Progress and Confusion: The State of Macroeconomic Policy
Edited by Olivier Blanchard, Raghuram Rajan, Kenneth Rogoff, and Lawrence H. Summers
What will economic policy look like once the global financial crisis is finally over? Will it resume the pre-crisis consensus, or will it be forced to contend with a post-crisis “new normal”? Have we made progress in addressing these issues, or does confusion remain? In April of 2015, the International Monetary Fund gathered leading economists, both academics and policy makers, to address the shape of future macroeconomic policy. This book is the result, with prominent figures—including Ben Bernanke, Lawrence Summers, and Paul Volcker—offering essays that address topics that range from the measurement of systemic risk to foreign exchange intervention.
The chapters address whether we have entered a “new normal” of low growth, negative real rates, and deflationary pressures, with contributors taking opposing views; whether new financial regulation has stemmed systemic risk; the effectiveness of macroprudential tools; monetary policy, the choice of inflation targets, and the responsibilities of central banks; fiscal policy, stimulus, and debt stabilization; the volatility of capital flows; and the international monetary and financial system, including the role of international policy coordination.
In light of these discussions, is there progress or confusion regarding the future of macroeconomic policy? In the final chapter, volume editor Olivier Blanchard answers: both. Many lessons have been learned; but, as the chapters of the book reveal, there is no clear agreement on several key issues. (The MIT Press, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Kenneth Rogoff is the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and professor of economics, Harvard University.
Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century: Educational Goals, Policies, and Curricula from Six Nations
Edited by Fernando M. Reimers and Connie K. Chung
This book describes how different nations have defined the core competencies and skills that young people will need in order to thrive in the twenty-first-century, and how those nations have fashioned educational policies and curricula meant to promote those skills. The book examines six countries—Chile, China, India, Mexico, Singapore, and the United States—exploring how each one defines, supports, and cultivates those competencies that students will need in order to succeed in the current century.
Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-First Century appears at a time of heightened attention to comparative studies of national education systems, and to international student assessments such as those that have come out of PISA (the Program for International Student Assessment), led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This book’s crucial contribution to the burgeoning field of international education arises out of its special attention to first principles—and thus to first questions: As Reimers and Chung explain, “much can be gained by an explicit investigation of the intended purposes of education, in what they attempt to teach students, and in the related questions of why those purposes and how they are achieved.”
These questions are crucial to education practice and reform at a time when educators (and the students they serve) face unique, pressing challenges. The book’s detailed attention to such questions signals its indispensable value for policy makers, scholars, and education leaders today. (Harvard Education Press, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Fernando M. Reimers is the Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and director of the International Education Policy Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
By Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh
For the first time an award-winning Harvard professor shares his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how these ancient ideas can guide you on the path to a good life today.
These astonishing teachings emerged two thousand years ago through the work of a succession of Chinese scholars exploring how humans can improve themselves and their society. And what are these counterintuitive ideas? Good relationships come not from being sincere and authentic, but from the rituals we perform within them. Influence comes not from wielding power but from holding back. Excellence comes from what we choose to do, not our natural abilities. A good life emerges not from planning it out, but through training ourselves to respond well to small moments. Transformation comes not from looking within for a true self, but from creating conditions that produce new possibilities.
In other words, The Path upends everything we are told about how to lead a good life. Above all, unlike most books on the subject, its most radical idea is that there is no path to follow in the first place—just a journey we create anew at every moment by seeing and doing things differently. Sometimes voices from the past can offer possibilities for thinking afresh about the future. (Simon & Schuster, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History, and chairs the Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University. He is also a Harvard College Professor.
Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity In Bangkok
By Michael Herzfeld
What happens when three hundred alleged squatters go head-to-head with an enormous city government looking to develop the place where they live? As anthropologist Michael Herzfeld shows in this book, the answer can be surprising. He tells the story of Pom Mahakan, a tiny enclave in the heart of old Bangkok whose residents have resisted authorities’ demands to vacate their homes for a quarter of a century. It’s a story of community versus government, of old versus new, and of political will versus the law.
