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Webs of money | The Enlightened Economist
A 2016 book that was an eye-opener for me was Brooke Harrington’sCapital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent. A sociologist, she had trained as a private client wealth manager and worked among/for the global elite – the Ultra High Net Worth Individuals (UHNWIs). The rich really are
Facts about facts | The Enlightened Economist
There’s something wonderful about a book titledAll The Facts. Ambitious or what? The subtitle narrows it down, a bit, to “A History of Information in the United States since 1870.” One country, one and a half centuries. Needless to say, it’s still ambitious in its scope, embracing not just the techn
Keeping models in their place | The Enlightened Economist
The increasing use of algorithmic decision making raises some challenging questions, from bias due to societal biases being baked in to training data, to theloss of the space for compromise(due to the need to codify a loss or reward function in a machine learning system) that is so important in addr
Money stuff | The Enlightened Economist
Modern money is intangible, electrons whizzing around – unlike older forms of money, whether paper and coin, orwartime cigarettes, orhuge stone wheels.Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks and Other Money Stuff, edited by Bill Maurer and Lana Swartz, is a reminder that even the 1s and 0s have a material ba
Capitalism, property and production | The Enlightened Economist
Capitalism: The Story Behind The Wordby Michael Sonenscher is an enjoyable short read (with a great cover) that does what the subtitle says. It compares the history of ‘capitalism’ with the history of the idea of ‘commercial society’ and the division of labour, making the case that the two referred
How economists think | The Enlightened Economist
Elizabeth Popp Berman’sThinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in US Public Policy, is a historical account of how a broad spectrum of policies set in Washington DC became – from the 1960s – increasingly determined by the criterion of economic efficiency. As she points out (& as
Enlightened Economist Prize 2022 – the winner | The Enlightened Economist
It’s always much harder to select a winner than to decide on the 10 (occasionally 12) books on the longlist, and somehow harder than usual this year. For I’ve decided there are two that have the combination of interest, distinctiveness and excellent writing I’m looking for. So, with the usual caveat
Why governments get it wrong | The Enlightened Economist
There was some irony in reading Dennis Grube’sWhy Governments Get It Wrong: And How They Can Get It Rightin the week of the Truss/Kwarteng budget disaster in the UK. If only our PM and Chancellor had read Dennis’s book before they went ahead with their hideously counter-productive policy experiment.
Models and Morals | The Enlightened Economist
This has been a busy term so I’m behind on my reading, but have recently finished a fine biography, Jan Tinbergen and the Rise of Economic Expertiseby Erwin Dekker. I knew little about Tinbergen so was bound to learn a lot from any biography, and this one is genuinely interesting. It has some person
Use it or lose it – semiconductor version | The Enlightened Economist
I highly recommend Chris Miller’sChip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. It starts with the history of the development of semiconductors, which might be familiar from other Silicon Valley histories (such as Margaret O’Mara’s also excellentThe Code). But the book then goes on to
Discord and David Hume | The Enlightened Economist
October has been whizzing past, with travel to conferences (hooray), the start of term, and a new grandson. I’ve been reading a lot of non-economics books on trains and planes, including Ai Weiwei’s compelling memoir1000 Days of Joys and Sorrows,Red Dustby Ma Jian, and also a chunky hardback, Orhan
Times without a rulebook | The Enlightened Economist
“This is a short book on a vast topic.” So startsRules: A Short History of What We Live By, by Lorraine Dalston. I enjoyed reading it without ever feeling I got to grips with what it’s about, and the vastness of the topic might be the explanation – or the fact that it’s a lecture series in origin. T
An economic experts paradox? | The Enlightened Economist
Anna Killick’s bookPoliticians and Economic Experts: The Limits of Technocracymakes for interesting reading, if you’re an economist interested in policy. The book summarises a research project based on interviews with politicians engaged (currently or in the recent past) in economic policy issues, i
The 2022 Enlightened Economist Prize – longlist | The Enlightened Economist
Looking back over my reading during the past 12 months, there is a strong longlist for this year’s Prize. As a reminder, this is a completely arbitrary decision based on the books I’ve read (regardless of their publication date), and – apart from the glory – the only actual prize is an offer to the