The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, published in 2004, is a book about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group. The book presents numerous case studies and anecdotes to illustrate its argument, and touches on several fields, primarily economics and psychology.
The World at War"" (19201945) covers the period from the signing of the Versailles Treaty, which signaled the end of World War I, through World War II and the defeat of Japan. Special emphasis is given to the stressed postwar economies of Europe following the Great War, which set the stage for further international conflict.
“The Limits to Growth”generated unprecedented controversy with its predictions of the eventual collapse of the world's economies. First hailed as a great advance in science, “The Limits to Growth” was subsequently rejected and demonized.
However, with many national economies now at risk and global peak oil apparently a reality, the methods, scenarios, and predictions of “The Limits to Growth” are in great need of reappraisal.
Beattie worked as an economist at the Bank of England and then joined the Financial Times in 1998 and is currently the paper’s world-trade editor. This is not a criticism of the 2004–07 real-estate debacle that caused the collapse of U.S. and world financial systems, as might be surmised by the title, but rather a historical glimpse at the causes and effects that explain why some economies prosper in certain ways while others do not. Beattie contrasts the economies of Argentina and the U.S., for example, showing why Argentina has prospered even while our economic downturn has seemingly brought down the economies of the rest of the world.
The Natural Instability of Markets; Expectations, Increasing Returns, and the Collapse of Capitalism
As socialist states struggle to transform themselves into market economies and the United States privatizes everything from schooling to policing, the current crises in Russia and East Asia suggest that something might be amiss. In the rush to open societies to the benefits of competition, economists have overlooked the fundamental instability of competitive markets. What had seemed to be an invincible capitalist juggernaut may be reaching its apotheosis. A close look at market economies is more timely and crucial than ever. Michael Perelman argues that capitalism's victory is temporary, based as it is on an unrealistic understanding of the system's inherent risks.
