Economics: Sample Titles

One of the greatest and most joyful challenges of adult life is to develop skills that make the people around us better off with us than without us. Integrity is a key part of that challenge. We are social animals, aiming not simply to trade but to make a place for ourselves in a community. You don't want to have to pretend that you feel proud of fooling your customers into believing you could be trusted. The ethical question is: how do people have to live in order to make the world a better place with them than without them? The economic question is: what kind of society makes people willing and able to use their talents in a way that is good for them and for the people around them? The entrepreneurial question is: what does it take to show up in the marketplace with something that can take your community to a different level? In this book, the authors discuss the connections between the ethical, economic, and entrepreneurial dimensions of a life well-lived.

For principles of economics, public policy, and social issues courses.   Brief, relevant readings that spark independent thinking and classroom discussions   The Economics of Public Issues is a collection of brief, relevant readings that spark independent thinking and discussion in principles of economics and social issues. The 20th Edition encourages readers to apply theoretical discussions to today's important issues to gain a deeper understanding of current microeconomic policy concerns.   Spark independent thinking and classroom discussion Readings are concise, allowing for easy integration into any principles of economics or issues-based classroom. A correlation guide in the preface illustrates how to integrate topics into different courses. Conversational and informative non-technical writing is geared toward principles-level students and does not require advanced math. Using the latest debates in social policy, the authors encourage readers to question their own assumptions and the analysis offered by the media and politicians on key issues. End-of-chapter questions offer students the opportunity to test their knowledge and review chapter concepts.  

Employment and Development brings together the contributions of 2014 IZA Prize in Labor Economics award winner Gary S. Fields to address global employment and poverty problems. Most of the poor in developing countries live in households in which people work, but still they are poor because thebest available work pays so little. Employment and Development: How Work Can Lead From and Into Poverty questions how economic growth affects standards of living, how labor markets work in developing countries, and how different labor market policies affect well-being.Through a collection of essays, this book tackles major questions in development and labor economics. Who benefits from economic growth and who is hurt by economic decline? Why are distributional factors and labor market conditions improving in some countries but not in others? How do developingcountries' labor markets work? How would labor market conditions change if different policies were to be put into effect? What are the welfare consequences of these changes? Through distributional analysis, Fields examines inequality, poverty, income mobility, and economic well-being, and throughanalysis of changing labor market conditions he examines employment and unemployment, employment composition, and labor earnings. By concentrating on the poor and understanding how the labor markets work for them and how their labor market earnings might be raised in response to different policyinterventions, Fields addresses questions of first-order importance for human well-being.

Why are some parts of the world poor today, while others are rich? At which point in time did they diverge, and what were the reasons? These core questions are addressed in a concise and accessible introduction to global economic development since 1500. Leading economic historians from across the globe provide overviews of major world regions together with global comparison chapters and case studies highlighting key themes, individuals, processes and events. Utilising a set of common developmental indicators, the chapters address crucial issues such as how international trade and migration, institutions and flows of physical and human capital impacted economic growth. Richly illustrated with informative figures, maps, tables and charts, A History of the Global Economy summarises the key economic findings, debates and ideas, and provides students and the interested public with an up-to-date and engaging introduction to the origins and evolution of today's global economy.

The Idea of Development in Africa challenges prevailing international development discourses about the continent, by tracing the history of ideas, practices, and 'problems' of development used in Africa. In doing so, it offers an innovative approach to examining the history and culture of development through the lens of the development episteme, which has been foundational to the 'idea of Africa' in western discourses since the early 1800s. The study weaves together an historical narrative of how the idea of development emerged with an account of the policies and practices of development in colonial and postcolonial Africa. The book highlights four enduring themes in African development, including their present-day ramifications: domesticity, education, health, and industrialization. Offering a balance between historical overview and analysis of past and present case studies, Elisabeth McMahon and Corrie Decker demonstrate that Africans have always co-opted, challenged, and reformed the idea of development, even as the western-centric development episteme presumes a one-way flow of ideas and funding from the West to Africa.

When Steven Burd, CEO of the supermarket chain Safeway, cut wages and benefits, starting a five-month strike by 59,000 unionized workers, he was confident he would win. But where traditional labor action failed, a novel approach was more successful. With the aid of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, a $300 billion pension fund, workers led a shareholder revolt that unseated three of Burd's boardroom allies. In The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor's Last Best Weapon, David Webber uses cases such as Safeway's to shine a light on labor's most potent remaining weapon: its multitrillion-dollar pension funds. Outmaneuvered at the bargaining table and under constant assault in Washington, state houses, and the courts, worker organizations are beginning to exercise muscle through markets. Shareholder activism has been used to divest from anti-labor companies, gun makers, and tobacco; diversify corporate boards; support Occupy Wall Street; force global warming onto the corporate agenda; create jobs; and challenge outlandish CEO pay. Webber argues that workers have found in labor's capital a potent strategy against their exploiters. He explains the tactic's surmountable difficulties even as he cautions that corporate interests are already working to deny labor's access to this powerful and underused tool. The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder is a rare good-news story for American workers, an opportunity hiding in plain sight. Combining legal rigor with inspiring narratives of labor victory, Webber shows how workers can wield their own capital to reclaim their strength.