New Books in Economics

In this episode we talk to Ashutosh about his upbringing and journey into corporate life, and the lessons that taught him. His route into entrepreneurship to build the “Boots of India”,which grew to be India’s largest retail pharmacy chain, and his life post-exit as an author and podcaster.The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal story of our carefully selected guests aiming for the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.This episode can be viewed on Youtube here.About our guestAshutosh hosts the very successful video and podcast series titled “The Brand Called You – Converse with the Future” (www.tbcy.in) bringing the stories of successful entrepreneurs, professionals and senior corporate leaders to thousands of listeners.He is a certified Business Coach and coaches / mentors several CEOs in India on business matters, governance, strategic planning, succession planning, personal accountability, people and culture issues. (www.equationcoaching.com).A published author of 6 best-selling books, he has written on Startups, Entrepreneurship, Retirement in the 21st Century, Personal Branding, Work Life Balance and Fiction. His latest book on personal branding is titled “The Brand Called You”.He writes regularly for Times of India and can often be seen on National Television panel discussions on political affairs.Ashutosh founded Guardian Pharmacy in India in 2003 and built it into India's second largest Pharmacy Chain. He exited from the business in 2016.Prior to that he worked for ITC Limited for 17 years leaving in 1996 and thereafter with US Aerospace companies for 8 years as their Head of Asia.Ashutosh served on the board of GAVI, The Vaccine Alliance (www.gavi.org) for 8 years. He sits on several boards and advises companies on strategy and governance matters. He was the Chairman of Bizdome, the Startup Incubator of IIM Rohtak till 2018.He is a YPO member and was Chairman of YPO South Asia Gold (2017-19). He was recognised as a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1994.His wife Vera is a Historian and teaches at the American Embassy School, New Delhi. His older son, Varun works for American Express in Singapore as their Director Marketing and his younger son Ashwin works for Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati as their Director Sales.A keen golfer, he plays the Indian flute, enjoys reading and listening to Indian classical musicAbout the NBNThe New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube.About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

The middle decades of the 19th century witnessed the expansion of slavery and white settlement and dispossession of Indigenous lands west of the Mississippi River, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire followed by the importation of indentured laborers from India and China into the West Indies, the consolidation of British rule in India followed by the so-called Indian Mutiny, and the expansion of settler colonialism in Australia. These processes were all tied together by commerce, empire, and the spread of racial ideologies, yet their histories have largely been written separately. Until now.Zach Sell’s new book Trouble of the World: Slavery and Empire in the Age of Capital (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) highlights the connections between the “second slavery” in the Deep South of the United States, efforts to socially engineer mono-crop agriculture in India by a British colonial state that lip service to laissez-faire and free labor even as it tried to import plantation management techniques from the US south, how the attempt to create plantation-style agriculture in Queensland, Australia bumped up against the logic of white settler colonialism and attempts to expand plantation agriculture in Belize in the age of so-called “free” labor using indentured labor from Asia. This is a story of racial formation on a global scale, and of the limits of capital’s ability to remake social relations and environments in its own image, despite the capacity for organized brutality that it had at its disposal. This book is particularly important at a time when many American, British and French commentators have tried to downplay the violence of expansion and colonialism and to portray white supremacy as some sort of American peculiarity and relic of the past.Zach is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Drexel University and was previously Ruth J. Simmons Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Slavery and Justice at Brown University’s Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

