Books
If you want to know more about how the current form of capitalism is undermining (a thick conception of) democracy, and what can be done about this, then you should read Lisa Herzog’s latest book The Democratic Marketplace. The book is written for a broad audience, and I suspect that anyone who regularly reads this […]
First, a lovely prelude to hint at the bigger and darker story. Then come the books that help unpack the black box: — Beckert, Jens and Matías Dewey, eds. 2017. The Architecture of Illegal Markets: Towards an Economic Sociology of Illegality in the Economy. Oxford University Press.— Binder, Andrea. 2023. Offshore Finance and State Power. Oxford […]
by Christina Jerne* In April 2020, a truck transporting half a million euros in cash was stopped at Italy’s eastern border, testifying that the ’Ndrangheta, one of the world’s largest and richest mafia groups, had made its own Covid-19 emergency liquidity plan. In the midst of tough European negotiations on EU solidarity mechanisms, the German […]
With another COP starting today, and the question of climate change having played no role at all in the Dutch elections recently, and, well, for a zillion different reasons – it seems like a good time to ask the question: what books can help to make people move on this topic? (or if you think […]
by Martin Eiermann* In international comparison, the United States stand out for the wide range of political hopes that are attached to the right to privacy—which covers anything from abortion and contraceptive access to employee claims against workplace surveillance and consumer rights—and for having a uniquely fragmented landscape of privacy laws. The privacy of health-related […]
It’s UK publication day for ‘A Poem for Every Question’, my new collection of poems for children, illustrated by the brilliant Joe Berger. Inside there are poems to answer all sorts of interesting questions: how many stars in the universe exploded today?; who had the first holiday?; how many times a day do we laugh?;…
I’m in the midst of doing research, teaching, and outreach activities on a set of questions around economic growth and its relationship to what we value. My research team has Tim Jackson visiting tomorrow, who will give a talk on postgrowth economics and also talk a bit about his new book, The Care Economy. The […]
by Crawford Spence* There is plenty of work out there on financial intermediaries. Most of this can be found in finance or economics journals and displays little evidence of its authors having spent any time with financial intermediaries at all. Rather, studies looking at asset managers or investment bankers tend to be carried out at […]