New Books in Economics

Today I had the pleasure of talking to Professor Xiang Biao on his new book, Self as Method: Thinking Through China and the World, which was originally written and published in Chinese. The English translation has just come out with Palgrave Macmillan.Self as Method provides a manifesto of intellectual activism that counsels China’s young people to think by themselves and for themselves. Consisting of three conversations between Xiang Biao, a social anthropologist, and Wu Qi, a rising journalist, the book probes how China has reached its current stage and how young people can make changes.The Chinese version, 把自己作为方法, was named the “most impactful book of 2021” by Dou4ban4, China’s premier website for rating books, films, and music. The English version, which is entirely Open Access and downloadable for free, was translated by David Ownby. The book reached 157,000 downloads in just over a couple of months.Dr. Suvi Rautio is an anthropologist of China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Daniel Armanios, associate professor of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about his work on infrastructure and inequality with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel. Armanios’ recent work has focused on coming up with quantitative measures of how infrastructure relates to inequalities around race, gender, and class, both to address historical injustices and to inform future infrastructure construction. Armanios also talks about how he brings these topics into his teaching and his larger project around engineering and social justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Jeffrey Carpenter and Andrea Robbett's book Game Theory and Behavior (MIT Press, 2022) is an introduction to game theory that offers not only theoretical tools but also the intuition and behavioral insights to apply these tools to real-world situations. This introductory text on game theory provides students with both the theoretical tools to analyze situations through the logic of game theory and the intuition and behavioral insights to apply these tools to real-world situations. It is unique among game theory texts in offering a clear, formal introduction to standard game theory while incorporating evidence from experimental data and introducing recent behavioral models. Students will not only learn about incentives, how to represent situations as games, and what agents “should” do in these situations, but they will also be presented with evidence that either confirms the theoretical assumptions or suggests a way in which the theory might be updated.Jeffrey Carpenter is the James Jermain Professor of Political Economy at Middlebury College. His research interests include Experimental and Behavioral Economics with applications to Labor, Public and Development Economics. While pursuing these interests he has conducted lab and field experiments in North America, South America, Europe and Asia.Andrea Robbett is an Associate Professor of Economics at Middlebury College. Her research uses laboratory experiments to test canonical theoretical models, new ideas, and conventional wisdom. Her work has addressed topics in public economics, labor, voting, information avoidance, financial decision-making and "attribute overload," trust and cooperation, and auctions.Peter Lorentzen is economics professor at the University of San Francisco. He heads USF's Applied Economics Master's program, which focuses on the digital economy. His research is mainly on China's political economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Most people in developed countries think inequality is increasing. And most would also agree that in terms of the global poor, the last 20 years have seen vast improvements with hundreds of millions living much better lives than their parents. These are some of the themes Professor Mike Savage addresses in his book The Return of Inequality: Social change and the Weight of the Past (Harvard UP, 2021).Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. 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 Dr. Heidi K. Gardner about her new book (co-authored with Ivan A. Matviak) Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work (HBR Press, 2022)Diversity doesn’t mean much if a range of people are in the room but not really a part of the conversation taking place there. To counter that all-together too frequent shortcoming, today’s guest has focused on a variety of ways to achieve better collaboration where multiple viewpoints enrich the outcome. One way is to understand seven key dimensions of collaboration that focus on the personalities and behavioral tendencies in that room. Are people given to being risk seekers or spotters, for instance? Do they tend to be complex or concrete thinkers? And so on. Another way forward is to understand how the team will be evaluated and rewarded. When pay and promotions are weighted such that 40% is dependent on the outcome for customers, you tend to get a broader, more altruistic vantage point. Underlying it all in this conversation is how to overcome homophily: the basic human tendency to form connections with people most like yourself, thereby (unconsciously) excluding those who may look, dress, talk, think and feel in ways outside of your natural comfort zone.Dr. Heidi K. Gardner is a Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School and was previously a professor at Harvard Business School and a consultant at McKinsey & Co. Named by Thinkers50 as a Next Generation Business Guru, she has lived and worked on four continents and holds a PhD from London Business School.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His newest book is Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals. 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

Brent Goldfarb and David Kirsch, professors of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, talk about their book, Bubbles and Crashes: The Boom and Bust of Technological Innovation, with Peoples & Things host Lee Vinsel. Bubbles and Crashes puts forward a parsimonious model of how and when economic bubbles develop around new technologies. In the conversation, Goldfarb and Kirsch reflect on a variety of topics, including why it matters that Elon Musk is such a good story teller, whether we are currently in a technology bubble, and what we can do to prevent bubbles in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

This episode is a roundtable discussion on the influence of the neoliberal project on higher education. Our guests are Professor Emeritus Frank Fear from Michigan State University, Professor Claire Polster from the University of Regina, and Professor Ruben Martinez from Michigan State University. The conversation is wide-ranging across topics such as the quantification of higher education and the concept of students as customers.John Kaag is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at UMass Lowell and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. John W. Traphagan, Ph.D. is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Efficiency has moved from a technique for measuring machines to a widely held moral value. But at what cost?Guests Jennifer Alexander, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and author of The Mantra of Efficiency: From Waterwheel to Social Control Tom Hodgkinson, founder and editor of The Idler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia (Cornell UP, 2017) delves into the role of bazaars in the political economy and development of Central Asia. Bazaars are the economic bedrock for many throughout the region--they are the entrepreneurial hubs of Central Asia. However, they are often regarded as mafia-governed environments that are largely populated by the dispossessed. By immersing herself in the bazaars of Kyrgyzstan, Regine A. Spector learned that some are rather best characterized as islands of order in a chaotic national context.Spector draws on interviews, archival sources, and participant observation to show how traders, landowners, and municipal officials create order in the absence of a coherent government apparatus and bureaucratic state. Merchants have adapted Soviet institutions, including trade unions, and pre-Soviet practices, such as using village elders as the arbiters of disputes, to the urban bazaar by building and asserting their own authority. Spector's findings have relevance beyond the bazaars and borders of one small country; they teach us how economic development operates when the rule of law is weak. 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 Roger Blackwell about his new book Objective Prosperity: How Behavioral Economics Can Improve Outcomes for You, Your Business, and Your Nation (Rothstein Publishing, 2022)Contrary to conventional wisdom, about 90% of billionaires are self-made as opposed to people who inherited their wealth. Why did they succeed? That’s the question this book explores at both the individual and at the countrywide level. Values and skills revolving around knowledge, a strong work ethic, delayed gratification, and more, provide much of the answer, as does access to mentors. Or to put it another way, as today’s guest alludes to – you could do worse than follow the advice of Wendy’s founder, Dave Thomas: Work hard, and be nice. Income inequality, immigration, college debt forgiveness are among the topics covered in this wide-ranging conversation with Roger, who has been an exemplary educator across the globe.Roger Blackwell is the author of 40 previous books, and a retired professor from The Ohio State University where he taught in the business school as well as course for the Medical School and as part of the Black Studies faculty. In addition, Roger has taught and done research in 39 countries and for the inmates at the Federal Correction Institution in Morgantown, West Virginia.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His newest book is Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals. 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