Download or read book Living Standards and the Wealth of Nations written by Chairman of the Center for Social and Economic Research and the Foundation for Economic Education Professor of Economics Leszek Balcerowicz and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After general discussions of the theoretical requirements for "rapid catch up" and the possible link between democracy and growth, the book presents global case studies of both non-EU and EU countries, including a provocative comparison of growth in the transition economies of the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) nations and the 12 non-Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. It then considers nominal as opposed to real convergence in the European Monetary Union. Taken together, the chapters present a consistent argument that reliance on market forces within an open economy in a stable macroeconomic environment, with assured property rights, is the key to rapid economic growth. Offers detailed theoretical and empirical examinations of what makes for successful convergence. This book presents global case studies of both non-EU and EU countries, including a provocative comparison of growth in the transition economies of the CEE (Central and Eastern Europe) nations and the 12 non-Baltic states of the former Soviet Union. A group of prominent international economists consider what makes for successful convergence - what policies and economic conditions help poor countries catch up to the living standards of rich countries. The question of convergence, or under what conditions the per capita income levels of developing countries can catch up to those found in advanced economies, is critical for understanding economic growth and development. Convergence has happened in many countries and appears to be taking place now in China and India - yet in general per capita income levels in the poorer countries do not converge towards those of richer countries as uniformly as the analytical models predict. "Living Standards and the Wealth of Nations", which grew out of a 2003 conference on convergence hosted by the National Bank of Poland, offers detailed theoretical and empirical examinations of what makes for successful convergence.

Download or read book Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations A Story of Economic Discovery written by David Warsh and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-05-17 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What The Double Helix did for biology, David Warsh's Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations does for economics." —Boston Globe A stimulating and inviting tour of modern economics centered on the story of one of its most important breakthroughs. In 1980, the twenty-four-year-old graduate student Paul Romer tackled one of the oldest puzzles in economics. Eight years later he solved it. This book tells the story of what has come to be called the new growth theory: the paradox identified by Adam Smith more than two hundred years earlier, its disappearance and occasional resurfacing in the nineteenth century, the development of new technical tools in the twentieth century, and finally the student who could see further than his teachers. Fascinating in its own right, new growth theory helps to explain dominant first-mover firms like IBM or Microsoft, underscores the value of intellectual property, and provides essential advice to those concerned with the expansion of the economy. Like James Gleick's Chaos or Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe, this revealing book takes us to the frontlines of scientific research; not since Robert Heilbroner's classic work The Worldly Philosophers have we had as attractive a glimpse of the essential science of economics.

Download or read book The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 written by Glenn-Marie Lange and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Countries regularly track gross domestic product (GDP) as an indicator of their economic progress, but not wealth—the assets such as infrastructure, forests, minerals, and human capital that produce GDP. In contrast, corporations routinely report on both their income and assets to assess their economic health and prospects for the future. Wealth accounts allow countries to take stock of their assets to monitor the sustainability of development, an urgent concern today for all countries. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018: Building a Sustainable Future covers national wealth for 141 countries over 20 years (1995†“2014) as the sum of produced capital, 19 types of natural capital, net foreign assets, and human capital overall as well as by gender and type of employment. Great progress has been made in estimating wealth since the fi rst volume, Where Is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century, was published in 2006. New data substantially improve estimates of natural capital, and, for the fi rst time, human capital is measured by using household surveys to estimate lifetime earnings. The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 begins with a review of global and regional trends in wealth over the past two decades and provides examples of how wealth accounts can be used for the analysis of development patterns. Several chapters discuss the new work on human capital and its application in development policy. The book then tackles elements of natural capital that are not yet fully incorporated in the wealth accounts: air pollution, marine fi sheries, and ecosystems. This book targets policy makers but will engage anyone committed to building a sustainable future for the planet.

Download or read book The Wealth of Nations written by Adam Smith and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-10-12 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOK ON MODERN ECONOMICS The Wealth of Nations is an economics book like no other. First published in 1776, Adam Smith's groundbreaking theories provide a recipe for national prosperity that has not been bettered since. It assumes no prior knowledge of its subject, and over 200 years on, still provides valuable lessons on the fundamentals of economics. This keepsake edition is a selected abridgement of all five books, and includes an Introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon, drawing out lessons for the contemporary reader, a Foreword from Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute, and a Preface from Dr. Razeen Sally of the London School of Economics.