Herzfeld argues that even though the residents of Pom Mahakan have lost every legal battle the city government has dragged them into, they have won every public relations contest, highlighting their struggle as one against bureaucrats who do not respect the age-old values of Thai/Siamese social and cultural order. Such values include compassion for the poor and an understanding of urban space as deeply embedded in social and ritual relations. In a gripping account of their standoff, Herzfeld—who simultaneously argues for the importance of activism in scholarship—traces the agile political tactics and styles of the community’s leadership, using their struggle to illuminate the larger difficulties, tensions, and unresolved debates that continue to roil Thai society to this day. (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
Weatherhead Faculty Associate Michael Herzfeld is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences and the curator of European ethnology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.
Pursuing Sustainability: A Guide to the Science and Practice
By Pamela Matson, William C. Clark, and Krister Andersson
Sustainability is a global imperative and a scientific challenge like no other. This concise guide provides students and practitioners with a strategic framework for linking knowledge with action in the pursuit of sustainable development, and serves as an invaluable companion to more narrowly focused courses dealing with sustainability in particular sectors such as energy, food, water, and housing, or in particular regions of the world.
Written by leading experts, Pursuing Sustainability shows how more inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches and systems perspectives can help you achieve your sustainability objectives. It stresses the need for understanding how capital assets are linked to sustainability goals through the complex adaptive dynamics of social-environmental systems, how committed people can use governance processes to alter those dynamics, and how successful interventions can be shaped through collaborations among researchers and practitioners on the ground.
The ideal textbook for undergraduate and graduate students and an invaluable resource for anyone working in this fast-growing field, Pursuing Sustainability also features case studies, a glossary, and suggestions for further reading. (Princeton University Press, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate William C. Clark is the Harvey Brooks Professor of International Science, Public Policy, and Human Development, Harvard Kennedy School.
Reflections on Memory and Democracy
Edited by Merilee S. Grindle and Erin E. Goodman
What is the role of history in the life of new democracies? In this volume, twelve reflections—the work of journalists, writers and poets, literary critics, political scientists, historians, philosophers, economists, and linguists—explore legacies of authoritarian political regimes noted for repression and injustice, questioning how collective experiences of violence shape memory and its relevance for contemporary social and political life in Latin America. The past matters deeply, the essayists agree, but the past itself is debatable and ambiguous. Avoiding its repetition introduces elusive and contested terrain; there are, indeed, many histories, many memories, and many ways they can be reflected in democratic contexts. In much of contemporary Latin America, this difficult past has not yet been fully confronted, and much remains to be done in reconciling memory and democracy throughout the region. As this is done, the lessons of the past must contribute not only to the construction of democratic institutions, but also to the engagement of democratic citizens in the collective work of governance and participation. (Harvard University Press, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate (emerita) Merilee S. Grindle is the Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development, Emerita, Harvard Kennedy School.
What Works: Gender Equality by Design
By Iris Bohnet
Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back, and de-biasing people’s minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Diversity training programs have had limited success, and individual effort alone often invites backlash. Behavioral design offers a new solution. By de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts. Presenting research-based solutions, Iris Bohnet hands us the tools we need to move the needle in classrooms and boardrooms, in hiring and promotion, benefiting businesses, governments, and the lives of millions.
What Works is built on new insights into the human mind. It draws on data collected by companies, universities, and governments in Australia, India, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and other countries, often in randomized controlled trials. It points out dozens of evidence-based interventions that could be adopted right now and demonstrates how research is addressing gender bias, improving lives and performance. What Works shows what more can be done—often at shockingly low cost and surprisingly high speed. (Harvard University Press, 2016)
Iris Bohnet is Professor of Public Policy and the director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is also part of the research team for the Weatherhead Initiative on Gender Inequality.
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
By Matthew Desmond
In this heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the twenty dollars a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut. All are spending almost everything they have on rent, and all have fallen behind.
Even in the most desolate areas of American cities, evictions used to be rare. But today, most poor renting families are spending more than half of their income on housing, and eviction has become ordinary, especially for single mothers. In vivid, intimate prose, Desmond provides a ground-level view of one of the most urgent issues facing America today. As we see families forced into shelters, squalid apartments, or more dangerous neighborhoods, we bear witness to the human cost of America’s vast inequality—and to people’s determination and intelligence in the face of hardship.
Based on years of embedded fieldwork and painstakingly gathered data, this book transforms our understanding of extreme poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving a devastating, uniquely American problem. Its unforgettable scenes of hope and loss remind us of the centrality of home, without which nothing else is possible. (Penguin Random House, 2016)
Weatherhead Center Faculty Associate Matthew Desmond is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University.