economic history

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• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  3/28/2022
  

  How Economic Historian Adam Tooze Pushed the "Dirtbag Left" Off the Podcasting Throne

  For a certain left-leaning online audience, Tooze's rigorous approach is beating out ironic smartassery and the shallower efforts of some self-styled "explainers" to build a potent public intellectual brand. 

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• SOURCE: Boston Review
  3/9/2022
  

  Bad Economics

  by Simon Torracinta

  A historian of science reviews three books on the history of economic thought, which support the conclusion that the ideas animating the mainstream of the discipline and enabling it to dominate discussions of policy are badly in need of reexamination. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/7/2022
  

  The Economy is Good, Actually

  by Zachary D. Carter

  An economic historian says that the recovery from the pandemic is historically good in terms of the share of gains going to low-income workers, but the politics are not working in the Democrats' favor. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  12/2/2021
  

  After 20 Years, Enron Still Haunts Us

  by Gavin Benke

  Despite Enron's bankruptcy and the resulting economic fallout, American business media is still dangerously credulous toward promises of "innovation" and "disruption" without asking whether the latest hot entrepreneur is using smoke and mirrors. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  11/29/2021
  

  Lizabeth Cohen: Why Americans Buy So Much Stuff

  As holiday shopping overlaps with historic supply chain disruptions, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Lizabeth Cohen on the economy's reliance on spending and the culture of consumerism in the U.S.

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• SOURCE: Dissent
  11/10/2021
  

  "The Ivory Tower is Dead": An Interview with Davarian Baldwin

  Davarian L. Baldwin's work interrogates how universities in postindustrial cities exemplify new models of economic development and are implicated in the problems of labor exploitation, gentrification and inequality. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/1/2021
  

  Land of Capital: Jonathan Levy's "Ages of American Capital" Reviewed

  by Steven Hahn

  "Ages of Capitalism" is one of the first synthetic accounts of the relationship of capitalism and American politics and society, and provides an important vocabulary for a developing field of inquiry. It also, oddly, resonates with the older consensus history that assumed capitalism as a core part of American life.

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• SOURCE: Woodrow Wilson Center and National History Center
  9/17/2021
  

  Indentured Students: Elizabeth Tandy Shermer on Student Debt (Monday, October 4)

  Elizabeth Tandy Shermer shows that Democrats and Republicans intentionally wanted to create a student loan industry instead of generously funding colleges and universities, which eventually left millions of Americans drowning in student debt. Zoom, Monday, Oct. 4, 4:00 PM EDT.

• 
• 9/19/2021
  

  Inequality Tends to Reach Political Tipping Points – Is That Happening Today?

  by Richard Vague

  "Proposals for a $15 minimum wage, more support for childcare and education, and even an alternative minimum income did not emerge out of nowhere as radical notions imported from Western Europe."

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/13/2021
  

  The History of the Debt Ceiling: How a Routine Procedure Became Routine Political Brinksmanship

  It's clear that the originators of legislation establishing a debt limit for the United States did not intend for the measure to be a land mine threatening to derail the government's operations on a recurring basis. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/1/2021
  

  What if the Coronavirus Crisis Is Just a Trial Run?

  by Adam Tooze

  The disjointed and haphazard global response to the COVID pandemic bodes poorly for the world's capacity for coordinated action to face inevitable crisies in the near future. The problem isn't a lack of means but a lack of commitment to collective action.

• 
• SOURCE: Democracy
  8/31/2021
  

  Wartime Wisdom to Combat Inflation

  by David Stein

  Today, monetary policy controlled by the Federal Reserve is the only tool commonly used to control inflation, pitting controlling prices against full employment and wage growth. The history of the World War II Office of Price Administration reveals other possibilities. 

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• SOURCE: Project Syndicate
  8/31/2021
  

  Back to the Seventies?

  by Kenneth Rogoff

  Problems of political economy complicate the job central bankers face in setting interest rates. From international relations to domestic politics to an aging population, an economist considers the similarities and differences between now and the 1970s. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Economist
  8/28/2021
  

  The Economist Reviews Adam Tooze's Contemporary History of the COVID Economy

  "The challenge of instant history is that its judgments can be overtaken by events."

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  8/19/2021
  

  The Real Political Danger of Inflation

  by Andrew Elrod

  Democrats have not lost elections because of inflation, but because they have imagined austerity politics as the only solution to inflation. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/5/2021
  

  Policymakers in the 1960s Laid the Groundwork for the Student Debt Crisis. Policymakers Today Can Undo It.

  by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer

  "Lawmakers purposefully crafted the Guaranteed Student Loan Program to jump-start a student loan industry — instead of really investing in colleges and universities to keep costs down or forcing them to provide young people with genuinely equal opportunities to enroll."

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• SOURCE: Washington Center for Equitable Growth
  6/24/2021
  

  New Research Shows Slavery’s Central Role in U.S. Economic Growth Leading up to the Civil War

  Historian Sven Beckert and economist Mark Stelzner's collaborative research applies new methods for quantifying how much the labor productivity of enslaved people contributed to economic output, as well as identifying the gap between white households with and without slaves as a driver of inequality. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  5/25/2021
  

  What Scaremongering About Inflation Gets Wrong

  by Rebecca L. Spang

  Inflation has become a subject of political dread as Americans have shifted from seeing themselves as producers to seeing themselves as consumers. But historical perspective shows that policy picks winners and losers and is dependent on choices about what to measure and how.   

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/24/2021
  

  How 24 Hours of Racist Violence Caused Decades of Harm

  by Jeremy Cook and Jason Long

  Census analysis shows how the Tulsa race massacre inaugurated a U-turn in the economic fortunes of the city's black community and gives a sense of the value of property lost. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/24/2021
  

  The Woman Who Shattered the Myth of the Free Market

  Joan Robinson theorized the problem of monopsony as workers attempting to sell their labor are hurt by the small number of buyers.