Facundo Alvaredo and Anthony B. Atkinson (Oxford), Thomas Piketty (PSE), and Emmanuel Saez (UC-Berkeley): The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective (and more). From Distilled, David Cichon on how we learned to stop worrying and love capitalism; and Daniel Baker on how Wall Street probabilities aren’t just flipping coins; on technocracy after Reinhart Rogoff: This was not just a spreadsheet error; on why Big Data will not solve macroeconomics; and on refuting Greg Mankiw: Why his critique of the Great Gatsby Curve fails under scrutiny. Kitty Stewart reviews The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu. Mariana Mazzucato on the myth of the “meddling” state: The truth is that from Silicon Valley to Singapore, innovation relies heavily on state funding — it’s time for the private sector to give something back (and more and an excerpt from The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths). How do people work together at all? Tim Harford on a story of two researchers, Garrett Hardin and Lin Ostrom, who attacked the question in very different ways — and with very different results. The Coase Theorem is widely cited in economics — Ronald Coase hated it. John Cassidy on Ronald Coase and the misuse of economics. Leo Charbonneau on how Marina Adshade has attracted international attention by turning the dismal science into something sexy. What is economics good for? Alex Rosenberg and Tyler Curtain wonder (and a response).