How do we make sense of the “durability and gigantic scale” of China’s economic expansion alongside the reports of “rising” and “explosive” corruption? How has China moved from an “impoverished communist regime to a capitalist superpower rivaling the United States” despite a crisis of corruption that its own leadership describes as “gave” and “shocking”? Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang’s her new book China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption (Cambridge University Press, 2020) argues corruption comes in different forms and she “unbundles” different types of corruption to explain not only why China can boom but why political scientists need to “fundamentally revise our believes about the relationship between corruption and capitalism.” The book demystifies the Chinese paradox of growth with corruption by unbundling the four types of corruption and placing China in comparative-historical perspective. China is an outlier but not in the ways that most analysts assume. The closest parallel is the United States in the late 19th century, a gilded age characterized by both feverish growth and glaring inequality, conniving plutocrats and corrupt politicians. The book offers a four-part explanation for this paradox focused on the dominant type of corruption (access money which stimulates growth but generates distortions and risks), the relationship between the profit sharing model (where the rewards of leaders and bureaucrats are linked to economic performance) and access money, the role of capacity-building reforms in curtailing corruption involving theft and speed money, and the checking of predatory corruption by regional competition (spurring development and deal-making).Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang is an associate professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan. She works at the intersection of business, governance, and innovation to better understand how governments and organizations respond to deep uncertainty and complex, novel problems and which institutions are able to adapt. She considers China’s Gilded Age to be a sequel to her award-winning book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (Cornell University Press, 2016) and you can hear her conversation with my NBN colleague here. Dr. Ang translates her ideas to wider audiences in Foreign Affairs, Project Syndicate, and the South China Morning Post.Susan Liebell is an associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Why Diehard Originalists Aren’t Really Originalists recently appeared in the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage and “Retreat from the Rule of Law: Locke and the Perils of Stand Your Ground” was published in the Journal of Politics (July 2020). Email her comments at sliebell@sju.edu or tweet to @SusanLiebell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defense Industry. These ‘agents of inequality’ are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01%. In The Wealth Hoarders: How Billionaires Pay Millions to Hide Trillions (Polity, 2021), inequality expert Chuck Collins, who himself inherited a fortune, interviews the leading players and gives a unique insider account of how this industry is doing everything it can to create and entrench hereditary dynasties of wealth and power. He exposes the inner workings of these “agents of inequality”, showing how they deploy anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts, opaque trusts, and sham transactions to ensure the world’s richest pay next to no tax. He ends by outlining a robust set of policies that democratic nations can implement to shut down the Wealth Defense Industry for good. This shocking exposé of the insidious machinery of inequality is essential reading for anyone wanting the inside story of our age of plutocratic plunder and stashed cash.Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Veronique Ozkaya shares her teenage experience working in the family business, why she wanted to get away from her hometown, her brief career as a diplomat, and rapid rise to a leading position in the translation industry. Veronique shares her insights into gender diversity (or its absence) in the industry, and her approach to leadership.The NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal stories of our carefully selected guests in the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.About our guestVeronique is a seasoned international leader with experience building and strengthening the sales and marketing functions for organizations with high growth ambitions. Extensive experience in Localization – helping industry leaders grow market share in international markets with services such as translation, internationalization, software development, engineering, and testing. Fluent in French, English, Turkish, and functional in German. Your hosts, Kimon and Richard, together with Veronique, are all shareholders in Argos Multilingual, the company which Veronique leads.Veronique on LinkedinAbout the NBNThe New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube.About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Today I talked to David G. White, Jr. about his book Disrupting Corporate Culture: How Cognitive Science Alters Accepted Beliefs About Culture and Culture Change and Its Impact on Leaders and Change Agents (Routledge, 2021).David G. White, Jr. is a cognitive anthropologist working with organizations on culture, change, and leadership issues. He’s the co-founder of Ontos Global, a boutique consulting firm. David previously held leadership roles at Microsoft, Mercer, and IBM, and he is also a professional jazz musician with 7 CDs to his credit.This episode challenges myths that hinder true culture change at companies, such as Culture Starts at the Top and Culture Is What We Say We Care About. Instead, David argues that new neural pathways form in the brain based on tangible, physical practices that change. So leaders spouting off about “shared values” (talking the talk) won’t be nearly as productive as investigating a company’s dominant logic and how that may serve or hinter the company’s prospects. In other words, David argues that culture is shaped by tasks and the basic operating assumptions that underlie them.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of eight books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Tessa explains why Olio’s mission of cutting unnecessary food waste is so important, and how her own distress at food waste led to the breakthrough insight that there had to be a better way of dealing with unwanted food. She shares her personal journey, and sets out the exciting road map ahead for Olio.Tessa Clarke is the Co Founder & CEO of Olio Linkedin Olio is a free app that connects users with unwanted food (households or local businesses) with neighbours living nearby who would like it. OLIO has over 2.5 million users who have together shared 7 million portions of food. 50,000 volunteers who are spreading the word in their local communities.Download the App and more information here https://olioex.comTwitter https://twitter.com/olio_exFacebook https://www.facebook.com/olioapp/Instagram https://www.instagram.com/olio.app/Linked https://www.linkedin.com/company/olio-the-food-sharing-revolutionThe NBN Entrepreneurship and Leadership podcast aims to educate and entertain, sharing insights based on the personal stories of our carefully selected guests in the atmosphere of an informal conversation in a bar or over a cup of coffee.About the NBNThe New Books Network was founded in 2007 as a podcast interviewing the authors of academic books, and has grown to the largest author interview podcast in the world publishing 12 podcasts a day in more than 90 specialist areas, with over a million downloads a month. Read about the founder Marshall Poe and the NBN here. In recent years it has expanded beyond its “author interview origins”. Historically NBN only did audio recordings. E&L is the first NBN podcast distributed on Youtube.About Kimon Fountoukidis Twitter LinkedinKimon is the founder of both Argos Multilingual and PMR. Both companies were founded in the mid 90s with zero capital and both have gone on to become market leaders in their respective sectors. Kimon was born in New York and moved to Krakow, Poland in 1993. Listen to his story here,About Richard Lucas Twitter LinkedinRichard is a business and social entrepreneur who founded or invested in more than 30 businesses, including investments in Argos Multilingual, PMR and, in 2020, the New Books Network. Richard has been a TEDx event organiser, supports the pro-entrepreneurship ecosystem, and leads entrepreneurship workshops at all levels: from pre- to business schools. Richard was born in Oxford and moved to Poland in 1991. Read more here. Listen to his story in an autobiographical TEDx talk here, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row—a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically, and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year—and they’re still rising. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. They demonstrate why, for those who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2020) paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For the white working class, today’s America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.This book charts a way forward, providing solutions that can rein in capitalism’s excesses and make it work for everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

