{ "title": "Economists Offer Fresh Takes on Inflation, Inequality, Technology", "publication": "IMF Blog, December 20, 2023", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology", "overlayPath": "/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/index.md", "summary": "Latest books provide analytical and anecdotal accounts of the greatest challenges—and the perspective that comes with time", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview", "content": "- Latest books provide analytical and anecdotal accounts of the greatest challenges—and the perspective that comes with time.\n- From Nobel laureates to top academics to a former Barbados central bank governor, authors have published over the past year deeply researched examinations of inflation, inequality, technology, and other economic lessons learned over a lifetime.\n- Selection drawn from recent reviews in the IMF’s quarterly magazine, Finance & Development (F&D)." }, { "heading": "Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity", "content": "- Authors: Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.\n- Central concern: Will coming decades and the advances they will bring cause a further cleaving of society?\n- Key policy suggestions: breaking up the largest technology companies and reforming the practices of academia.\n- Tone: “late, ‘but perhaps not too late,’ to avoid that fate.”" }, { "heading": "Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality", "content": "- Author: Angus Deaton.\n- Focus: How economics should address complex issues like poverty by widening the lens beyond income and wealth.\n- Broader well-being dimensions emphasized: meaningful work, family, and community.\n- Characterization: informative, compelling, and enjoyable, drawing on Deaton’s long career and naturalization as an American." }, { "heading": "Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the Cold War", "content": "- Author: Branko Milanovic.\n- Focus: Places debate on inequality in historical context; chronicles how economics has viewed and analyzed inequality from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War.\n- Method: Distills the writings of six of the most influential economists of recent centuries, including Adam Smith and Karl Marx.\n- Tone: absorbing account of how the intellectual underpinning has evolved." }, { "heading": "My Journeys in Economic Theory", "content": "- Author: Edmund Phelps.\n- Scope: Personal account of how Phelps’s thinking on unemployment, inflation, and innovation has evolved over his career.\n- Emphasis: Outlines a vision for a dynamic, flourishing economy that combines analytical depth with concern for real people rather than abstract economic agents.\n- Characterization: profound, far-reaching, and novel." }, { "heading": "Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the Economics Profession", "content": "- Author: Ann Mari May.\n- Focus: Historical narrative on the sources of gender gaps in economics.\n- Relevance: Economists studying how gender discrimination and professional barriers affect women need look no further than their own field.\n- Method: Compelling and well-researched account; author is a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics." }, { "heading": "Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change", "content": "- Author: Vinod Thomas.\n- Prescription: Advocates for a systemic approach to climate resilience, emphasizing the need to prepare, not just respond.\n- Cost insight: Disaster proofing, he notes, adds less than a tenth to the cost of a new hospital.\n- Warning: As climate change worsens, risks once seen as low probability and high impact will become high-probability, high-impact events." }, { "heading": "We Need to Talk About Inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years", "content": "- Author: Stephen D. King.\n- Premise: Inflation has a long history that policymakers would do well to heed.\n- Historical examples: French assignats, US greenbacks during the Civil War, Weimar’s hyperinflation.\n- Scope: Weaves in Roman coinage, medieval debasement, and the 1970s to show how monetary history matters.\n- Exact framing: “14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years.”" }, { "heading": "Development and Stabilization in Small Open Economies: Theories and Evidence from Caribbean Experience", "content": "- Author: DeLisle Worrell.\n- Focus: Unique challenges for small developing economies, including heightened vulnerability to external shocks.\n- Contribution: Valuable to literature on economic problems facing small developing states, particularly in the Caribbean.\n- Conclusion: Explains why small countries—and the policy implications—are different." }, { "heading": "Subscription and Further Reading", "content": "- Call to action in source: “Subscribe here for F&D’s agenda-setting explorations of economic and financial issues. Free print subscriptions are available here. Find other F&D book reviews here.”