Love Stabilizing an Unstable Economy? Readers share 100 books like Stabilizing an Unstable Economy...

By Hyman P. Minsky,

Here are 100 books that Stabilizing an Unstable Economy fans have personally recommended if you like Stabilizing an Unstable Economy. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Thinking, Fast and Slow

Ryan Christensen Author Of Winner Peace

From my list on succeed in life from a hypnotist.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve spent my entire life dealing with mental health issues, and overcoming them took me on a long journey of learning about the mind and how to make it work for us rather than against us. I’ve explored almost every modality out there and developed my own hypnosis modality as a result. Books like these were a key part of helping me figure out how to overcome my challenges and live life to the fullest, achieve my goals, and reach success.

Ryan's book list on succeed in life from a hypnotist

Ryan Christensen Why did Ryan love this book?

It wasn’t until reading this book that I realized how important it was to focus on the fast, instinctive part of our mind. Getting that initial judgment and reaction right makes everything else easier. Too often, I found myself wanting to understand things logically and rationally, assuming that my instincts and emotions were simply wrong.

This book helped me understand how useful both systems were and how to leverage them to achieve my goals faster and more effectively.

By Daniel Kahneman,

Why should I read it?

48 authors picked Thinking, Fast and Slow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The phenomenal international bestseller - 2 million copies sold - that will change the way you make decisions

'A lifetime's worth of wisdom' Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics
'There have been many good books on human rationality and irrationality, but only one masterpiece. That masterpiece is Thinking, Fast and Slow' Financial Times

Why is there more chance we'll believe something if it's in a bold type face? Why are judges more likely to deny parole before lunch? Why do we assume a good-looking person will be more competent? The answer lies in the two ways we make choices: fast,…


Book cover of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Markus Eberl Author Of War Owl Falling: Innovation, Creativity, and Culture Change in Ancient Maya Society

From my list on innovation in the past when this wasn't yet a thing.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an archaeologist, I love prehistoric things and what can I learn from them about the people that made them and left them behind. I study ancient Maya commoners in what is now modern Guatemala. Their material remains are humble but include depictions and symbols normally found in the palaces of Maya kings and queens. First I wondered and then I studied how the title-giving war owl fell into the hands of Maya commoners. By approaching this process as innovation, I discuss creativity in the past and cultural changes that result from it.

Markus' book list on innovation in the past when this wasn't yet a thing

Markus Eberl Why did Markus love this book?

This book introduced the concept of nudging into the public discourse, and I guess all of us have encountered it one way or the other. How many reminders have I gotten to sign up for this or that program?… Alas, I love Thaler and Sunstein's concept of choice architects. It made me think about power as a capacity to affect not only people but also the very framework in which people make decisions.

By Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Nudge as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now available: Nudge: The Final Edition

The original edition of the multimillion-copy New York Times bestseller by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Richard H. Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisions—for fans of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow

Named a Best Book of the Year by TheEconomist and the Financial Times

Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion…


Book cover of Irrational Exuberance

Robert Isaak Author Of Brave New World Economy: Global Finance Threatens Our Future

From my list on the world economy, finance trends, and options.

Why am I passionate about this?

Since completing my PhD in political economy (dissertation: ‘International Integration and Foreign Policy Decision-making’) I have gone deeper into economic origins of change (eg. Modern Inflation, coauthored with well-known economist Wilhelm Hankel in Bologna, Italy at Johns Hopkins SAIS) and find the interactions between economic, politics, and psychology fascinating—presenting an infinite number of ‘Sherlock Holmes-like puzzles’. We are all now confronted with political, economic, and psychological uncertainties, put on high speed due to the war in Ukraine and great power tensions. So it is time to learn about the origins of our problems and their trends in order to better cope and find a basis for individual, if not collective, peace.

Robert's book list on the world economy, finance trends, and options

Robert Isaak Why did Robert love this book?

Shiller predicted both the dot-com crisis (2001) and the financial crisis stemming from real estate (2008) in advance in two editions of this book.

