most successful economic mechanism ever devised for improving material standards of large numbers of people.

Richard Cantillon: Entrepreneur and Economist


Antoin E. Murphy - 1986
    Using much previously unpublished manuscript material, this studyexplains the nature of Europe's first stock exchange boom, the South Sea Bubble, and the Mississippi System, and shows how Cantillon's theorizing as an economist interacted with his activities as a banker-entrepreneur to make him one of Europe's wealthiest men in this period of frenetic stockexchange activity.

The Essence of Stigler


Kurt R. Leube - 1986
    Stigler, who has been acknowledged as one of the foremost architects of twentieth-century economic thought.

Sustainable Communities: A New Design Synthesis for Cities, Suburbs, and Towns


Paul Hawken - 1986
    Presents four case studies that serve as illustrations for discussions of land use, building design, and service systems, all shaped to promote limited dependence on fossil fuels.

The Economic Thought Of Karl Polanyi: Lives And Livelihood


James Ronald Stanfield - 1986
    The accepted ways and means of living lead to frustration and anxiety rather than creativity and joy. The roots of this crisis are political and economic. These societies contain economies that pervert and obstruct the human life process and polities that are subordinate to economic vested interests. Karl Polanyi was a Hungarian emigre who witnessed first hand the cataclysms to which this political economic crisis can lead. He created a powerful social economic theory to analyze this institutional impasse and lay the foundation for social reconstruction. This book reviews Polanyi's life and work, his contributions to the methodology of economics, his concepts of social integration, his theory of market capitalism, and his view of freedom in complex industrial societies."

Weberian Sociological Theory


Randall Collins - 1986
    By analysing hitherto little known aspects of Weber's writings, Professor Collins is able both to offer a new interpretation of Weberian sociology and to show how the more fruitful lines of the Weberian approach can be projected to an analysis of current world issues. Professor Collins begins with Weber's theory of the rise of capitalism, examining it in the light of Weber's later writings on the subject and extending the Weberian line of reasoning to suggest a 'Weberian revolution' in both medieval Europe and China. He also offers a new interpretation of Weber's theory of politics, showing it to be a 'world-system' model; and he expands this into a theory of geopolitics, using as a particular illustration the prediction of the future decline of Russian world power. Another 'buried treasure' in the corpus is Weber's conflict theory of the family as sex and property, which Professor Collins applies to the historical question of the conditions that led to the initial rise in the status of women. The broad view of Weber's works shows that Weberian sociology remains intellectually alive and that many of his theories still represent the frontier of our knowledge about large-scale social processes.

The Ideological Weapons Of Death: A Theological Critique Of Capitalism


Franz Hinkelammert - 1986
    

Leadership at the Fed


Donald F. Kettl - 1986
    Assesses Eccles, Martin, Burns, and Volcker, four of the Federal Reserve's mo influential chairmen, looks at how they have expanded the agency's powers, a discusses conflicts with the Treasury Department.

Statistical Foundations of Econometric Modelling


Aris Spanos - 1986
    The emphasis is on the concepts and ideas underlying probability theory and statistical inference, and on motivating the learning of them both at a formal and an intuitive level. By basing its approach on the underlying theory, it is able to cover fully the econometric theory required up to the intermediate level; its emphasis on mastering the concepts makes it an ideal introduction to the advanced texts and the econometric literature.

Prophets of Regulation


Thomas K. McCraw - 1986
    Brandeis, James M. Landis, and Alfred E. Kahn. The absorbing stories he tells make this a book that will appeal across a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and to all readers interested in history, biography, and Americana.

The Metaphysical Confederacy


James Oscar Farmer Jr. - 1986
    Book by Farmer, James Oscar Jr.

The Writing Of Economics


Deirdre Nansen McCloskey - 1986
    

Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation


George T. Ainsworth-Land - 1986
    This new edition re-introduces Dr. Land's theory of transformation which has become a cornerstone in the strategic planning and organizational transformation of corporations. At the root of the principle lies a single concept: growth - the most basic and universal of drives through which all biological, physical, chemical, psychological, and cultural processes are intrinsically equivalent.

Foundations of Social Choice Theory (Studies in Rationality and Social Change)


Jon Elster - 1986
    This field, a modern and sophisticated outgrowth of welfare economics, is best known for a series of impossibility theorems, of which the first and most crucial was proved by Kenneth Arrow in 1950. That has often been taken to show the impossibility of democracy as a procedure for making collective decisions. However, this interpretation is challenged by several of the contributors here. Other central issues discussed in the volume include the possibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the question of whether all preferences are equally to be valued, and the normative individualism underlying the theoretical tradition. Criticisms of social choice theory are advanced and suggestions for alternative approaches are developed.

The Money Mandarins: Making of a Supranational Economic Order: Making of a Supranational Economic Order


Howard M. Wachtel - 1986
    What role do Chinese popular associations play in the expansion of civil society and democratization? This book examines a range of associations, from business associations to trade unions, to urban homeowners associations, women's groups against domestic violence, and rural NGOs that develop anti-poverty programs.

