Richard N. Cooper

Pettis asserts that the world economy suffers from unsustainable imbalances that must be eliminated.

Goldacre, a British physician, articulately and extensively documents how large pharmaceutical firms have inched up as close as possible to committing outright fraud and occasionally have crossed the threshold.

The National Intelligence Council (NIC), the forward-looking think tank of the U.S. intelligence community, has produced its latest quadrennial assessment of global trends, a forecast of how the world might change between now and 2030.

Muller, a physicist, considers the future of energy use in terms of elementary physics (what is technically possible) and elementary economics (how much it will cost).

Nolan, a British economist, answers the question in his title with a resounding no.

The justification for creating temporary monopolies through patents and copyrights is that they encourage creative activity that would not otherwise take place. But Raustiala and Sprigman argue that imitation -- which music labels and movie studios often consider theft -- frequently stimulates creativity rather than discouraging it.

In this engaging book, Janeway, a venture capitalist who trained as an economist, combines his academic erudition with lessons learned during 40 years of working in the financial sector. His novel argument is that financial bubbles can be expected to occur from time to time in modern economies and that on balance they contribute to positive economic transformations by financing new technologies, even though many of them inevitably prove to be false starts or dead ends.

This book is built around case studies of 15 state-owned oil companies, which together account for nearly 50 percent of global oil production and for 56 percent of the world’s proven conventional oil reserves. Its aim is to evaluate the performance of these companies in the exploration, development, refinement (where relevant), and distribution of oil and gas.

Tomasi is troubled not only by the political polarization of contemporary American politics but also by the apparent mutual incompatibility, and hence mutual antagonism, between libertarianism and claims for social justice that require some redistribution of income.

Sinn casts a skeptical eye toward some of the popular nostrums for climate change. He emphasizes the distinction between environmental objectives and policy instruments, arguing that evaluations of the instruments should be based on their actual contributions to objectives, and not on the good feelings that we may get from having simply done something.

Turner makes the case that growth should not be sought as an end in itself in rich countries. Rather, the focus should be on creating economic freedom and making possible a wide range of employment opportunities.

The authors of this study examine various efforts to restrict both inflows and outflows of capital and are left troubled by the potential effects of overly aggressive restrictions.