Since receiving the Nobel prize in economics he published his book Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral which together with the book recommended will help the reader predict the timing of coming economic trends.

By Robert J. Shiller,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Irrational Exuberance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this revised, updated, and expanded edition of his New York Times bestseller, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, who warned of both the tech and housing bubbles, cautions that signs of irrational exuberance among investors have only increased since the 2008-9 financial crisis. With high stock and bond prices and the rising cost of housing, the post-subprime boom may well turn out to be another illustration of Shiller's influential argument that psychologically driven volatility is an inherent characteristic of all asset markets. In other words, Irrational Exuberance is as relevant as ever. Previous editions covered the stock and housing markets--and…


Book cover of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money: With the Economic Consequences of the Peace

Hersh Shefrin Author Of Ending the Management Illusion: How to Drive Business Results Using the Principles of Behavioral Finance

From my list on psychology's impact on economics and finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I became a behavioral economist in the 1970s, at the time modern behavioral economics came into existence. Much of my work has focused on the way in which the combination of emotions and deliberative thinking impact the way people make decisions about their economic lives. For over four decades, I have been identifying the fascinating ways in which this two system psychological approach influences the important questions of our day.

Hersh's book list on psychology's impact on economics and finance

Hersh Shefrin Why did Hersh love this book?

Keynes’ book is not just a classic, but to my mind is the finest book in economics written in the first half of the twentieth century. Although I studied the book as an undergraduate student, at the time I failed to appreciate what Keynes wrote about the role psychology played in economic decision making. It was only after becoming a behavioral economist myself, and re-reading the book, did I realize that Keynes was a stellar behavioral economist. Although many professionals learn about Keynes’s ideas from other sources, there is nothing like the original. In this work Keynes speaks to us about how human psychology impacts economic decisions and events. Those who read carefully will see that he writes about psychology, optimism, confidence, and sentiment – terms very much in vogue today among modern behavioral economists.

By John Maynard Keynes,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) is perhaps the foremost economic thinker of the twentieth century. On economic theory, he ranks with Adam Smith and Karl Marx; and his impact on how economics was practiced, from the Great Depression to the 1970s, was unmatched.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was first published in 1936. But its ideas had been forming for decades ? as a student at Cambridge, Keynes had written to a friend of his love for 'Free Trade and free thought'. Keynes's limpid style, concise prose, and vivid descriptions have helped to keep his ideas alive -…


Book cover of Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

Joseph Vogl Author Of The Ascendancy of Finance

From my list on the political power of contemporary finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

How did I – as a scholar of German literature – turn to economic topics? That had a certain inevitability. When I left for Paris in the early nineties, reading traces of anthropological knowledge in literature and aesthetics of the 18th century, I came across economic ideas on almost every page, in natural history, in medicine, in philosophy, in encyclopedias, in the theories of signs and in the teachings of beauty. There was circulation, communication, flows of exchange all over the place, and the Robinsons were the model. This reinforced the impression that the human being was engaged in aligning himself with homo oeconomicus. The question of  modern economics has therefore become unavoidable for me.

Joseph's book list on the political power of contemporary finance

Joseph Vogl Why did Joseph love this book?

Focusing on the financial crisis of 2008 Adam Tooze’s book shows the transition from a geopolitical to a geo-economic world order in which the political destiny of old nation states is determined by the needs of international financial industry – including the rearrangement of global governance and the erosion of democracies.

I admire the way in which Adam Tooze demonstrates the entanglement between financial capitalism, crises, and the rise of populist and right-wing movements in Europe and the US.

By Adam Tooze,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Crashed as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' TOP BOOK

"An intelligent explanation of the mechanisms that produced the crisis and the response to it...One of the great strengths of Tooze's book is to demonstrate the deeply intertwined nature of the European and American financial systems."--The New York Times Book Review

From the prizewinning economic historian and author of Shutdown and The Deluge, an eye-opening reinterpretation of the 2008 economic crisis (and its ten-year aftermath) as a global event that directly…


Book cover of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

Daniel Robert McClure Author Of Winter in America: A Cultural History of Neoliberalism, from the Sixties to the Reagan Revolution

From my list on the history of information-knowledge.

