Black Box Thinking

A Times Best Business Book of 2018What can the ideas of history's greatest economists tell us about the most important issues of our time?'The best place to start to learn about the very greatest economists of all time' Professor Tyler Cowen, author of The Complacent Class and The Great StagnationSince the days of Adam Smith, economists have grappled with a series of familiar problems - but often their ideas are hard to digest, before we even try to apply them to today's issues. Linda Yueh is renowned for her combination of erudition, as an accomplished economist herself, and accessibility, as a leading writer and broadcaster in this field: and in The Great Economists she explains the key thoughts of history's greatest economists, how their lives and times affected their ideas, how our lives have been influenced by their work, and how they could help with the policy challenges that we face today.In the light of current economic problems, and in particular economic growth, Yueh explores the thoughts of economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo through Joan Robinson and Milton Friedman to Douglass North and Robert Solow. Along the way she asks, for example: what do the ideas of Karl Marx tell us about the likely future for the Chinese economy? How does the work of John Maynard Keynes, who argued for government spending to create full employment, help us think about state investment? And with globalization in trouble, what can we learn about handling Brexit and Trumpism?In one accessible volume, this expert new voice provides an overarching guide to the biggest questions of our time.The Great Economists includes:Adam SmithDavid RicardoKarl MarxAlfred MarshallIrving FisherJohn Maynard KeynesJoseph SchumpeterFriedrich HayekJoan RobinsonMilton FriedmanDouglass NorthRobert Solow'Economics students, like others, can learn a lot from this book' - Professor Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion'Not only a great way to learn in an easily readable manner about some of the greatest economic influences of the past, but also a good way to test your own a priori assumptions about some of the big challenges of our time.' - Lord Jim O'Neill, former Chairman at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, former UK Treasury Minister, and author of The Growth Map'An extremely engaging survey of the lifetimes and ideas of the great thinkers of economic history.' - Professor Kenneth Rogoff, author of The Curse of Cash and co-author of This Time is Different'This book is a very readable introduction to the lives and thinking of the greats.' - Professor Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and author of I Do What I Do and Fault Lines'Read it not only to learn about the world's great economists, but also to see how consequential thought innovations can be, and have been.' - Mohamed el-Erian, Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, former CEO of PIMCO

*Longlisted for the 2022 Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award*All economic and financial activities take place across time. Interest coordinates these activities. The story of capitalism is thus the story of interest: the price that individuals, companies and nations pay to borrow money.In The Price of Time, Edward Chancellor traces the history of interest from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law ' s ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century. We generally assume that high interest rates are harmful, but Chancellor argues that, whenever money is too easy, financial markets become unstable. He takes the story to the present day, when interest rates have sunk lower than at any time in the five millennia since they were first recorded - including the extraordinary appearance of negative rates in Europe and Japan - and highlights how this has contributed to profound economic insecurity and financial fragility.Chancellor reveals how extremely low interest rates not only create asset price inflation but are also largely responsible for weak economic growth, rising inequality, zombie companies, elevated debt levels and the pensions crises that have afflicted the West in recent years - conditions under which economies cannot possibly thrive. At the same time, easy money in China has inflated an epic real estate bubble, accompanied by the greatest credit and investment boom in history. As the global financial system edges closer to yet another crisis, Chancellor shows that only by understanding interest can we hope to face the challenges ahead.

Superb' - Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add UpMoney is essential to the economy and how we live our lives, yet is inherently worthless. We can use it to build a home or send us to space, and it can lead to the rise and fall of empires. Few innovations have had such a huge impact on the development of humanity, but money is a shared fiction: a story we believe in so long as others act as if it is true.Money is rarely out of the headlines – from the invention of cryptocurrencies to the problem of high inflation, extraordinary interventions by central banks and the power the West has over the worldwide banking system. In Money in One Lesson, Gavin Jackson answers the most important questions on what money is and how it shapes our world, drawing on vivid examples from throughout history to demystify and show how societies and its citizens, both past and present, are always entwined with matters of money.‘A highly illuminating, well-researched and beautifully written book on one of humanity’s most important innovations’ – Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator, Financial Times