There are, by now, several long term, time series data sets on important housing & macro variables, such as land prices, house prices, and the housing wealth-to-income ratio. However, an appropriate theory that can be employed to think about such data and associated research questions has been lacking. We present a new housing & macro model that is designed specifically to analyze the long term. As an illustrative application, we demonstrate that the calibrated model replicates, with remarkable accuracy, the historical evolution of housing wealth (relative to income) after World War II and suggests a further considerable increase in the future. The model also accounts for the close connection of house prices to land prices in the data. We also compare our framework to the canonical housing & macro model, typically employed to analyze business cycles, and highlight the main differences.

The housing wealth-to-income ratio has been increasing in most developed economies since the 1950s. We provide a novel theory to explain this long-term pattern. We show analytically that house prices grow in the steady state if i) the housing sector is more land-intensive than the non-housing sector, or ii) technological progress in the construction sector is weaker than in the non-housing sector. Despite growing house prices and housing wealth, the housing wealth-to income ratio is constant in steady state. We hence study the dynamics in the housing wealth-to- income ratio by computing transitions. The model is calibrated separately to the US, UK, France, and Germany. On average, we replicate 89 percent of the observed increase in the housing wealth-to-income ratio. The key for replicating the data is the differentiation between residential land as a non-reproducible factor and residential structure as reproducible factor. The transition process from the calibrated model points to two driving forces of an increasing housing wealth-to-income ratio: i) A long- lasting construction boom that brought about a pronounced build-up in the stock of structures and ii) an increase in the demand for residential land that resulted in surging residential land prices.

One of the most notorious works of modern times, as well as one of the most influential, Capital is an incisive critique of private property and the social relations it generates. Living in exile in England, where this work was largely written, Marx drew on a wide-ranging knowledge of its society to support his analysis and generate fresh insights. Arguing that capitalism would create an ever-increasing division in wealth and welfare, he predicted its abolition and replacement by a system with common ownership of the means of production. Capital rapidly acquired readership among the leaders of social democratic parties, particularly in Russia and Germany, and ultimately throughout the world, to become a work described by Marx's friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels as 'the Bible of the Working Class'.

The unabridged versions of these definitive works are now available together as a highly designed paperback with flaps with a new introduction by Robert Weick. Part of the Knickerbocker Classics series, a modern design makes this timeless book a perfect travel companion. Considered to be one of the most influential political writings, The Communist Manifesto is as relevant today as when it was originally published. This pamphlet by the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, published in 1884 as revolutions were erupting across Europe, discusses class struggles and the problems of a capitalist society. After being exiled to London, Marx published the first part of Das Kapital, a theoretical text that argues that capitalism will create greater and greater division in wealth and welfare and ultimately be replaced by a system of common ownership of the means of production. After Marx's death, Engels completed and published the second and third parts from his colleague's notes. The Knickerbocker Classics bring together the essential works of classic authors from around the world in stunning editions to be collected and enjoyed.

What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In this work the author analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. He shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality--the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth--today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values if political action is not taken. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, the author says, and may do so again. This original work reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.

"Story of a cheese-maker turned capitalist and how greed, exploitation and its social consequences destroys lives and remakes workers into commodities."--Cover p. [4].