New Books in Finance
302 episodes - English - Latest episode: 15 days ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsInterviews with Scholars of Finance about their New Books
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Episodes
Dani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School Economics Professor) on Industrial Policy, Globalization and His Career
April 11, 2024 08:00 - 47 minutesDani Rodrik (Harvard Kennedy School Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career, the best case for industrial policy, the labor market effects of globalization, and his vision of an ideal economic policy paradigm. Rodrik is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is co-director of the Reimagining the Economy Program at the Kennedy School and of the Economics for Inclusive Prosperity network. He was...
Sean Vanatta on Credit Cards
April 08, 2024 08:00 - 1 hourPeoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with historian and standup comedian, Sean Vanatta, lecturer in economic and social history at the University of Glasgow and senior fellow at the Wharton Initiative for Financial Policy and Regulation, about Vanatta’s cool new book, Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control (Yale UP, 2024). Plastic Capitalism examines the fascinating history of the rise of the credit card business in the United States, uncovering a comple...
Teresa Ghilarducci, "Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
March 30, 2024 08:00 - 29 minutesThe issue of the future of Social Security, on which millions of Americans depend, produced great political theater at the State of the Union address. That highlighted a bigger problem of financing retirement as baby boomers seek to retire, often with limited resources. Many argue that the solution to the problem is for people to work longer. In Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy (U Chicago Press, 2024), Teresa Ghilarducci, a noted expert on retirement, ar...
"Market pressure was growing by the day" with Charles Dallara
March 19, 2024 08:00 - 39 minutesCharles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance from 1993–2013, talks about his crisis memoir: Euroshock: How the Largest Debt Restructuring in History Helped Save Greece and Preserve the Eurozone (Rodin Books, 2024). Dallara, who co-led a small team who negotiated a €100-billion write-off of Greek debt in 2011-12, discusses how it felt to be an American "interloper", crippling European indecision, and performative politicians. Produced by Emin Fikić at davidstudi...
Mark J. Higgins, "Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future" (Greenleaf, 2024)
March 13, 2024 08:00 - 41 minutesMost people rely only on their life experience to make investment decisions. This causes them to overlook cyclical forces that repeatedly reshape economies and markets. Investing in U.S. Financial History: Understanding the Past to Forecast the Future (Greenleaf, 2024) fills this void by recounting the comprehensive financial history of the United States of America. It begins with Alexander Hamilton's financial programs in 1790 and ends with the Federal Reserve's battle with inflation in 2023...
Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics co-author and U Chicago Econ Prof) on His Career and Decision to Retire From Academic Economics
March 13, 2024 08:00 - 1 hourSteven D. Levitt (Freakonomics co-author and University of Chicago Economics Professor) joins the podcast to discuss his career, including being an early leader in applied microeconomics and how the Freakonomics media empire got started, along with his recent decision to retire from academic economics. Transcript available here. Jon Hartley is an economics researcher with interests in international macroeconomics, finance, and labor economics and is currently an economics PhD student at Sta...
Alan Bollard, "Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars" (Oxford UP, 2020)
March 06, 2024 09:00 - 58 minutesWartime is not just about military success. Economists at War: How a Handful of Economists Helped Win and Lose the World Wars (Oxford UP, 2020) tells a different story - about a group of remarkable economists who used their skills to help their countries fight their battles during the Chinese-Japanese War, Second World War, and the Cold War. 1935-55 was a time of conflict, confrontation, and destruction. It was also a time when the skills of economists were called upon to finance the military...
Gerald Epstein, "Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us" (U California Press, 2024)
February 28, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourBankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks and left them in control. How can we end this cycle of trillion-dollar bailouts and make finance work for the rest of us? Busting the Bankers' Club confronts the powerful people and institutions that benefit from our broken financial system—and the struggle to create an alternative. Drawing from decades of research on the history, economics, and p...
Yanis Varoufakis, "Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism" (Melville House, 2023)
February 26, 2024 09:00 - 52 minutesIn Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (Melville House, 2023), Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun. Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. Capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents. Meanwhile, with every click and scroll, we lab...