Why am I passionate about this?

My name is Daniel Robert McClure, and I am an Associate Professor of History at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas. I teach U.S., African diaspora, and world history, and I specialize in cultural and economic history. I was originally drawn to “information” and “knowledge” because they form the ties between culture and economics, and I have been teaching history through “information” for about a decade. In 2024, I was finally able to teach a graduate course, “The Origins of the Knowledge Society,” out of which came the “5 books.”

Daniel's book list on the history of information-knowledge

Daniel Robert McClure Why did Daniel love this book?

This book tells the tech-business story of algorithms and data exhaust and the companies who have implemented the dystopian future prophesized by Boorstin, Toffler, Postman, and others. While the book is large, Zuboff’s writing draws you into a world you know and, paradoxically, don’t know.

The work is the final stop of our story about information and knowledge, its chaotic meandering through amusing images and the shock of the future. 

By Shoshana Zuboff,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Age of Surveillance Capitalism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE TOP 10 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

'Everyone needs to read this book as an act of digital self-defense.' -- Naomi Klein, Author of No Logo, the Shock Doctrine, This Changes Everything and No is Not Enough

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control us.

The heady optimism of the Internet's early days is gone. Technologies that were meant to liberate us have deepened inequality and stoked divisions. Tech companies gather our information online and sell…


Book cover of The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times

Joseph Vogl Author Of The Ascendancy of Finance

From my list on the political power of contemporary finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

How did I – as a scholar of German literature – turn to economic topics? That had a certain inevitability. When I left for Paris in the early nineties, reading traces of anthropological knowledge in literature and aesthetics of the 18th century, I came across economic ideas on almost every page, in natural history, in medicine, in philosophy, in encyclopedias, in the theories of signs and in the teachings of beauty. There was circulation, communication, flows of exchange all over the place, and the Robinsons were the model. This reinforced the impression that the human being was engaged in aligning himself with homo oeconomicus. The question of  modern economics has therefore become unavoidable for me.

Joseph's book list on the political power of contemporary finance

Joseph Vogl Why did Joseph love this book?

This book is one of the most comprehensive presentations concerning the history of capitalism from early modern times up to the present.

It deals with the mutual reinforcement between capital accumulation and state apparatuses and shows how precisely the dominance of finance and accumulation crises caused the decline of powerful capitalist states.

By Giovanni Arrighi,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Long Twentieth Century as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Long Twentieth Century traces the relationship between capital accumulation and state formation over a 700-year period. Arrighi argues that capitalism has unfolded as a succession of "long centuries," each of which produced a new world power that secured control over an expanding world-economic space. Examining the changing fortunes of Florentine, Venetian, Genoese, Dutch, English and finally American capitalism, Arrighi concludes with an examination of the forces that have shaped and are now poised to undermine America's world dominance. A masterpiece of historical sociology, The Long Twentieth Century rivals in scope and ambition contemporary classics by Perry Anderson, Charles Tilly…


Book cover of Cosmopolis

Joseph Vogl Author Of The Ascendancy of Finance

From my list on the political power of contemporary finance.

Why am I passionate about this?

How did I – as a scholar of German literature – turn to economic topics? That had a certain inevitability. When I left for Paris in the early nineties, reading traces of anthropological knowledge in literature and aesthetics of the 18th century, I came across economic ideas on almost every page, in natural history, in medicine, in philosophy, in encyclopedias, in the theories of signs and in the teachings of beauty. There was circulation, communication, flows of exchange all over the place, and the Robinsons were the model. This reinforced the impression that the human being was engaged in aligning himself with homo oeconomicus. The question of  modern economics has therefore become unavoidable for me.

Joseph's book list on the political power of contemporary finance

Joseph Vogl Why did Joseph love this book?

