economics

Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway tell the story of US economic history in a way that obscures as much as it reveals.

Abortion is about real lives enmeshed in the realities of home and work and wages and debt.

Economist Minouche Shafik puts public policy at the heart of her vision.

Crunching the numbers with M. V. Lee Badgett

New books that are shaping discussions about ethics in a capitalist society

We asked writers to tell us about a book that they disagree with—but that they also see as important enough to argue with.

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman distill a complex topic into manageable takeaways.

The theologian doesn’t want finance capitalism to determine what we’re worth.

Stephanie Jones-Rogers dismantles the stereotype of white female passivity in the pre-Civil War south.

Grace is an exchange, says Terra Schwerin Rowe—but not an economic one.

Even if increased equity were to involve a slightly smaller pie, the resulting social order may be preferred. When poverty declines, the social costs of poverty fall, and despair is replaced by hope.

This is a welcome development:

Call them the debt crisis dissenters.

The two parties are miles apart on how to cut the deficit and national debt: Republicans want to slash spending even more. Democrats want to raise revenue.

And then there are the other Democrats — the ones who reject the entire premise of the current high-stakes fiscal fight. There’s no short-term deficit problem, they say, and there isn’t even an urgent debt crisis that requires immediate attention.

Since the years of Reagan and Thatcher, we have heard a steady drumbeat about the limitations of government. But what about the limitations of the free market?

In 2008, both enthusiasts and enemies of a new New Deal misjudged Obama. They also misjudged the circumstances he faced.

It's official: Congress passed a debt-ceiling deal, and the president signed it. While this is certainly preferable to the
country defaulting on its obligations, it's not an
inspiring piece of legislation.

In his combative response to President Obama's speech last night, House Speaker John Boehner offered an uncommonly crystalized rendition of an all too common bit of GOP nonsense.

"In these tough times, Americans are tightening their belts—and their
government needs to do the same." This bipartisan applause line is pithy, full of populist empathy and easy to
understand. It's also exactly wrong.