Katharina Pistor, "The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality" (Princeton UP, 2019)
February 22, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour"Most lawyers, most actors, most soldiers and sailors, most athletes, most doctors, and most diplomats feel a certain solidarity in the face of outsiders, and, in spite of other differences, they share fragments of a common ethic in their working life, and a kind of moral complicity." – Stuart Hampshire, Justice is Conflict. There are many more examples of professional solidarity, however fragmented and tentative, sharing the link of a common ethic that helps make systems, and the analysis of...
Neil Lee, "Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy" (U California Press, 2024)
February 21, 2024 09:00 - 37 minutesHow can we build a more equal economy? In Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy (U California Press, 2024), Neil Lee, a Professor of Economic Geography at the London School of Economics, explores the question of how societies have fostered and supported innovation. The book challenges conventional assumptions that innovative economies must be unequal. Drawing on 4 detailed, and critical, case studies- Switzerland, Austria, Taiwan and Sweden, the book sh...
Lawrence Glickman, "Free Enterprise: An American History" (Yale UP, 2019)
February 18, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour“Free enterprise” is an everyday phrase that connotes an American common sense. It appears everywhere from political speeches to pop culture. And it is so central to the idea of the United States that some even labeled Christopher Columbus and the Pilgrims free enterprisers. In his new book, Free Enterprise: An American History (Yale University Press, 2019), Lawrence Glickman analyses that phrase’s historical meaning and shows how it became common sense. Glickman, a historian and the Stephen ...
Tobias Straumann, "1931: Debt, Crisis, and the Rise of Hitler" (Oxford UP, 2019)
February 17, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourWhat can we learn from the financial crisis that brought Hitler to power? How did diplomatic deadlock fuel the rise of authoritarianism? Tobias Straumann shares vital insights with 1931: Debt, Crisis, and the Rise of Hitler (Oxford University Press, 2019). Through his fast-paced narrative, Straumann reveals how inflexible treaties created an inescapable debt trap that spawned Nazism. Caught between investor confidence and domestic political pressure, unrealistic agreements left decision maker...
William Gale, "Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future" (Oxford UP, 2019)
February 12, 2024 09:00 - 46 minutesThe US government is laboring under an enormous debt burden, one that will impact the living standards of future generations of Americans by limiting investment in people and infrastructure. In his new book, Fiscal Therapy: Curing America's Debt Addiction and Investing in the Future (Oxford University Press, 2019), Brookings Institution senior scholar William Gale tackles the challenge head on, addressing what needs to happen to healthcare spending, Social Security, individual taxes, and corp...
Nick Romeo, "The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy" (PublicAffairs, 2024)
February 07, 2024 09:00 - 32 minutesWinners Take All meets Nickel and Dimed: a provocative debunking of accepted wisdom, providing the pathway to a sustainable, survivable economy. Confronted by the terrifying trends of the early twenty-first century - widening inequality, environmental destruction, and the immiseration of millions of workers around the world - many economists and business leaders still preach dogmas that lack evidence and create political catastrophe: Private markets are always more efficient than public ones;...
Chrystin Ondersma, "Dignity Not Debt: An Abolitionist Approach to Economic Justice" (U California Press, 2024)
February 03, 2024 09:00 - 31 minutesAmerican households have a debt problem. The problem is not, as often claimed, that Americans recklessly take on too much debt. The problem is that US debt policies have no basis in reality. Weaving together the histories and trends of US debt policy with her own family story, Chrystin Ondersma debunks the myths that have long governed debt policy, like the belief that debt leads to prosperity or the claim that bad debt is the result of bad choices, both of which nest in the overarching myth ...
Larry Summers (Harvard Economics Professor) on His Career In Academic Economics, Government, University Leadership and Corporate America
February 02, 2024 09:00 - 35 minutesLarry Summers, Harvard economics professor and 71st US Secretary of the Treasury, joins the podcast for an in-depth discussion of his career at the highest levels of academic economics, economic policy, university leadership, and corporate America. Jon Hartley is an economics researcher with interests in international macroeconomics, finance, and labor economics and is currently an economics PhD student at Stanford University. He is also currently a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Resea...
