The economy is commonly described either as the apolitical realm of calculation or as the fully political one of domination. This book scrutinizes the ways in which the economy is performed, in order to situate where precisely politics is located with regard to economic matters. Politics, the book demonstrates, thus appears at the turning point, in the place where the efficiency of economics is negotiated and where the need to forward it, reshape it, and complement it emerges. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Cultural Economy.

A radically revised new edition of this highly readable, popular guide aimed at everyone from students to statesmen who want to make sense of the modern economy and grasp how economic theory works in practice.It starts with the basics: what economics is about; the sources of economic growth such as people and investment; the role of central banks and fiscal policy in setting the macroeconomic framework; and the economics of everything - microeconomics. From the underlying theory it moves to the specifics of the world economy: the developed world and the rise of emerging economies, the issues of global imbalances and the runaway world of finance; the recent 'great' recession - why it happened, how it was dealt with, its effects, legacy and the way ahead. The closing part puts the usefulness and the failings of economics under the spotlight, and looks at the innovative approaches being developed to make what has been called the 'dismal science' fit for the modern world.

What is the role of human agency in Friedrich Hayek's thought? This volume situates Hayek's writing as it relates to economic organization and activity, particularly to assess what role Hayek assigns to leaders in determining economic progress.

Based on the series produced for the BBC World Service Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down? The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of immense complexity, it offers over ten billion distinct products and services, doubles in size every fifteen years, and links almost every one of the planet's seven billion people. It delivers astonishing luxury to hundreds of millions. It also leaves hundreds of millions behind, puts tremendous strains on the ecosystem, and has an alarming habit of stalling. Nobody is in charge of it. Indeed, no individual understands more than a fraction of what's going on. How can we make sense of this bewildering system on which our lives depend? From the tally-stick to Bitcoin, the canal lock to the jumbo jet, each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are, how we got here, and where we might be going next. Hidden connections will be laid bare: how the barcode undermined family corner shops; why the gramophone widened inequality; how barbed wire shaped America. We'll meet the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, or were ruined by them. We'll trace the economic principles that help to explain their transformative effects. And we'll ask what lessons we can learn to make wise use of future inventions, in a world where the pace of innovation will only accelerate.

The world of economics is changing. Years of turmoil in the global economy mean that nothing will ever be quite the same again. This is the starting point and theme of this radically revised Economist books classic, now available for the first time in America. Richard Davies, economics editor of The Economist, takes us on a journey through the paper's own analysis of the state of the world's economies, how we reached this point and what to expect in the next decade. He explores: what's gone wrong since 2008, why it's happened and how we can stop it happening again; the shifting focus of economics from banking to labor economics; the future hopes and challenges for the world economy. Along the way, we encounter the global economy laid bare, from banks, panics, and crashes to innovative new policies to improve how markets function; from discussions around jobs, pay, and inequality to the promise of innovation and productivity; from the implications of emerging markets and the globalization of trade through to the sharing economy and the economics of Google and eBay. The result is a fascinating review of the global economy and the changing role of economics in the new world order.

The “managerial revolution,” or the rise of management as a distinct and vital group in industrial society, might be identified as a major development of the modernization processes, similar to the scientific and industrial revolutions. Studying “transnational” or “global” corporate management at the post-millennium moment provides a suitable focal point from which to investigate globalized (post)modernity and capitalism especially, and as such this book offers an anthropology of global capitalism at its moment of crisis. This study provides ethnographically rich descriptions of managerial practices in a set of international corporate investment projects. Drawing also on historical and statistical data, it renders a comprehensive perspective on management, corporations, and capitalism in the late modern globalized economy. Cross-disciplinary in outlook, the book spans the fields of organization, business, and management, and asserts that now, in this period of financial crisis, is the time for anthropology to yet again engage with political economy.