Meet the economic gangster. He's the United Nations diplomat who double-parks his Mercedes on New York City streets at rush hour because the cops can't touch him--he has diplomatic immunity. He's the Chinese smuggler who dodges tariffs by magically transforming frozen chickens into frozen...

In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of...

Why has capitalism produced economic growth that so vastly dwarfs the growth record of other economic systems, past and present? Why have living standards in countries from America to Germany to Japan risen exponentially over the past century? William Baumol rejects the conventional view that...

In this provocative work, Gerald Scully develops and empirically tests a theory about how a nation's constitutional setting affects its economic growth. Modern growth theory links the rise in the standard of living to capital formation, both physical and human, and to technological progress, and...

Main description: Are the recurring recessions of the capitalist world merely short-term adjustments to changing economic circumstances in a system that tends, in general, toward equilibrium? In this accessible study of the business cycle, Howard Sherman makes a powerful case that recessions and...

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Foreword -- 1. Introduction: The Argument in Brief -- Part One. Neglected Realm of Social Scarcity -- Part Two. The Commercialization Bias -- Part Three. The Depleting Moral Legacy -- Part Four. Perspective and Conclusions -- References -- Index

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- The setting of the problem -- Patent statistics -- The role of intellectual stimuli -- The use of important inventions as a cause of further inventions -- Productivity advance: A Case of supply and demand? -- The amount of invention is governed by the extent...

Frontmatter -- FOREWORD -- CONTENTS -- Lecture I. WORLD ECONOMIC STRUCTURE: DIVERSITY AND INTERDEPENDENCE -- Lecture II. CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN ECONOMIC GROWTH -- Lecture III. THE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR II -- Lecture IV. POSTWAR ECONOMIC GROWTH: FINDINGS AND QUESTIONS -- INDEX

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- Tables -- I. Level and Variability of Rates of Growth -- II. Growth of Productivity and Nonconventional Costs -- III. Sectoral Shares in Product: A Cross-Section View -- IV. Sectoral Shares in Product: Long-Term Trends -- V. Sectoral Shares in Labor Force: A...