Economy

The proposal by a group of academics to institute a parliament of the euro area has garnered considerable attention. However, according to S. Vallée, this institutional reform would hinder the development of a transnational European democracy. What follows is the first part of a debate between the authors and their critics.

Has the New Public Management made the state of the United Kingdom more efficient and less costly? Christopher Hood and Ruth Dixon answer negatively on both counts. As such, difficult but necessary comparisons must be drawn to further the scope of these devastating conclusions.

Economic progress is behind us in the West, warns Robert J. Gordon in a 750 pages-tome which revisits the economic history of the U.S. in the last century and a half. Measuring the impact on living standards of the major technological breakthroughs of the “second industrial revolution,” he observes that sources of productivity growth seem to have dried since the 1970s oil shock and that the productivity-enhancing effects of the digital “revolution” have so far proved elusive.

Playing with shade and light, The Coal Nation explores the cultural politics of large and small-scale coal mining in India. Above all, the book highlights the dark side of coal, produced in the most marginalized areas of the country with a strong concentration of tribal communities and a complex history of informal coal mining.

Former Governor of the Bank of England and a renowned economist, Mervyn King presents his views on the recent financial crisis and urges economists to accomplish a “necessary intellectual revolution leading to a complete reform program”.

Addressing the issue of state intervention in agricultural markets, La Politique du Blé by Alain Chatriot examines the political debate behind the creation of the Office Interprofessionnel du Blé, the French national wheat pool, that was established in 1936 by the leftist government.

Analyzing the reasons for the loss of momentum of the American economy, this in-depth study reveals how the evolution of mixed economy in the United States has led to a crisis of the political power.

In a desire to write a total history, Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel proposes a novel sociocultural and transnational approach to the artistic avant-gardes. Beyond a mere history of styles, the avant-gardes appear in her book as genuine political and social events, caught in complex networks of influence.

Climate change has fueled scientific, economic, and political debates for over fifty years. Roman Felli offers an economic history of the idea of adapting to climate change and denounces the way it has been instrumentalized by market principles at the expense of society’s most vulnerable citizens.

By building markets, distributing information, and developing adapted incentives, modern economic theory claims to lead us to the common good.

At a time when the French government has reignited the debate over a universal minimum income, Philippe Askenazy reconsiders the question of wealth redistribution. He maintains that intervention must occur at a much earlier stage, not through taxation or generalized access to property, but by making base incomes equal through a revalorization of work.

Proving his mastery of Weber’s oeuvre, Scaff’s new book considers the imprint left by various aspects of Weber’s work on the imagination and production of three generations of authors from Europe and North America. He shows that the confrontation between contemporary scholars and Weber’s legacy is a show that will run and run…

Fred Block & Margaret Somers, two key members of an international network of scholars appealing to Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece of 1944, forcefully argue that it constitutes a critical resource for understanding not only the nature and origins of the market economy but also its recurrent crises, including the current one.

Denouncing the neglect of the independence era by African historians, Frederick Cooper asserts that a continent of nation-states was not the inevitable outcome of decolonization.

In his latest book - now an international bestseller - anthropologist David Graeber analyses the role of debt in the evolution of human history. Focusing on the morality of debt, the book shows a comeback of anarchist positions, reflecting a growing frustration with the institutions of the state and the market.

What do we really know about economic growth, wealth, the population or the structure of the economy in Africa? Building a history of how economic statistics about Africa are produced and consumed helps Jerven design a new approach to developing a periodization of the African state.

Environmentalist icon Lester R. Brown denounces our excessive ecological footprint and the prevailing food insecurity that stems from the current geopolitics of food. From this pessimistic and alarming standpoint he proposes a “Plan B” to help us cope with this vicious cycle. Yet the way out remains uncertain and imprecise.

Resurrecting the life of John Cary’s Essay on the State of England, a book which travelled all over Europe throughout the 18^th century, S.A. Reinert challenges our understanding of Enlightenment economics, while calling for a more nuanced and historically-informed understanding of political economy in general.

Should East Asia’s economic takeoff and the new hegemony of capitalism in that region be interpreted as parts of a convergence towards a global model based on Anglosphere economic liberalism, or should we see them rather as the onset of a process by which a new form of capitalism is being constructed, based on the region’s economic integration? The two books reviewed here tackle this issue head on, from the angle of regulation theory.

In a book that uses Darwinian insights alongside Adam Smith to change our thinking on economics, Robert H. Frank sets out to convince libertarians that more taxes can mean more growth and more freedom. Can he succeed?

How does a bank work? Is information theory sufficient to the understanding of the complex interactions between clients and the different professions involved in creating financial products? Using Bruno Latour’s sociology of sciences, an innovative study takes its chances at solving some of the most difficult riddles of contemporary financial theory.

Karine Berger and Valérie Rabault don’t go along with the usual rhetoric of commentators on current economic developments. Instead of catching our attention with an alarming vision, they present their book as a piece of optimism. However, although their book does suggest an action plan for the future, it is based on a strong critique of recent economic policies.

Philippe Askenazy paints a very negative picture of 40 years of employment policy in France. He does not just criticise, but strives to draw recommendations for the future and find the path towards a growth policy for France.

In a book devoted to economic anxieties in France, two economists well known in the blogosphere try to make their field accessible while conveying its complexity.

Historians of business have looked at the development of railroads in the U.S. as a time of “managerial revolution.” Richard White’s latest book shows the role played by disorder and sheer contingency in this process, and runs counter to a view of economic modernity as the history of a rationalization. Business, in his view, was never just business.

All students of economics are aware that Carl Menger was one of the founding fathers of neoclassical economics. To mark the publication of a French translation of one of his major works, Cyril Hédoin discusses Menger’s contribution and legacy.

The crisis currently affecting the United States is all the more serious when we consider how deep its roots go. The historian Louis Hyman shows how debt lodged itself at the heart of American capitalism during the 20^th century. More than just an economic system, it is a genuine social model that has collapsed along with subprime loans.

Is society sentenced to endure the law of the market? The publication of a number of essays by economist Karl Polanyi hitherto unpublished in French gives us the opportunity to re-discover democratic socialism as championed by the author of The Great Transformation. His thinking on political power’s capacity to organise economic exchanges still applies.

Economic theory makes the price the common measure of all goods. However, does it apply to singular goods? Is it the least help when we must choose a good restaurant, a good lawyer, or yet, the best evening course for our children?