Introduction to Difference Equations


Samuel Goldberg - 1986
    Moreover, the author explains when needed such relevant ideas as the function concept, mathematical induction, binomial formula, de Moivre's Theorem and more.The book begins with a short introductory chapter showing how difference equations arise in the context of social science problems. Chapter One then develops essential parts of the calculus of finite differences. Chapter Two introduces difference equations and some useful applications in the social sciences: compound interest and amortization of debts, the classical Harrod-Domar-Hicks model for growth of national income, Metzler's pure inventory cycle, and others. Chapter Three treats linear differential equations with constant coefficients, including the important question of limiting behavior of solutions, which is discussed and applied to a variety of social science examples. Finally, Chapter Four offers concise coverage of equilibrium values and stability of difference equations, first-order equations and cobweb cycles, and a boundary-value problem. More extensive coverage is devoted to the relatively advanced concepts of generating functions and matrix methods for the solution of systems of simultaneous equations.Throughout, numerous worked examples and over 250 problems, many with answers, enable students to test their grasp of definitions, theorems and applications. Ideal for an undergraduate course or self-study, this cogent treatment will be of interest to all mathematicians, and especially to social scientists, who will find it an excellent introduction to a powerful tool of theory and research.

Lenin and Imperialism


Prabhat Patnaik - 1986
    At one level he outlined certain tendencies in the phase of monopoly capital which generated situations of actual or potential armed conflict and made for global instability of the international capitalist state system. At another level he explored with this theoretical apparatus, the specific, conjuncture which prevailed on the eve of the First World War as a means of explaining it. It is necessary to distinguish between these two levels; a failure to do so characterises both those who dismiss Lenin's theory as dated and those who apply it mechanically to current situations. The sixteen papers in this volume constitute an effort to correctly understand and apply Lenin's theory and provide useful material on the significance and interpretation of Lenin's theory of imperialism and on aspects of the capitalist crisis using empirical data to support theoretical assumptions. The volume also contains papers critically appraising recent theoretical writings on the theory of imperialism.Dr Patnaik's lucid Introduction highlights the various aspects of Lenin's theory that are, taken up in the five sections of this book. The first section interprets the theory and evaluates Lenin's insights with the help of empirical data. Two major themes are explored in the second section-state monopoly capitalism after the Second World War, and the changing pattern of inter-imperialist contradictions. The capitalists crisis and the problem of war-a very real situation for the world today-is taken up in the third section, while Section IV deals with imperialism and Third World industrialization. The last section is devoted to a critique of recent theoretical writings on the subjectThe papers in this book were first presented at a seminar on Lenin and Contemporary Imperialism.

Post Keynesian Monetary Economics


Stephen Rousseas - 1986
    His main theme stresses the role of innovation in the financial sector of the economy and its implications for control of the money supply and credit, as well as the larger issue of macroeconomic policy. He holds a Post-Keynesian view of an elastic and endogenous money supply that is largely founded on the "general liquidity thesis" of the Radcliffe Committee. Indeed, the elasticity of the credit structure is even greater than the Radcliffe Committee originally claimed. Tables and charts are revised through 1990, and the text has been revised accordingly. An expanded preface to the revised edition makes this book very relevant to contemporary problems and policy.

Democracy and Economic Power: Extending the ESOP Revolution Through Binary Economics


Louis O. Kelso - 1986
    In their popular book Two-Factor Theory, the Kelsos first introduced the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and began the process that enabled some 10 million employees to become stockholders. Democracy and Economic Power presents their economic, political, and financial blueprint for extending ESOPs to millions more Americans. With ESOPs they, too, can buy and pay for income-earning capital out of capital's own earnings instead of labor income. Democracy and Economic Power is a must read for anyone concerned about the fate of individuals and the future of democratic institutions in our rapidly automating world. Originally published by Ballinger Publishing in 1986. Co-published with the Institute for the Study of Economic Systems.

Growth and Development: Ecosystems Phenomenology


Robert E. Ulanowicz - 1986
    He describes ecosystems in terms of their networks of "who eats whom", and, using the pattern of connections and the strengths of the interactions, derives indices that quantify both system growth and development. The result is what is called the "principle of increasing ecosystem ascendency", which provides a preferred direction for system development, in stark contrast to the conventional neo-Darwinian theory of evolution.

The Crisis Of Keynesian Economics: A Marxist View


Geoffrey Pilling - 1986
    

Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Antisemitism


Moshe Zimmermann - 1986
    This is the first biography of radical writer and politician Wilhelm Marr, the man who introduced the term anti-Semitism into politics and founded the first Anti-Semitic League. Marr (1819-1904) began his political career as a democrat and revolutionary, fighting for the emancipation of all oppressed groups including the Jews. But when he became disillusioned with contemporary politics, Jews became the focus of his attack. Drawing on Marr's published and unpublished works, as well as on previously unexamined journals and voluminous correspondence, Zimmermann sets out to discover why an intellectual radical like Marr would become a virulent anti-Semite. As Zimmermann follows Marr's profound influence in the political, literary, and artistic circles of his day and his collaborations with Karl Marx, Richard Wagner, and other radical founders of modern anti-Semitism, he reveals the diverse ways that anti-Semitism came to permeate German thought and illuminates critical moments in the emergence of the German Reich. The book also includes Marr's surprising, never-before-published Testament of an Anti-Semite, written at the end of his life when he finally turned his back on the movement he helped to create. This is the first volume in a new Oxford series, Studies in Jewish History. The General Editor for the series is Jehuda Reinharz of Brandeis University.

Medical Care Medical Cost: The Search for a Health Insurance Policy


Rashi Fein - 1986
    Rashi Fein, Professor of Economics of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former senior staff member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, warns that the American health care insurance system is in jeopardy and calls for its reform. He argues that the quest for efficiency in the delivery of health care services must be joined with a concern for equity in their distribution and that we need policies informed by long-held values, traditions, and experiences in the shaping of medical care delivery.