New Books in Economics

Interviews with Economists about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/economics

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Episodes

Saleem H. Ali, "Sustainability: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford UP, 2024)

The growing concern about global environmental change and human impacts on the planet has led to the emergence of a broad field of study on the 'sustainability' of human societies. The term's common usage can be traced back to the advent of the Earth Summit in 1992 when 'sustainable development' was broadly embraced by the international community as an ostensibly win-win proposition for economic development, social inclusion, and ecological conservation. Yet both the natural science underpinning...

Apr 21, 2025•46 min•Ep. 29

Jennifer Clapp, "Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters" (MIT Press, 2025)

Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of farm machinery, fertilizer, seeds, and pesticides are sold to farmers around the world. Although agricultural inputs are a huge sector of the global economy, the lion's share of that market is controlled by a relatively small number of very large transnational corporations. The high degree of concentration among these agribusiness titans is striking, considering that just a few hundred years ago agricultural inputs were not even marketed good...

Apr 19, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 128

China’s Trade War Strategy: How Xi Jinping Uses Autocracy, Fear, and Innovation to Compete with the West

Hosts Nina dos Santos and Owen Bennett-Jones analyze the global fallout after Donald Trump plunged America and the world into a trade war with China. David Rennie, The Economist’s geopolitics editor and former Beijing and Washington D.C. bureau chief, joins the podcast to unpack how Xi Jinping is playing the long game and playing to win. In this episode, we explore Xi’s high-stakes strategy in the global trade war. From embracing economic pain to fostering innovation under autocracy, China is ch...

Apr 18, 2025•48 min•Ep. 10