• Why is productivity higher in cities? • Does urbanization cause growth or does growth cause urbanization? • Do countries achieve rapid growth or high incomes without urbanization? • How can policy makers reap the benefits of urbanization without paying too high a cost? • Does supporting urbanization imply neglecting rural areas? • Why do so few governments welcome urbanization? • What should governments do to improve housing conditions in cities as they urbanize? • Are innovations in hou...

• What has been the evolution of poverty and equity during the recent globalizing decades? • How have poor countries fared on the Millennium Development Goals? • What role does wealth inequality play in the level and efficiency of investment and, hence, in economic growth? • Is gender equity a smart pro-growth strategy as well as a pro-poor one? • How is equality different from equality of opportunity, and should policy makers pursue one, the other, or both? • In formulating distributional...

• Does leadership affect economic growth and development? • Is leadership an exogenous determinant or an endogenous outcome of growth and development processes? Can we differentiate between the two? • Do leaders' decisions and actions vary in importance over various stages in the process, at least in successful cases? • How important is choosing the right economic model? • To what extent does leadership affect the explicit or implicit time horizons of policy choices? • Is leadership an imp...

While still relatively unknown to the general public, early twentieth century American horror author H.P. Lovecraft left an indelible stamp upon popular culture. Images of tentacled horrors, forbidden tomes, and protagonists struggling against the insanity that comes with the revelation of the terrible truth of reality–Lovecraft pioneered all of these. Best known for his short story “The Call of Cthulhu,” Lovecraft instantiated his philosophy of cosmicism into every one of his tal...

To offer a core concept of intellectual property, to consider various justifications for the recognition of intellectual property rights and to expound their operation in particular areas of activity is the purpose of this book. It is essential to examine both the concept of intellectual property and the reasons why a legal system might incorporate such a concept. We are increasingly told that the wealth of nations, consists in 'intangible assets'. These are the intangible products of huma...

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011With the British Industrial Revolution, part of the world's population started to experience extraordinary economic growth—leading to enormous gaps in wealth and living standards between the industrialized West and the rest of the world. This pattern of divergence reversed after World War II, and now we are midway through a century of high and accelerating growth in the developing world and a new convergence with the advance...

Prominent economists reconsider the fundamentals of economic policy for a post-crisis world.In 2011, the International Monetary Fund invited prominent economists and economic policymakers to consider the brave new world of the post-crisis global economy. The result is a book that captures the state of macroeconomic thinking at a transformational moment.The crisis and the weak recovery that has followed raise fundamental questions concerning macroeconomics a...

'Offers hope and good sense in equal measure'Ian Bremmer'A sensible plan for reform that can help us create a fairer and more equitable world'**Sheryl SandbergProblems are mounting.We face sputtering growth, an escalating climate emergency, worsening inequality, poor policy responses, increasing nationalism and a decline in global co-operation.But a permacrisis need not be permanent.**In this book, three of the most inter...

Raghuram Rajan was one of the few economists who warned of the global financial crisis before it hit. Now, as the world struggles to recover, it's tempting to blame what happened on just a few greedy bankers who took irrational risks and left the rest of us to foot the bill. In Fault Lines, Rajan argues that serious flaws in the economy are also to blame, and warns that a potentially more devastating crisis awaits us if they aren't fixed.Rajan shows how the individual choi...

The fact that our global economy is broken may be widely accepted, but what precisely needs to be fixed has become the subject of enormous controversy. In 2008, the president of the United Nations General Assembly convened an international panel, chaired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and including twenty leading international experts on the international monetary system, to address this crucial issue.The Stiglitz Report, released by the committee in late...

From how the current crisis happened to the role of banks to how money works, this book addresses complex ideas in an easy to understand Q&A format with lively prose. With examples throughout from personal finance issues such as how to negotiate the best price for a car, and should you buy a warranty for a new computer, to big picture questions that affect our national and global economy such as: What is deflation and inflation? How does monetary policy really work? How does a corporation ...

The wealth derived from natural resources can have a tremendous impact on the economics and politics of producing countries. In the last quarter century, we have seen the surprising and sobering consequences of this wealth, producing what is now known as the "resource curse." Countries with large endowments of natural resources, such as oil and gas, often do worse than their poorer neighbors. Their resource wealth frequently leads to lower growth rates, greater volatility, more corruption,...