Table of Contents
Introduction 1
1 Lords of Finance (2009): Fixed ideas in economics can have disastrous results Liaquat Ahamed 14
2 The Microtheory of Innovative Entrepreneurship (2010): Entrepreneurs are the engines of growth and must be valued William J. Baumol 22
3 Human Capital (1964): The most important investment we ever make is in ourselves Gary Becker 30
4 The Little Book of Common Sense Investing (2007): The most successful investing strategy is also the easiest John C. Bogle 36
5 The Second Machine Age (2014): Technological revolutions must allow for the advance of everyone Eric Brynjolfsson Andrew McAfee 42
6 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism (2011): Many nations succeeded by bucking the rules of orthodox economics Ha-Joon Chang 48
7 The Firm, the Market, and the Law (1988): Why firms exist; the role of transaction costs in economic life Ronald Coase 56
8 GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History (2014): How we measure economic output has consequences for people and nations Diane Coyle 62
9 Innovation and Entrepreneurship (1985): Success comes from taking management and ideas seriously Peter Drucker 68
10 The Ascent of Money (2008): Finance is not evil, it built the modern world Niall Ferguson 74
11 Capitalism and Freedom (1962): Free markets, not government, protect the individual and ensure quality Milton Friedman 80
12 The Great Crash 1929 (1955): It's government's job to stop speculative frenzies ruining the real economy J. K. Galbraith 86
13 Progress and Poverty (1879): The best and fairest way to ensure opportunity is a tax on land Henry George 92
14 The Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016): Living standards keep rising, but the greatest gains have already happened Robert J. Gordon 98
15 The Intelligent Investor (1949): We grow in wealth through long-term investing, not speculating Benjamin Graham 106
16 The Use of Knowledge in Society (1945): Societies prosper when they give up planning and control, and allow decentralization of knowledge Friedrich Hayek 112
17 Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970): Consumers have many options to get what they want Albert O. Hirschman 118
18 The Economy of Cities (1968): Cities have always been, and always will be, the drivers of wealth Jane Jacobs 124
19 The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936): To achieve social goals like full employment, governments must actively manage the economy John Maynard Keynes 130
20 The Shock Doctrine (2007): 'Neoliberal' economic programs have proved a disaster for many developing countries Naomi Klein 138
21 The Conscience of a Liberal (2007): The postwar consensus on how to grow an economy has been hijacked by ideology Paul Krugman 144
22 Freakonomics (2005): Economics is not a moral science, more an observation of how incentives work Steven D. Levitt Stephen J. Dubner 150
23 The Big Short (2010): Modern finance was meant to minimize risk, but it has only increased dangers Michael Lewis 156
24 Bourgeois Equality (2016): The world became wealthy thanks to an idea: entrepreneurs and merchants are not so bad after all Deirdre McCloskey 164
25 An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798): The world's finite resources can't cope with an increasing population Thomas Malthus 170
26 Principles of Economics (1890): To understand people, watch their habits of earning, saving and investing Alfred Marshall 176
27 Capital (1867): The interests of labor and capital are perennially in conflict Karl Marx 184
28 Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986): Rather than creating equilibrium, capitalism is inherently unstable Hyman Minsky 190
29 Human Action (1949): Economics has laws which no person, society or government can escape Ludwig von Mises 196
30 Dead Aid (2010): Countries grow and get rich by creating industries, not by addiction to aid Dambisa Moyo 202
31 Governing the Commons (1990): To stay healthy, common resources like air, water and forests need to be managed in novel ways Elinor Ostrom 210
32 Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2014): The scales of wealth are tipping towards capital; if inequality widens there will be social upheaval Thomas Piketty 216
33 The Great Transformation (1944): Markets must serve society, not the other way around Karl Polanyi 224
34 The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990): Competition and industry clusters make a rich nation Michael E. Porter 230
35 Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (1966): Capitalism is the most moral form of political economy Ayn Rand 238
36 Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817): A free-trading world will see each nation fulfil its potential David Ricardo 244
37 The Globalization Paradox (2011): Globalization agendas are often floored by national politics Dani Rodrik 252
38 Economics (1948): A combination of classical and Keynesian ideas creates the best-performing economies Paul Samuelson William Nordhaus 260
39 Small Is Beautiful (1973): A new economics must arise which takes more account of people than output E. F. Schumacher 266
40 Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942): No form of political economy matches the dynamism of capitalism and its process of 'creative destruction' Joseph Schumpeter 272
41 Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1978): Small behaviors and choices of individuals ultimately produce 'tipping points' with major effects Thomas C. Schelling 278
42 Poverty and Famines (1981): People starve not because there isn't enough food, but because economic circumstances suddenly change Amartya Sen 284
43 Irrational Exuberance (2000): Psychology, not fundamental values, drives markets Robert J. Shiller 292
44 The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996): The world will never run out of resources, because it is the human mind that drives advance, not capital or materials Julian Simon 298
45 The Wealth of Nations (1776): The wealth of a nation is that of its people, not its government Adam Smith 304
46 The Mystery of Capital (2000): Clear property rights are the basis of stability and prosperity Hernando de Soto 312
47 The Euro (2016): Europe's failed currency and its ideological underpinnings Joseph Stiglitz 318
48 Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015): How psychology has transformed the economics discipline Richard Thaler 326
49 The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899): The great goal of capitalist life is not to have to work-or to take on the appearance of not needing to Thorstein Veblen 334
50 The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904): Culture and religion are the most overlooked ingredients of economic success Max Weber 340
50 More Economics Classics 345
Chronological List 352
Credits 354
Acknowledgements 357
