If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Have you ever wondered why the most common fears about immigration and trade are often based on economic myths rather than reality?
- What if you could find a way to solve the climate crisis without placing an unfair burden on the world's poorest populations?
- Are you curious about how the 'dismal science' of economics can actually provide a roadmap for healing social divides and tackling rising inequality?
Listen to Good Economics for Hard Times — Free Audiobook
Loading player...
Key Takeaways from Good Economics for Hard Times
- Discover how applying good economics in plain language can help bridge the deep political divides surrounding trade, inequality, and immigration.
- Understand why the collapse of law and order, rather than mere economic poverty or wage differences, is the true primary driving force behind international migration.
- Find out why it often takes extreme external events like natural disasters or war to overcome human inertia, ultimately pushing displaced populations toward greater economic prosperity.
- Uncover the counterintuitive reality that large-scale, low-skilled immigration does not reduce job opportunities or lower wages for native residents.
- Learn how migrant workers actually boost local economies by increasing the demand for everyday goods, creating additional jobs, and delaying the need for automated labor.
Good Economics for Hard Times — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: Economists can help fix the world’s worst problems, but first they must truly earn our collective trust.
Chapter 3: Politicians deceive voters with falsehoods about immigration.
Chapter 4: Immigration helps strengthen the local economy and creates more new opportunities for native workers.
Chapter 5: Goods flow freely in global trade deals, but people and money don’t.
Chapter 6: Trade deals can hurt local workers, but protectionist tariffs won’t fix the problem.
Chapter 7: The battle against climate change cannot be divorced from the battle against economic inequality.
Chapter 8: AI is advancing to take over more complex human tasks, harming the job market overall.
Chapter 9: Economic inequality long predates intelligent robots.
Chapter 10: Effective taxation can help to address economic inequality.
Chapter 11: There's no one-size-fits-all path to easing poverty, but honoring the dignity of the poor is truly essential.
Chapter 12: To heal political polarization and prejudice undermining democracy, we must truly listen carefully to one another.
Good Economics for Hard Times Summary & Overview
Good Economics for Hard Times (2019) unflinchingly examines some of the most seemingly intractable problems we’re confronting today. Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo argue that economics can provide new perspectives on how to solve climate change without hurting the poor, and also tackle social problems caused by rising inequality, global trade, and fear of immigration.
Who Should Listen to Good Economics for Hard Times?
- People who want to regain their faith in the usefulness of economics
- Environmentalists who want a new perspective on how to save the planet
- Workers who are worried about how immigration and trade will affect their jobs
Books Similar to Good Economics for Hard Times
Readers who enjoyed this also liked these titles.
Economics for the Common Good
★ 4.0 / 5 • 71 ratingsDelve into economics with a Nobel Prize winner
Angrynomics
★ 4.1 / 5 • 111 ratingsHow we can rearrange our economies to produce more equality and less anger
Making Sense of Chaos
★ 4.4 / 5 • 8 ratingsA Better Economics for a Better World
SuperFreakonomics
★ 4.1 / 5 • 95 ratingsGlobal Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance