Jayati Ghosh and Dani Rodrik for PS Read More

The Big Con, by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington; Trust, by Hernan Diaz; and more The PS Say More Newsletter [PS Read More]( In this week's edition of PS Read More, we share recommendations from Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of the Club of Rome’s Transformational Economics Commission. We also highlight an important work by Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School and President of the International Economic Association. [Book Cover The Oligarchs' Grip ]( [The Oligarchs' Grip: Fusing Wealth and Power]( By David Lingelbach and Valentina Rodríguez Guerra “The book argues oligarchs are opportunists. They seize their big chance during times of turmoil.” – Financial Times Sponsored by De Gruyter Jayati Ghosh Recommends... [From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada]( By Sudha Bharadwaj "The author – one of India’s most respected trade-union activists and human-rights lawyers – was one of several prisoners of conscience targeted, with dubious charges, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2018. This book is an account of Bharadwaj’s first year in a woman’s prison in Pune, Maharashtra – an account that focuses not on her own experience, but rather on the stories of the incarcerated women she encountered: what brought them to prison and how they have coped with their circumstances. They are sensitive portrayals, steeped in empathy and humor, that never feel disconnected from the wider context. This is essential reading for anyone interested in India’s current socioeconomic realities and their human implications." [Trust]( By Hernan Diaz "This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel can be compared to an onion: pull back one layer of meaning, and many more are revealed. A story within a story, with competing and often conflicting perspectives, it addresses money, finance, and enrichment; the complexity of human relationships; and the impact of perception and deception. As one character says: 'Money is a fantastic commodity. You can’t eat or wear money, but it represents all the food and clothes in the world. This is why it’s a fiction…. That’s what all these criminals trade in: fictions.' There are multiple fictions in this nuanced work of fiction, which left me intrigued and fascinated." [The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies]( By Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington "The title of this book says it all. Mazzucato and Collington offer a clear, devastating, and analytically powerful indictment of the enormous confidence game perpetrated by the consulting industry on our governments and societies. This is not just a scam, but a tragedy, because it impedes innovation, reduces corporate accountability, and promotes private corporate interests, often in opaque ways. It can even lead to public policies that hamper progress on essential social and planetary goals. Follow it up with [When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm]( in which Walter Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe drive The Big Con’s points home with a forensic examination of the best-known consulting company’s behavior around the world." Don't miss our recent Say More interview with Ghosh, in which she discusses greedflation, debt, corporate taxation, and more. [Read now](. By a PS Contributor [Straight Talk on Trade: Ideas for a Sane World Economy]( By Dani Rodrik Rodrik says: "I wrote Straight Talk on Trade as a punchy, readable exposition of my views on what we are doing right and wrong, and how we can fix the problems in the world economy. The book came out before the unraveling of hyper-globalization, so it presages many of the debates we are having today about how to move forward. In particular, I present an argument for rebalancing the needs of global markets and those of national economies in a way that is more sensitive to the requirements of sustainable development and economic inclusion. I also take a few swipes at the economics profession for its often-doctrinaire position on the role of markets and government regulation. Economists, I argue, should take more seriously a key insight of their own models: understanding context – making the right assumptions about the underlying constraints and structure – is key to good economics and policy guidance." [PS. 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