I am the Eldon R. Lindsey Chair of Free Enterprise and Professor of Economics and Finance at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. Most of my writing is academic, including in the Independent Review, Journal of Markets and Morality, and Presidential Studies Quarterly recently. Before pursuing my doctoral degree, I served in the U.S. Army and worked for an insurance company.
This book describes the emerging global economy from its most distant origins to the present. It covers traditional topics, such as trade, in both traditional and nontraditional ways, and it covers nontraditional topics for such a book, such as immigration and diversity. The book is highly accessible, and is filled with concrete examples and highly-engaging stories.
Examining the emergence of our species reveals just how wonderful we are and each of us is.
Yuval Noah Harari is particularly impressed with the moral stories that enable very large numbers of us to cooperate, not only within families and tribes, but within nations and the world.
Harari also writes about the evolution of social institutions such as money, instrumental to cooperation among large numbers of people.
100,000 years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens. How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations and human rights; to trust money, books and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?
In Sapiens, Dr Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the…
Angus Deaton presents his own work and summarizes the work of others to describe the beginning of sustained economic growth, what is sometimes called the industrial revolution.
Not only does this sustained economic growth result in much greater health and wealth, but also in inequality.
Before, only a very small number of people enjoyed leisure and what were the luxuries of the time. After, increasing percentages of people escaped the so-called iron law of wages.
The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton--one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty--tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today's disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what…
This recommendation is more technical than my previous recommendations.
The authors reconstruct many measures of income and income inequality to show that the widening gap indicated by official statistics is an artifact of certain assumptions underlying these statistics.
First, and most importantly, regarding those who are dependent on the social safety net, "income" includes only cash benefits dispensed by the government, not the cash value of non-cash benefits; and, for those who are taxpayers, "income" is defined as before-tax income, not after-tax income.
Second, monetary values are incorrectly corrected by the CPI (the authors propose using the chained-linked CPI).
The book might be considered to present an agenda for further research on the specifics it addresses and similar concerns.
Everything you know about income inequality, poverty, and other measures of economic well-being in America is wrong. In this provocative book, a former United States senator, eminent economist, and a former senior leader at the Bureau of Labor Statistics challenge the prevailing consensus that income inequality is a growing threat to American society. By taking readers on a deep dive into the way government measures economic well-being, they demonstrate that our official statistics dramatically overstate inequality. Getting the facts straight reveals that the key measures of well-being are greater than the…
Maddison weaves varied measures into a history of GDP, population, and perforce GDP per capita of the world and its regions and of countries as the data allow, going back to ‘year 0’ (the year that’s not between 1 BC and 1 AD).
His effort is continued by the Maddison Project.
Careful measurement could be said to differentiate the scientific from the discursive disciplines.
The World Economy brings together two reference works by Angus Maddison: The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, first published in 2001 and The World Economy: Historical Statistics, published in 2003. This new edition contains Statlinks, a service providing access to the underlying data in Excel® format. These two volumes bring together estimates of world GDP for the past 2000 years and provide a unique perspective on the rise and fall of economies historically.
"One controversial clash of theories fueled by Maddison's data concerns the relative status of (growth in) the West versus the rest. The figures (in this book) are…
It is a path-breaking effort to gather national IQ data from as many countries as possible, and to correlate the same with GDP per capita and other measures of national success.
There are several major shortcomings to the original effort including: (1) that averages of "similar" countries were used where local estimates of national IQ weren't available, and (2) national IQs of many countries were drawn from small convenience samples.
These shortcomings might have been justified as the best that could be done given the costliness of collecting scientifically-valid samples, along with a call to address these shortcomings.
Since the publication of the book, numerous additional IQ data have been developed in, for example, the norming of IQ tests for various populations. Also, much near kin achievement data have been developed in the administration of internationally-standardized scholastic examinations.
And, even for tiny countries, we have good local proxy data such as GMAT scores. With better data on national IQ, the purposes of the book can, now, be much better served.
Lynn and Vanhanen test the hypothesis on the causal relationship between the average national intelligence (IQ) and the gap between rich and poor countries by empirical evidence. Based on an extensive survey of national IQ tests, the results of their work challenge the previous theories of economic development and provide a new basis to evaluate the prospects of economic development throughout the world.
They begin by reviewing and evaluating some major previous theories. The concept of intelligence is then described and intelligence quotient (IQ) introduced. Next they show that intelligence is a significant determinant of earnings within nations, and they…
My core value is realistic education—learning from each other’s errors and successes, but with full awareness of the difference between the determined past and the uncertain future. We can benefit from uncertainty, which I’ve been doing for a living as an engineer, academic researcher, and inventor. I make use of knowledge and science as much as possible, but I also know that strategic decisions for the uncertain future require skepticism and thinking to deal with the differences in a new circumstance. With my core value, I am passionate about sharing insights and knowledge that our formal education does not provide.
Everything in nature evolves by trial, error, and success—from fundamental physics, through evolution in biology, to how people learn, think, and decide.
This book presents a way of thinking and realistic knowledge that our formal education shuns. Stepping beyond this ignorance, the book shows how to deal with and even benefit from uncertainty by skeptical thinking, strategic decisions, and teamwork based on enlightened self-interests.
This bottom-up thinking is thought-provoking for leaders who wish to build teams rather than herds. The insights in the book will help you to be better prepared for the unexpected, less likely to conform when you shouldn't, more creative, and more likely to learn from both failures and successes of others.
Trial, Error, and Success: 10 Insights into Realistic Knowledge, Thinking, and Emotional Intelligence
Everything in nature evolves by trial, error, and success. They didn't teach you this in school, even though you should know why the rigid laws of physics don't rule nature and don't inhibit your free-will decisions to try, fail, and succeed. As a guide to success, this book shows how skepticism, prudent use of science, and thinking lead to strategic decisions for the uncertain future.
Presenting real-life examples, the thinking in the book combines sharp analyses with broad analogies to show:
How to identify realistic knowledge and avoid harm due to overgeneralized concepts.
How to create new knowledge and solve…
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