Download or read book Economic Environment and Living Standards written by Michela Coppola and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of living standards is at the base of economics. Since Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", several economists tackled questions such as what determines and how to improve the welfare of a society. The long-lasting debate on the effect of industrialization on the living standards has involved, and continues to involve, generations of economic historians. No agreement exists, however, on how to define welfare and therefore on how to appropriately quantify and compare it across countries or across time. This work analyses the relationship between the economy and the standard of living, meant in a broader sense, which goes above the traditional identification of welfare with material prosperity. More specifically, body size is used to analyze the effect of economic changes on the biological standard of living as well as the reverse link which goes from biological outcomes to economic performance.

Download or read book The Real Wealth of Nations written by Riane Eisler and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2008-11-10 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Riane Eisler (The Chalice and the Blade, which has sold more than 500,000 copies sold) shows that at the root of all of society's big problems is the fact that we don't value what matters. She then presents a radical reformulation of economics priorities focused on the home.

Download or read book The Public Wealth of Nations written by Dag Detter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have spent the last three decades engaged in a pointless and irrelevant debate about the relative merits of privatization or nationalization. We have been arguing about the wrong thing while sitting on a goldmine of assets. Don’t worry about who owns those assets, worry about whether they are managed effectively. Why does this matter? Because despite the Thatcher/ Reagan economic revolution, the largest pool of wealth in the world – a global total that is much larger than the world’s total pensions savings, and ten times the total of all the sovereign wealth funds on the planet – is still comprised of commercial assets that are held in public ownership. If professionally managed, they could generate an annual yield of 2.7 trillion dollars, more than current global spending on infrastructure: transport, power, water, and communications. Based on both economic research and hands-on experience from many countries, the authors argue that publicly owned commercial assets need to be taken out of the direct and distorting control of politicians and placed under professional management in a ‘National Wealth Fund’ or its local government equivalent. Such a move would trigger much-needed structural reforms in national economies, thus resurrect strained government finances, bolster ailing economic growth, and improve the fabric of democratic institutions. This radical, reforming book was named one of the "Books of the Year".by both the FT and The Economist.

Download or read book The Once and Future Worker written by Oren Cass and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Cass’s] core principle—a culture of respect for work of all kinds—can help close the gap dividing the two Americas....” – William A. Galston, The Brookings Institution The American worker is in crisis. Wages have stagnated for more than a generation. Reliance on welfare programs has surged. Life expectancy is falling as substance abuse and obesity rates climb. These woes are not the inevitable result of irresistible global and technological forces. They are the direct consequence of a decades-long economic consensus that prioritized increasing consumption—regardless of the costs to American workers, their families, and their communities. Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency focused attention on the depth of the nation’s challenges, yet while everyone agrees something must change, the Left’s insistence on still more government spending and the Right’s faith in still more economic growth are recipes for repeating the mistakes of the past. In this groundbreaking re-evaluation of American society, economics, and public policy, Oren Cass challenges our basic assumptions about what prosperity means and where it comes from to reveal how we lost our way. The good news is that we can still turn things around—if the nation’s proverbial elites are willing to put the American worker’s interests first. Which is more important, pristine air quality, or well-paying jobs that support families? Unfettered access to the cheapest labor in the world, or renewed investment in the employment of Americans? Smoothing the path through college for the best students, or ensuring that every student acquires the skills to succeed in the modern economy? Cutting taxes, expanding the safety net, or adding money to low-wage paychecks? The renewal of work in America demands new answers to these questions. If we reinforce their vital role, workers supporting strong families and communities can provide the foundation for a thriving, self-sufficient society that offers opportunity to all.

Download or read book Comparing Living Standards Across Nations written by Timothy M. Smeeding and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Cities and the Wealth of Nations written by Jane Jacobs and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-08-17 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eye-opening work of economic theory, Jane Jacobs argues that it is cities—not nations—that are the drivers of wealth. Challenging centuries of economic orthodoxy, in Cities and the Wealth of Nations the beloved author contends that healthy cities are constantly evolving to replace imported goods with locally-produced alternatives, spurring a cycle of vibrant economic growth. Intelligently argued and drawing on examples from around the world and across the ages, here Jacobs radically changes the way we view our cities—and our entire economy.