Bruce Wardhaugh, "Competition Law in Crisis: The Antitrust Response to Economic Shocks" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
January 26, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourIn recent years, government agencies around the world have been forced to consider the role of competition law and policy in addressing various crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2008 financial collapse. There is no easy formula that a competition agency can apply to determine the appropriate response to a crisis; indeed, there is substantial debate about the issue. One common criticism of competition law and policy is that usually it is too inflexible to deal with a crisis, proh...
Daniel Peris, "The Ownership Dividend: The Coming Paradigm Shift in the U.S. Stock Market" (Routledge, 2024)
January 23, 2024 09:00 - 52 minutesWe are on the verge of a major paradigm shift for investors in the U.S. stock market. Dividend-focused stock investing has been receding in popularity for more than three decades in the U.S.; once the dominant investment style, it is now a boutique approach. That is about to change. Daniel Peris' book The Ownership Dividend: The Coming Paradigm Shift in the U.S. Stock Market (Routledge, 2024) explains how and why the stock market drifted away from a mostly cash-based returns system to one alm...
Cornelia Woll, "Corporate Crime and Punishment: The Politics of Negotiated Justice in Global Markets" (Princeton UP, 2023)
January 23, 2024 09:00 - 43 minutesOver the past decade, many of the world’s biggest companies have found themselves embroiled in legal disputes over corruption, fraud, environmental damage, tax evasion, or sanction violations. Corporations including Volkswagen, BP, and Credit Suisse have paid record-breaking fines. Many critics of globalisation and corporate impunity cheer this turn toward accountability. Others, however, question American dominance in legal battles that seem to impose domestic legal norms beyond national bou...
John Quiggin, "Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly" (Princeton UP, 2019)
January 10, 2024 09:00 - 46 minutesTrying to follow the key macroeconomic debates that are swirling around DC, CNBC, the WSJ and the NYT? If you are but don't want to go back to graduate school or re-open your college macroeconomics textbook, John Quiggin has a solution. His Economics in Two Lessons: Why Markets Work So Well, and Why They Can Fail So Badly (Princeton University Press, 2019) achieves several goals. First, it frames the current debates, providing a concise, well-written history of macroeconomics and the key twis...
Gerald Epstein, “What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critique” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
January 09, 2024 09:00 - 41 minutesSince the last-but-one financial crisis abated and governments responded to better times by clawing back their stimulus packages, a once-obscure economic philosophy has been gaining a growing following on the left. But, following the extraordinary policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, even some conservative commentators and policy makers are showing an interest in Modern Monetary Theory or MMT. Not so fast, warns Gerald Epstein in his What's Wrong with Modern Money Theory? A Policy Critiq...
Applying Historical Perspectives to Finance (with Daniel Peris)
January 04, 2024 09:00 - 1 hourBefore becoming a financial analyst and then a portfolio manager in New York, Daniel Peris worked as a tenure-track professor of Soviet history. I sat down with Dan and talked about his painful but ultimately successful 1990s transition from academia to finance. We chatted about how historical methods and perspectives shaped Dan's unique approach to investing, a style that he has been popularizing in his books and online blogs. Dan talked about the skills he acquired during his training as a ...
Richard Vague, "A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)
January 02, 2024 09:00 - 36 minutesRichard Vague really really cares about private-sector debt. And he thinks you should too. In A Brief History of Doom: Two Hundred Years of Financial Crises (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Vague sees the rise and fall of private sector debt as the key factor explaining the cycle of economic crises experienced by developed and major developing economies over the past two centuries. The early stages of a lending cycle look and feel good. Everyone is happy, the lenders think they are s...
James O'Toole, "The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good" (HarperBusiness, 2019)
January 01, 2024 09:00 - 52 minutesIs the University of Chicago-blessed, "greed is good" near-term profits approach to business wearing out its welcome? James O'Toole's The Enlightened Capitalists: Cautionary Tales of Business Pioneers Who Tried to Do Well by Doing Good(HarperBusiness, 2019) is a welcome addition to the current debate about what is the right balance between the near-term profit motive and long-term social goals in running a business. O'Toole, an emeritus professor of business ethics at USC, argues that entrepr...