How did telecommunications shape Victorian London? In Serving a Wired World London's Telecommunications Workers and the Making of an Information Capital Katie Hindmarch-Watson, an Assistant Professor in history at Johns Hopkins University, tells the history of London through the lenses of technology, gender, class, and sexuality. The book offers a rethinking of liberal subjectivity and the city at the end of the nineteenth century, showing how the Victorian obsessions with privacy and respectability intersected with technology to create the urban and social fabric of London. The book also draws on queer history, demonstrating the importance of sex scandals in the Victorian and Edwardian eras for understanding urban, technology, and gender histories. A fascinating read, the book will be an essential text across the humanities and social sciences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

How does individual religious liberty apply to religiously affiliated groups? Edward A. David investigates the polarized ways legal theorists seek to understand group ontology in A Christian Approach to Corporate Religious Theory (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020). David surveys the merits and pitfalls of prevailing approaches from within and without the Christian tradition. Many legal theorists are deeply skeptical of corporate group ontology, especially as religious groups have sometimes tended to conflate churches proper with religiously affiliated organizations in ways that can set uncomfortable precedents. This book offers a novel way forward that suggests a retrieval of Saint Thomas Aquinas's theory of coordinated group activity to provide a more salient moral framework to evaluate the liberties and limits of religious groups. You can follow Edward David's work on his website or on Twitter (@edwardinoxford)Ryan David Shelton (@ryoldfashioned) is a social historian of British and American Protestantism and a PhD researcher at Queen’s University Belfast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics