The State of Economics, the State of the World

by Basu, Kaushik; Rosenblatt, David; Sepulveda, Claudia

• ISBN13: 9780262039994
• ISBN10: 0262039990
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2020-01-07
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Leading economists address the ongoing challenges to economics in theory and practice in a time of political and economic crises.

More than a decade of financial crises, sovereign debt problems, political conflict, and rising xenophobia and protectionism has left the global economy unsettled and the ability of economics as a discipline to account for episodes of volatility uncertain. In this book, leading economists consider the state of their discipline in a world of ongoing economic and political crises.

The book begins with three sweeping essays by Nobel laureates Kenneth Arrow (in one of his last published works), Amartya Sen, and Joseph Stiglitz that offer a summary of the theoretical foundations of modern economics—the twin pillars of general equilibrium theory and welfare economics. Contributors then turn to macroeconomic stabilization and growth and, finally, new areas of research that depart from traditional theory, methodology, and concerns: climate change, behavioral economics, and evolutionary game theory. The 2019 Nobel Prize laureates, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, contribute a paper on the use of randomized control trials indevelopment economics.

Contributors
Philippe Aghion, Ingela Alger, Kenneth Arrow, Abhijit Banerjee, Kaushik Basu, Lawrence Blume, Guillermo Calvo, Francesco Caselli, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Shantayanan Devarajan, Esther Duflo, Samuel Fankhauser, James Foster, Varun Gauri, Xavier Gine, Gäel Giraud, Gita Gopinath, Robert Hockett, Karla Hoff, Ravi Kanbur, Aart Kraay, Michael Kremer, David McKenzie, Célestin Monga, Maurice Obstfeld, Hamid Rashid, Martin Ravallion, Amartya Sen, Luis Servén, Hyun Song Shin, Nicholas Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, Cass Sunstein, Michael Toman, Jörgen Weibull

Author Biography

Kaushik Basu is C. Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank. He is the author of An Economist in the Real World (MIT Press).

Philippe Aghion is a Professor at the College de France and at the London School of Economics. Aghion is coauthor (with Peter Howitt) of Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press).

David Rosenblatt is Regional Economic Adviser, Caribbean Country Department, Inter-American Development Bank.

Kenneth J. Arrow, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1972, is Joan Kenny Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research at Stanford University.

Claudia Sepúlveda is Lead Economist in the Development Economics Vice Presidency at the World Bank.

Guillermo A. Calvo is Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University's School for International and Public Affairs. He is the author of Money, Exchange Rates, and Output, Emerging Capital Markets in Turmoil (both published by the MIT Press) and other books.

Amartya K. Sen is Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, and Fellow of All Souls College.

Lord Stern is I. G. Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, past President of the British Academy, Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change, and former Chief Economist at the World Bank. He was the lead author of the influential Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, the findings of which he adapted in his book for general readers, The Global Deal: Climate Change and the Creation of a New Era of Progress and Prosperity (also known as A Blueprint for a Safer Planet).

Joseph Stiglitz, a 2001 Nobel Laureate, is University Professor at Columbia University.

Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. He was the recipient of the 2018 Holberg Prize, one of the largest annual international research prizes awarded to scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research in the arts and humanities, social science, law, or theology. He is the author of The Cost-Benefit Revolution, How Change Happens (both published by the MIT Press), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler), and other books.

Jörgen W. Weibull is A. O. Wallenberg Professor of Economics at Stockholm School of Economics.