Download or read book Energy and the Wealth of Nations written by Charles A.S. Hall and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this updated edition of a groundbreaking text, concepts such as energy return on investment (EROI) provide powerful insights into the real balance sheets that drive our “petroleum economy.” Hall and Klitgaard explore the relation between energy and the wealth explosion of the 20th century, and the interaction of internal limits to growth found in the investment process and rising inequality with the biophysical limits posed by finite energy resources. The authors focus attention on the failure of markets to recognize or efficiently allocate diminishing resources, the economic consequences of peak oil, the high cost and relatively low EROI of finding and exploiting new oil fields, including the much ballyhooed shale plays and oil sands, and whether alternative energy technologies such as wind and solar power can meet the minimum EROI requirements needed to run society as we know it. For the past 150 years, economics has been treated as a social science in which economies are modeled as a circular flow of income between producers and consumers. In this “perpetual motion” of interactions between firms that produce and households that consume, little or no accounting is given of the flow of energy and materials from the environment and back again. In the standard economic model, energy and matter are completely recycled in these transactions, and economic activity is seemingly exempt from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As we enter the second half of the age of oil, when energy supplies and the environmental impacts of energy production and consumption are likely to constrain economic growth, this exemption should be considered illusory at best. This book is an essential read for all scientists and economists who have recognized the urgent need for a more scientific, empirical, and unified approach to economics in an energy-constrained world, and serves as an ideal teaching text for the growing number of courses, such as the authors’ own, on the role of energy in society.

Download or read book Wealth And Poverty Of Nations written by David S. Landes and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of nations is a history of haves and have-nots, and as we approach the millennium, the gap between rich and poor countries is widening. In this engrossing and important new work, eminent historian David Landes explores the complex, fascinating and often startling causes of the wealth and poverty of nations. The answers are found not only in the large forces at work in economies: geography, religion, the broad swings of politics, but also in the small surprising details. In Europe, the invention of spectacles doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, and played a prominent role in the creation of articulated machines, and in China, the failure to adopt the clock fundamentally hindered economic development. The relief of poverty is vital to the survival of us all. As David Landes brilliantly shows, the key to future success lies in understanding the lessons the past has to teach us - lessons uniquely imparted in this groundbreaking and vital book which exemplifies narrative history at its best.

Download or read book Human Centred Economics written by Richard Samans and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-02 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book examines the chronic underperformance of economies with respect to inclusion, sustainability and resilience. It finds that the standard liberal economic growth and development model has evolved over the past century in a fundamentally unbalanced manner that underemphasizes the crucial role of institutions – legal norms, policy incentives and public administrative capacities – in translating market-based growth in the production of goods and services into broad and sustainable gains in social welfare at the household level. Correcting this imbalance of emphasis in economic theory and policy between markets and institutions, production and distribution, and national income and household living standards is the single most important step required to transcend 20th century trickle-down “neoliberalism” and replace it with a more human-centred model of economic progress in the 21st century. The book breaks new ground by integrating the principal institutional dimensions of the social contract into the heart of macroeconomic theory and presenting extensive corresponding reforms of domestic and international economic policy to refocus them on the median living standards, rather than primarily aggregate wealth or GDP, of nations. This is the bottom-line measure of national economic performance, and it depends on the strength of both markets of exchange and institutions in such areas as labour and social protection, financial and corporate governance, competition and rents, anti-corruption, infrastructure and basic necessities, environmental protection, education and skilling, etc. Extensive comparative data are presented demonstrating that countries at every level of economic development have ample policy space to narrow their “welfare gaps” – their underperformance on these and other key aspects of household living standards relative to the frontier of leading policy practice in peer countries.

Download or read book The Great Escape written by Angus Deaton and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-21 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Nobel Prize–winning economist tells the remarkable story of how the world has grown healthier, wealthier, but also more unequal over the past two and half centuries 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, Nobel Prize–winning economist 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 needs to be done to help those left behind. Deaton describes vast innovations and wrenching setbacks: the successes of antibiotics, pest control, vaccinations, and clean water on the one hand, and disastrous famines and the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the other. He examines the United States, a nation that has prospered but is today experiencing slower growth and increasing inequality. He also considers how economic growth in India and China has improved the lives of more than a billion people. Deaton argues that international aid has been ineffective and even harmful. He suggests alternative efforts—including reforming incentives to drug companies and lifting trade restrictions—that will allow the developing world to bring about its own Great Escape. Demonstrating how changes in health and living standards have transformed our lives, The Great Escape is a powerful guide to addressing the well-being of all nations.