\n\nIMF Blog Editors, December 20, 2023\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Finance & Development\n- Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and\nProsperity\n- Daron Acemoglu\n- Economics\nin America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality\n- Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the\nCold War\n- My\nJourneys in Economic Theory\n- Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the\nEconomics Profession\n- Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change\n- We Need to Talk About Inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000\nYears\n- Development and Stabilization in Small Open Economies: Theories and\nEvidence from Caribbean Experience\n- available\nhere\n- here\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: IMF Blog Editors", "Published: December 20, 2023", "Latest books provide analytical and anecdotal accounts of the greatest challenges—and the perspective that comes with time.", "From Nobel laureates to top academics to a former Barbados central bank governor, authors have published over the past year deeply researched examinations of inflation, inequality, technology, and other economic lessons learned over a lifetime.", "Selection drawn from recent reviews in the IMF’s quarterly magazine, Finance & Development (F&D).", "Authors: Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson.", "Central concern: Will coming decades and the advances they will bring cause a further cleaving of society?", "Key policy suggestions: breaking up the largest technology companies and reforming the practices of academia.", "Tone: “late, ‘but perhaps not too late,’ to avoid that fate.”", "Author: Angus Deaton.", "Focus: How economics should address complex issues like poverty by widening the lens beyond income and wealth.", "Broader well-being dimensions emphasized: meaningful work, family, and community.", "Characterization: informative, compelling, and enjoyable, drawing on Deaton’s long career and naturalization as an American.", "Author: Branko Milanovic.", "Focus: Places debate on inequality in historical context; chronicles how economics has viewed and analyzed inequality from the French Revolution to the end of the Cold War.", "Method: Distills the writings of six of the most influential economists of recent centuries, including Adam Smith and Karl Marx.", "Tone: absorbing account of how the intellectual underpinning has evolved.", "Author: Edmund Phelps.", "Scope: Personal account of how Phelps’s thinking on unemployment, inflation, and innovation has evolved over his career.", "Emphasis: Outlines a vision for a dynamic, flourishing economy that combines analytical depth with concern for real people rather than abstract economic agents.", "Characterization: profound, far-reaching, and novel.", "Author: Ann Mari May.", "Focus: Historical narrative on the sources of gender gaps in economics.", "Relevance: Economists studying how gender discrimination and professional barriers affect women need look no further than their own field.", "Method: Compelling and well-researched account; author is a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics.", "Author: Vinod Thomas.", "Prescription: Advocates for a systemic approach to climate resilience, emphasizing the need to prepare, not just respond.", "Cost insight: Disaster proofing, he notes, adds less than a tenth to the cost of a new hospital.", "Warning: As climate change worsens, risks once seen as low probability and high impact will become high-probability, high-impact events.", "Author: Stephen D. King.", "Premise: Inflation has a long history that policymakers would do well to heed.", "Historical examples: French assignats, US greenbacks during the Civil War, Weimar’s hyperinflation.", "Scope: Weaves in Roman coinage, medieval debasement, and the 1970s to show how monetary history matters.", "Exact framing: “14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000 Years.”", "Author: DeLisle Worrell.", "Focus: Unique challenges for small developing economies, including heightened vulnerability to external shocks.", "Contribution: Valuable to literature on economic problems facing small developing states, particularly in the Caribbean.", "Conclusion: Explains why small countries—and the policy implications—are different.", "Call to action in source: “Subscribe here for F&D’s agenda-setting explorations of economic and financial issues. Free print subscriptions are available here. Find other F&D book reviews here.”", "[Finance & Development](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd)", "[Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and", "[Daron Acemoglu](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/12/Rebalancing-AI-Acemoglu-Johnson)", "[Economics", "[Visions of Inequality: From the French Revolution to the End of the", "[My", "[Gender and the Dismal Science: Women in the Early Years of the", "[Risk and Resilience in the Era of Climate Change](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/12/Book-Review-risk-resilience-in-the-era-of-climate-change-SHARPE)", "[We Need to Talk About Inflation: 14 Urgent Lessons from the Last 2,000", "[Development and Stabilization in Small Open Economies: Theories and", "[available", "[here](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/categories?category=Book+Reviews)" ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/index.md", "json": "/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/blogs/articles/2023/12/20/economists-offer-fresh-takes-on-inflation-inequality-technology/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-08-28T18:05:55.682Z" }