[Economics] Economics Authors Confront Toughest Questions on Data, History, and Theory

[-_-Moltres-_-]

Beyond benchmark measures like employment, growth, and inflation, economics encompasses the full spectrum of humanity. It affects—and reflects—everyone. Central bankers may be most acutely aware of this, as well as the high cost for people should they falter in charting the policies to keep prices stable and workers employed. For interest-rate setters and anyone else pondering whether steering an economy has ever been so complicated or more consequential, recent books build out the literature on the most essential subject: how economics can be a tool to improve people’s lives. They also reflect new voices on civil society, tax reform and gender equality, as shown by the latest reviews in the IMF’s quarterly magazine, Finance & Development. From China-US ties and climate change to broadening gauges of economic growth, below is a selection of new books reviewers have recently highlighted in F&D’s pages.Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson traces the cultural, diplomatic, and economic factors that shaped China’s 1970s transformation and its relationship with the United States. She describes how these factors played out in each country and in relation to each other to answer broader and more fundamental questions—not only about why China converged with US capitalism but also why American capitalists incorporated China into their vision of the future.R. Jisung Park documents how climate change affects human welfare and the global economy. Higher temperatures are reflected in everything from standardized testing and professional tennis to manufacturing and crime rates. “Hotter temperatures,” Park argues, “may already be affecting companies’ bottom lines,” and climate change has the potential to “significantly alter the economic playing field.”Paolo de Renzio shows how nongovernmental and civil society organizations influence tax reforms, based on case studies in countries at various stages of economic and institutional development. This book is part of a broader rethinking about tax policy, touching on a wide range of real-world examples, from former public officials in Guatemala holding an opaque and ineffective tax administration to account to a campaign for higher taxes on alcohol and tobacco in the Philippines.

https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2024/08/21/economics-authors-confront-toughest-questions-on-data-history-and-theory