Annie McClanahan, "Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and Twenty-First Century Culture" (Stanford UP, 2016)
December 28, 2023 09:00 - 59 minutesWhen teaching a public course called “The Age of Debt” this winter break, I had the strange realization that one of the the most successful readings in that course, the one which most clearly explained the 2008 crisis and the financialized economy, was written by an English professor. It was Annie McClanahan’s Dead Pledges: Debt, Crisis, and Twenty-First Century Culture (Stanford University Press, 2016). The book is a masterful exploration of the cultural politics of the financial crisis and ...
Christine Abely, "The Russia Sanctions: The Economic Response to Russia's Invasion of Ukraine" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
December 21, 2023 09:00 - 38 minutesFebruary 2024 will mark the tenth anniversary of Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian territory in Crimea and the Donbas and two years since its full-scale invasion. While military assistance from Ukraine’s allies has been gradual and cautious, retaliatory sanctions have been impressive. "The sanctions imposed against Russia beginning in late winter 2022 were sweeping, historic and rolled out with stunning rapidity,” writes Christine Abely in The Russia Sanctions: The Economic Response to Russia's I...
The Future of Global Economic Governance: A Discussion with Jamie Martin
December 16, 2023 09:00 - 40 minutesWith increasing talk of de-dollarization and the Gulf attempts to get more influence in the IMF it’s a good time to talk about the world’s international financial institutions – and their role globalization and its future. Listen to Owen Bennett-Jones in conversation with Jamie Martin author of The Meddlers: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance (Harvard UP, 2022). Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he h...
Paul Crosthwaite et al., "Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
December 10, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutesWho hasn’t wished for a surefire formula for riches and a ticket to the good life? For three centuries, investment advisers of all kinds, legit and otherwise, have guaranteed that they alone can illuminate the golden pathway to prosperity—despite strong evidence to the contrary. In fact, too often, they are singing a siren song of devastation. And yet we keep listening. Invested: Invested: How Three Centuries of Stock Market Advice Reshaped Our Money, Markets, and Minds (U Chicago Press, 2022...
The Enlightened Donor: How to Give Charity Wisely
November 22, 2023 09:00 - 23 minutesMotivated by compassion and hope, and the shared desire to make the world a better place, the immense amount of charitable giving stands as a testament to the humanity's collective generosity. From aiding those in need to supporting noble causes in art and science, culture and religion, the act of giving has the power to transform lives and shape a brighter future. But amidst the goodwill, there lies a shadowy underbelly that seeks to exploit our altruistic impulses. The landscape of charitab...
Konstantinos Retsikas, "A Synthesis of Time: Zakat, Islamic Micro-finance and the Question of the Future in 21st-Century Indonesia" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
November 17, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourIn A Synthesis of Time: Zakat, Islamic Micro-finance and the Question of the Future in 21st-Century Indonesia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Konstantinos Retsikas has anthropological investigation into the different forms the economy assumes, and the different purposes it serves, when conceived from the perspective of Islamic micro-finance as a field of everyday practice. The book is based on long-term ethnographic research in Java, Indonesia, with Islamic foundations active in managing zakat an...
Brendan J. Doherty, "Fundraiser in Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Campaign Cash" (UP of Kansas, 2023)
November 13, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutesPolitical Scientist Brendan Doherty has a new book that dives into the ways that presidents have raised money for themselves, their parties, and other elected officials over the past six decades. Doherty is an expert on campaign fundraising, especially by presidents, and Fundraiser in Chief: Presidents and the Politics of Campaign Cash (UP of Kansas, 2023) continues the research he has been doing in this area within political science. The overarching thesis of Doherty’s work in Fundraiser in ...
Writing the History of Money and Monetary Policy
November 08, 2023 09:00 - 1 hourWhat do the histories of currency and monetary policy tell us about societies at large, political structures, and cultures? Ekaterina Pravilova and Rebecca Spang tackle these questions, respectively, in two important books that examine the history of the Russian ruble from the time of Catherine the Great through the Soviet period, and the history of money during the time of time of the French Revolution. Their conversation delves not only into the past, but into the economic theories and assu...
