The past twenty years have been an era of economic disappointment in the U.S. They have also been a time of intense economic debate, as rival ideologies contend for policy influence. But strange things have happened to economic ideas on their way to power--they've been hijacked by policy entrepreneurs who offer easy answers to hard problems.

The Self-Organizing Economy In the last few years the concept of self-organizing systems—complex systems in which randomness and chaos seem spontaneously to evolve into unexpected order—has linked together researchers in many fields, from artificial intelligence to chemistry, from evolution to geology. Now leading economist Paul Krugman shows how principles that explain the growth of hurricanes and embryos can also explain the formation of cities and business cycles; how the same principles of “order from random growth” can explain the strangely simple rules that describe the sizes of earthquakes, meteorites, and metropolitan areas. Weaving together strands from many disciplines, from location theory to biology, The Self-Organizing Economy offers a surprising new view of how the economy structures itself in space and time.

A history of America's most infamous tariff The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which raised U.S. duties on hundreds of imported goods to record levels, is America's most infamous trade law. It is often associated with—and sometimes blamed for—the onset of the Great Depression, the collapse of world trade, and the global spread of protectionism in the 1930s. Even today, the ghosts of congressmen Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley haunt anyone arguing for higher trade barriers; almost single-handedly, they made protectionism an insult rather than a compliment. In Peddling Protectionism, Douglas Irwin provides the first comprehensive history of the causes and effects of this notorious measure, explaining why it largely deserves its reputation for combining bad politics and bad economics and harming the U.S. and world economies during the Depression. In four brief, clear chapters, Irwin presents an authoritative account of the politics behind Smoot-Hawley, its economic consequences, the foreign reaction it provoked, and its aftermath and legacy. Starting as a Republican ploy to win the farm vote in the 1928 election by increasing duties on agricultural imports, the tariff quickly grew into a logrolling, pork barrel free-for-all in which duties were increased all around, regardless of the interests of consumers and exporters. After Herbert Hoover signed the bill, U.S. imports fell sharply and other countries retaliated by increasing tariffs on American goods, leading U.S. exports to shrivel as well. While Smoot-Hawley was hardly responsible for the Great Depression, Irwin argues, it contributed to a decline in world trade and provoked discrimination against U.S. exports that lasted decades. Peddling Protectionism tells a fascinating story filled with valuable lessons for trade policy today.

Economics: European Edition is the ideal text for introductory economics, bringing together an international scope of real world examples and economic theory. The text is supported by a number of features to enhance student understanding as well as supplements to consolidate the learning process.

Many Americans are enjoying the fruits of prosperity. Unemployment and inflation are low and it seems that everyone is driving a sport utility vehicle. But is this a prosperity that's reserved for the upper middle class, the folks driving the Jeep Cherokees? Or is something more fundamental happening? The answers are crucial for anyone interested in how America is changing--from corporate executives to policy makers to the average person keeping up with current issues. Bob Davis and David Wessel have spent thousands of hours in living rooms and workplaces around the country, and they show conclusively that the recent good economic news not only is here to stay but is the start of twenty years of broad-based prosperity. Prosperity tells stories about how the lives of the middle class are changing for the better. These are the people who are still being wrongly consigned b y prophets of doom and gloom to the sidelines of the new high-tech economy. People like: Randy Kohrs, whose training in respiratory therapy at a local community college has lifted him from dead-end, minimum-wage jobs into the ranks of the middle class Teresa Wooten, a former worker in a low-wage South Carolina clothing factory, who is now a supervisor in a German-owned factory The workers at the Allen-Bradley plant in Milwaukee, who are benefiting in wages and transferable job skills form the company's recent computer automation These and many other remarkable stories bring together the three trends that will be the basis for a new, middle-class prosperity: Our $2 trillion investment in computer and communications technology will finally pay off in faster productivity growth, a morerapidly growing economy, and rising living standards. Community colleges are helping millions of Americans move from $7-an-hour jobs. This unheralded change in U.S. education will help reverse the forces that have widened the chasm between more-educated and less-educated workers. Globalization--much maligned by pundits on the left and the right--will create new and better jobs by U.S. companies that export to developing countries and by foreign companies that build plants and offices in the United States. Davis and Wessel's front-line account, combined with persuasive evidence of the tangible benefits reaching the middle class, proves that the American dream is not only alive and well, but will reach more people than ever before.

A New York Times best-selling call to arms from Nobel Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman. The Great Recession is more than four years old—and counting. Yet, as Paul Krugman points out in this powerful volley, "Nations rich in resources, talent, and knowledge—all the ingredients for prosperity and a decent standard of living for all—remain in a state of intense pain." How bad have things gotten? How did we get stuck in what now can only be called a depression? And above all, how do we free ourselves? Krugman pursues these questions with his characteristic lucidity and insight. He has a powerful message for anyone who has suffered over these past four years—a quick, strong recovery is just one step away, if our leaders can find the "intellectual clarity and political will" to end this depression now.

Krugman examines the course of economic geography and development theory to shed light on the nature of economic inquiry.