Peddling Prosperity

Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist, looks at twenty years of economic disappointment and intense policy debate in the United States and the rise of the policy entrepreneur, who sells easy answers to hard problems. He covers the productivity slowdown since the 1970s and the swing of economic ideology from left to right and back. Krugman faults the supply-siders who came to power with Ronald Reagan, whose remedy he says cured nothing and left a $3 trillion bill, and criticizes monetarism and rational expectations. On the left, he takes aim at the strategic traders, who picture the U.S. economy in win-lose competition with other countries. Part of the subtitle recalls his earlier Age of Diminished Expectations.

The book sits on the shelves Eric Weinstein showed on Twitter as titles important enough to keep when he cleared out an office.