Akram Benjamin, "Cotton, Finance and Business Networks in a Globalised World: The Case of Egypt During the First half of the Twentieth Century" (2019)
November 08, 2023 09:00 - 32 minutesFirms and entrepreneurs were key drivers of the globalisation of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This thesis investigates commodity networks, foreign banking and business networks, as three manifestations of the first global economy, in Egypt. The country was integrated into the world economy by exporting cotton, importing foreign capital, and hosting a large foreign community. The thesis shows that the Egyptian cotton network was sophisticated as market participants were s...
Zeke Faux, "Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall" (Currency, 2023)
November 04, 2023 18:06 - 52 minutesIn 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”? As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as ...
Antitrust Policy, The Chicago School Consumer Welfare Standard and The Rise of the New Brandeisians
November 04, 2023 08:00 - 59 minutesLuke Froeb joins the podcast to talk about his career in economics, what it's like to be the chief economist at the FTC and DOJ antitrust division, how these agencies make decisions about merger cases, the history of the Chicago School consumer welfare standard and the types of analytical tools and modeling that underlies the approach, along with the rise of the New Brandeisians and their failures thus far. Jon Hartley is an economics researcher with interests in international macroeconomics,...
Ian Jones, "Using the Past: Authenticity, Reliability, and the Role of Archives in Barclays PLC's Use of the Past Strategies" (U Liverpool, 2021)
October 17, 2023 08:00 - 42 minutesRecent scholarship in organisation studies has begun to address how organisations perceive and use their history. However, how organisations preserve and access their history, and how this affects how they are able to use their history is less researched. This thesis investigates how Barclays Group Archives (BGA) contribute to Barclays PLC delivering its strategic objectives. It asks, how does BGA, as a specific unit of the organisation, facilitate the delivery of Barclays PLC's strategic obj...
Jana Randow and Alessandro Speciale, "Mario Draghi, the Craftsman: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro" (Rizzoli, 2019)
October 14, 2023 08:00 - 55 minutes"Within our mandate, the [European Central Bank] is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough". With those three words delivered in London on 26 July 2012, Mario Draghi - the ECB's president from 2011-2019 - stopped a contagious collapse of Europe's common currency after just one decade. Jana Randow and Alessandro Speciale write in Mario Draghi: The True Story of the Man Who Saved the Euro (Rizzoli, 2019): “So simple a phrase, delivered at the right...
Quantitative Investing, Inflation and the Macroeconomy
October 11, 2023 14:45 - 1 hourJon Hartley interviewed Rob Arnott, founder and chairman of Research Affiliates, at the Economic Club of Miami on December 3, 2022. Topics discussed include the recent rise of inflation, macroeconomics, capital market returns, value versus growth stocks, factor timing, and index investing among many other topics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/finance
GSEs, Financial Regulation, Fiscal Policy and Monetary Policy
October 09, 2023 20:35 - 1 hourMark Calabria (Former FHFA Director and Cato Senior Advisor) joins the podcast to discuss his tenure as director of the FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency), his legacy of creating a capital rule for the GSEs which remains in place, financial regulation in wake of the global financial crisis, as well as fiscal and monetary policy amid the recent surge in inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a p...
Rachel O'Dwyer, "Tokens: The Future of Money in the Age of the Platform" (Verso, 2023)
October 08, 2023 08:00 - 48 minutesPlatform capitalism is coming for the money in your pocket. Wherever you look, money is being re-placed by tokens. Digital platforms are issuing new kinds of money-like things: phone credit, shares, gift vouchers, game tokens, customer data--the list goes on. But what does it mean when online platforms become the new banks? What new types of control and discrimination emerge when money is tied to specific apps or actions, politics or identities? Tokens opens up this new and expanding world. E...
IMF Central Bank Technical Assistance and the International Monetary System
October 03, 2023 20:02 - 1 hourMilton Friedman student and University of Chicago-trained monetary economist Warren Coats (Johns Hopkins fellow, former IMF economist and central bank advisor to over 20 countries) speaks about his beginnings as an economist as PhD student of Milton Friedman's at the University of Chicago, his 30 year career at the IMF leading central bank technical assistance developing currencies and monetary policy in countries ranging from post-USSR Eastern Europe, post-conflict Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1...