Download or read book Wealth and Freedom written by David P. Levine and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1995-03-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern life places a special emphasis on private affairs. Social institutions, and especially our economies, have been organized to facilitate the pursuit of private interests. At the center of this private world is a system of private property which, more than anything, satisfies our wants. Political economy studies the properties of this private world: How does it work, and how well does it satisfy our wants? What are the limits of the world of private affairs? Wealth and Freedom provides an introduction to political economy for the student or other interested nonspecialist. The book explores such key issues as the place of our economy in the larger social system, the importance of market institutions for individual autonomy, private enterprise as a system of economic development, poverty and inequality in market economies, global inequality, and the limits of the market and the role of government. Wealth and Freedom is distinctive in employing a rights-based approach to understanding and evaluating economic institutions. The author emphasizes the distinction between needs and wants as the basis for establishing the limits of the market, and concludes the book with a discussion of the relation between private wants and public ends.

Download or read book The Hidden Wealth of Nations written by David Halpern and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richer nations are happier, yet economic growth doesn't increase happiness. This paradox is explained by the Hidden Wealth of Nations - the extent to which citizens get along with other independently drives both economic growth and well-being. Much of this hidden wealth is expressed in everyday ways, such as our common values, the way we look after our children and elderly, or whether we trust and help strangers. It is a hidden dimension of inequality, and helps to explain why governments have found it so hard to reduce gaps in society. There are also deep cracks in this hidden wealth, in the form of our rising fears of crime, immigration and terror. Using a rich variety of international comparisons and new analysis, the book explores what is happening in contemporary societies from value change to the changing role of governments, and offers suggestions about what policymakers and citizens can do about it.

Download or read book Improving Our Standard of Living written by Wesley Krug and published by . This book was released on 2017-05-22 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about how to improve global living standards. Topics include economic growth, income inequality, poverty, corruption, causes of the decline of the middle class in some developed nations, sustainable development, emerging technologies, and more.Note, this is not a formal textbook for academia. It's for all types of readers, not just scholars. It's easy to read, and jargon is kept to a minimum.Here are some questions answered throughout:Which nations have the best living standards? What are they doing right?Why do rich countries still have so many poor people in them?What caused the decline of the middle class in some nations like the US and UK, but not in others like Switzerland and the Nordic countries?Has capitalism failed? Or have we become more socialist? Are those terms meaningless?Is the government too big? Or not big enough?Is libertarianism a good or bad idea?Why are several industries dominated by a handful of corporations? What can we do about it?Why are prescription medications so expensive? How do we reduce costs?Do we need more regulations on businesses? Or less?Should nations be more open to free trade? Or should they be self-sufficient?Has globalization helped or hurt the average person?Does economic growth really improve living standards?How much wealth is enough?Do we need the stock market?Do we need money? Or could we allocate resources differently?What causes inflation? Does it matter?Is a gold standard superior or inferior to a fiat (paper) monetary system?Why is our tax system so complicated and full of loopholes? What can we do about it?Is taxation a form of theft?Should we raise taxes on the rich?How much should nations spend on welfare?How can we reduce unemployment and create decent paying jobs for everyone?Is a 40-hour work week necessary?Should we have more government jobs or private sector jobs?Why is economic growth slowing in developed countries? What should we do about it?How do we reduce income inequality without hurting the economy?How do we efficiently provide healthcare to everyone?How high should the minimum wage be? Should we replace it with something else?What is a universal basic income? Would it work?Can we grow the economy without harming the environment?How do we speed up the transition to renewable energy?How do we grow food sustainably?What do we do about dwindling resources?How do we address overpopulation?Are central banks helping or hurting the global economy?Does religion help or hurt national living standards?Is immigration good or bad?How do we reduce crime and terrorism?How high can the debt go?How do we balance the budget? Do we need to?How do we end corruption in government?Is the world getting better or worse?Are we on the verge of a technological singularity?Will robots take our jobs?Will we merge with our technology?What is the future of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin?Can we cure aging? Should we?How do we fix the world and achieve happiness?