Whether investigating a solution to global warming or explaining why the price of oral sex has fallen so drastically, Levitt and Dubner mix smart thinking and great storytelling to show how people respond to incentives.

"We are only just beginning to reckon with our post-pandemic future. As political extremism intensifies, the great resignation affects businesses everywhere, and supply chain issues crush bottom lines, we're faced with daunting questions - is our democracy under threat? How will Big Tech change our lives? What does job security look like for me? America is on the brink of massive change - change that will disrupt the workings of our economy and drastically...

"When philosopher Adam Smith proclaimed that our actions are motivated by self-interest, he used the example of the baker and the butcher to lay the foundations for his "Economic man." He argued that they gave bread and meat for profit, not out of the goodness of their hearts. It's an ironic point of view coming from a bachelor who lived with his mother for most of his life-- a woman who cooked his dinner every night. Nevertheless, Smith's economic...

The author posits that successful democracies require balance between competitive markets, honest governments and local communities. Currently, as markets scale up, states scale up too; Rajan offers an alternative: strengthening local communities.

Providing a basic income to everyone, rich or poor, active or inactive, was advocated by Paine, Mill, and Galbraith but the idea was never taken seriously. Today, with the welfare state creaking, it is one of the world's most widely debated proposals. Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght present a comprehensive defense of this radical idea.--

"There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. Slavoj Zizek has identified the four horsemen of this coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions and ruptures. But, he asks, if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the...