Luke Messac, "Your Money Or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine" (Oxford UP, 2023)
September 17, 2023 08:00 - 34 minutesA riveting exposé of medical debt collection in America -- and the profound financial and physical costs eroding patient trust in medicine For the crime of falling sick without wealth, Americans today face lawsuits, wage garnishment, home foreclosure, and even jail time. Yet who really profits from aggressive medical debt collection? And how does this predatory system affect patients and doctors responsible for their care? Your Money Or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine (Oxford...
A Better Way to Buy Books
September 12, 2023 08:00 - 34 minutesBookshop.org is an online book retailer that donates more than 80% of its profits to independent bookstores. Launched in 2020, Bookshop.org has already raised more than $27,000,000. In this interview, Andy Hunter, founder and CEO discusses his journey to creating one of the most revolutionary new organizations in the book world. Bookshop has found a way to retain the convenience of online book shopping while also supporting independent bookstores that are the backbones of many local communiti...
The Future of Underground/Sea Cables: A Discussion with Henry Farrell
August 12, 2023 08:00 - 52 minutesHow much of US power is underground? We hear a lot about the US military assets used on land, on the sea, and in the air - but not much about what’s going on underground and on the sea bed. It turns out what goes on down there is a significant source of US power – which has been documented by Henry Farrell in his co-authored book (with Abraham Newman), Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (Henry Holt, 2023). Listen to him describe it all with Owen Bennett-Jones. Owen B...
Keren Winterford et al., "Reframing Aid: A Strengths-Based Approach for International Development" (Practical Action, 2023)
August 10, 2023 08:00 - 1 hourThe practice of international development continues to change as more is understood about what works. A shift from a deficit or problem-solving approach to a strengths-based approach is a significant reframing for international development. A strengths-based approach aims to reveal assets, strengths or what is working within an individual, group, community or organization, then uses these strengths as a way to achieve change and preferred futures. Reframing Aid: A Strengths-Based Approach for...
Philip Roscoe, "How to Build a Stock Exchange: The Past, Present and Future of Finance" (Bristol UP, 2023)
August 07, 2023 08:00 - 40 minutesWhy does the financial sector matter? In How to Build a Stock Exchange: The Past, Present and Future of Finance (Bristol UP, 2023), Philip Roscoe, a Professor of Management at the University of St Andrews, explores the history of the London Stock Exchange as part of a broader examination of the role of finance in the modern world. Richly detailed, including personal reflections as well as interviews and historical analysis, the book covers the technologies, personalities, and key events that ...
Ryan C. Smith, "The Real Oil Shock: How Oil Transformed Money, Debt, and Finance" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)
August 06, 2023 08:00 - 1 hourThe rise of the global financial industry is treated by many economists as a critical component of the rise of neoliberalism. What few address is the role of the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo and the 1979 Oil Shock in making modern financialization possible. Ryan C. Smith's book The Real Oil Shock: How Oil Transformed Money, Debt, and Finance (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022) demonstrates how the dramatic transfer of wealth from the industrialized, capitalist world to OPEC’s members triggered by the Oil Em...
Mike Rothschild, "Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories" (Melville House, 2023)
August 06, 2023 08:00 - 49 minutesIn Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories (Melville House, 2023), Mike Rothschild delves into the history of the conspiracy industry around the Rothschild family—from the "pamphlet wars" of Paris in the 1840s to the dankest pits of the internet today. Journalist and conspiracy theory expert Mike Rothschild, who isn't related to the family, sorts out myth from reality to find the truth about these conspiracy theories and their spreaders. Who were the Rothschi...
Nicholas Lemann, "Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream" (FSG, 2019)
August 02, 2023 08:00 - 50 minutesNicholas Lemann is a staff writer at the New Yorker and a professor of journalism at Columbia. He is the author of four books, the most recent of which is Transaction Man: The Rise of the Deal and the Decline of the American Dream (FSG, 2019). Lemann spoke at the Institute about Transaction Man in 2019. Over the last generation, the United States has undergone seismic changes. Stable institutions have given way to frictionless transactions, which are celebrated no matter what collateral damag...