With this grotesque odyssey of a hedge fund manager in New York, Don DeLillo’s novel takes us right into the arena of the modern financial market, touches on the question of whether that market lends itself to literary treatment, and offers a series of narrative and rhetorical figures to represent the riddle of the finance economy, its protagonists and their operations.

By Don DeLillo,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cosmopolis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Eric Packer is a twenty-eight-year-old multi-billionaire asset manager. We join him on what will become a particularly eventful April day in turn-of-the-twenty-first-century Manhattan. He's on a personal odyssey, to get a haircut. Sitting in his stretch limousine as it moves across town, he finds the city at a virtual standstill because the President is visiting, a rapper's funeral is proceeding, and a violent protest is being staged in Times Square by anti-globalist groups. Most worryingly, Eric's bodyguards are concerned that he may be a target . . .

An electrifying study in affectlessness, infused with deep cynicism and measured detachment;…


Book cover of Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an economics professor who believes my profession has important things to contribute to society but has done a poor job. My colleagues spend much of their time writing esoteric articles that 6 other academics will read, and one in a million will actually improve the lives of people. I consider myself a “blue-collar academic”; I am basically a farm kid (still live on a small farm) with a bunch of degrees attempting to bring good economic insights to more people so those ideas can be applied and used by real people living real lives so I am always on the search for others who are doing just that. 

Brian's book list on Economics books that will not bore you like the students in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Brian Baugus Why did Brian love this book?

So many people miss the fact that economics is a social science; it is about us as people, and I love this book because it does not forget that, indeed, it reminds me that everyone is an amateur practicing economist.

I like this book because it applies economics to every day and not-so-everyday situations and explains how people can use economic ideas to practically make their lives better. It is one of the few books I have read that has changed a common activity I do: what I order at a restaurant.

By Tyler Cowen,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Discover Your Inner Economist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Read Tyler Cowen's posts on the Penguin Blog.

In Discover Your Inner Economist one of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant.

Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen shows how economic notions--such as incentives, signals, and markets--apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business. What does economic theory say about ordering from a menu? Or attracting the right mate? Or controlling people who talk too much in meetings?…


Book cover of The Routledge Guidebook to Smith's Wealth of Nations

Christopher J. Berry Author Of Adam Smith: A Very Short Introduction

From my list on who Adam Smith was and why he's still important.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve studied Smith and his Scottish contemporaries, off and on, for over fifty years. My whole professional career has been spent at Glasgow University where Smith was both a student and later professor. I thus have a personal affinity to him and his work, all the more so because his published writings were all trailed in his professorial classroom. While I have published extensively on Smith, the particular book of mine that I’ve selected was chosen because I wanted to distill all my scholarship into a volume that would be accessible to non-academics. 

Christopher's book list on who Adam Smith was and why he's still important

Christopher J. Berry Why did Christopher love this book?

The title of this book unambiguously states its purpose. What, above all, impressed me was how Paganelli, an academic economist, fulfilled this purpose so splendidly. The Wealth of Nations is one of the great books in the history of economics, but it is a large and somewhat intimidating volume, which has meant it has usually been cited without ever being read.

This book systematically and carefully explains the book chapter by chapter but never misses ‘the wood for the trees’. While ideal for students, with guides for future reading, for anyone who just wants to discover what this great book says beyond headline summaries, and why it is important, this is the text to read.

By Maria Pia Paganelli,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Routledge Guidebook to Smith's Wealth of Nations as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is famous around the world as the founding father of economics, and his ideas are regularly quoted and invoked by politicians, business leaders, economists, and philosophers. However, considering his fame, few people have actually read the whole of his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations - the first book to describe and lay out many of the concepts that are crucial to modern economic thinking. The Routledge Guidebook to Smith's Wealth of Nations provides an accessible, clear, and concise introduction to the arguments of this most notorious and influential of economic texts. The Guidebook examines:

the historical…


Book cover of Thinking, Fast and Slow
Book cover of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Book cover of Irrational Exuberance

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,884

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in economics, capitalism, and the economy?

Economics 415 books
Capitalism 219 books
The Economy 183 books