Book Reviews

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25th November 2014

How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy feedback, participation, voting, and attitudes, by Staffan Kumlin and Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen (eds)

Edward Elgar, 2014, 1 78254 549 1, hbk, ix + 337 pp, £90 In democratic countries public policy is influenced, at least to some extent, by public opinion. At the Read More

25th November 2014

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies, by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, 0 393 23935 5, hbk, 320 pp, $26.95. Audio edition: Grand Haven, Michigan: Brilliance Audio, 2014. This book was recommended to me Read More

25th July 2014

Welfare in an Idle Society? Re-inventing retirement, work, wealth, health, and welfare, by Bernd Marin

Ashgate, 2013, 1 4724 1697 1, pbk, 701 pp, £75 The question that this book tackles is an important one: How can developed countries afford pensions for an ageing society Read More

25th April 2014

Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for reform around the world, by Karl Widerquist and Michael W. Howard (eds)

Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 1 137 00659 2, hbk, xix+ 291 pp, £65 In 1797 Thomas Paine suggested that, because in principle the land belongs to everyone equally, those who occupy Read More

25th March 2014

The Economic Theory of Income Inequality, by Robert A. Becker (ed.)

Edward Elgar, 2013, 0 85793 908 1, hbk, lvii + 636 pp, £225 Ten years ago, Edward Elgar published a two volume collection of reprinted articles, The Economics of Poverty Read More

25th February 2014

Towards a Social Investment Welfare State? Ideas, policies and challenges, by Nathalie Morel, Bruno Palier and Joakim Palme (eds)

Policy Press, 2012, xiv + 386 pp, pbk, 1 847 42925 4, £19.99, hbk, 1 847 42924 7, £70 Is the welfare state a cost or an investment? To take Read More

25th February 2014

Money for Everyone: Why we need a Citizen’s Income, by Malcolm Torry

Policy Press, 2013, xiv + 300 pp, 1 44731 125 6, pbk, £24.99, 1 44731 124 9, hbk, £70 (We would not normally publish two reviews of the same book, Read More

25th January 2014

The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen, by David Reisman

Edward Elgar, 2012, vii + 338 pp, hbk, 0 85793 218 1, £90 The dust jacket suggests that Thorstein Veblen’s writings are ‘difficult to read and understand’. Perhaps they are, Read More

1st December 2013

The No-Nonsense Guide to Equality, by Danny Dorling

New Internationalist, 2012, 176 pp, pbk, 1 78026 071 6, £7.99 Dorling’s egalitarian tract is, as Richard Wilkinson suggests in his foreword, ‘multi-faceted and rich in insights’ (p.7). Throughout the Read More

25th November 2013

Poverty and Insecurity: Life in low-pay, no-pay Britain, by Tracy Shildrick, Robrt MacDonald, Colin Webster and Kayleigh Garthwaite

Policy Press, 2012, v + 256 pp, pbk, 1 847 42910 0, £26.99, hbk, 1 847 42911 7, £70 There is no better way to learn about the effects of Read More