Here are 100 books that Handbook of Defense Economics fans have personally recommended if you like
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I'm Associate Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, USA. My expertise is in conflict, war, and peace economics. I'm deeply motivated to understand the broader impacts of violent conflicts in low-income countries with the hope that doing so will pave the way for us to live in a more harmonious world. Recently, I've been interested in economics of cultural heritage destruction during violent conflicts. My aim is to understand patterns of heritage destruction in the past such that we can incorporate heritage destruction in atrocity forecasting models of today. I'm just as passionate to teach what I have learned over the years and what I'm curious to explore in the future.
In this book we learn that our actions are shaped by that of others or by our expectation of what others will do.
If, for example, a white neighbor leaves the neighborhood upon seeing a minority family move in, other white neighbors are likely to follow suit if they expect more white neighbors to move out and more minorities to move in. If a critical mass of white neighbors adopts this behavior, the result is a segregated neighborhood.
Applied this idea to the study of mass atrocities, we understand mass participation in mass atrocities as not a result of moral failure, but a social phenomenon driven by imitating nature and belonging need of the humankind. This understanding humanizes the mass perpetrators of an atrocity and opens space for reconciliation.
"Schelling here offers an early analysis of 'tipping' in social situations involving a large number of individuals." -official citation for the 2005 Nobel Prize
Micromotives and Macrobehavior was originally published over twenty-five years ago, yet the stories it tells feel just as fresh today. And the subject of these stories-how small and seemingly meaningless decisions and actions by individuals often lead to significant unintended consequences for a large group-is more important than ever. In one famous example, Thomas C. Schelling shows that a slight-but-not-malicious preference to have neighbors of the same race eventually leads to completely segregated populations.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Born of refugee parents, I grew up stateless in occupied, cold war-era Berlin, Germany. It is perhaps not surprising that the how and why of war, and the economic deprivation and poverty it produces, came to be my professional interest. I earned a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and became a professor of economics with specialties in development economics and the economics of conflict, war, and peace. I like “grazing” along disciplinary boundaries and have written on economic aspects of military history, the economics of the firearms market, the impact of war on nature, and the economics of genocides and other mass atrocities.
In his heyday, Kenneth Boulding was among America’s leading intellectuals across the natural and social sciences. A cofounder of the fields of ecological economics and of peace economics, he also wrote poetry.
Well-known books of his include The Image and Conflict and Defense, but I like the little Stable Peace the best. Just 143 pages long, it takes peace seriously, not as a utopian ideal but as a practical policy option. Boulding asks: as a scientific matter, what might it take to reach stable peace?
If nothing else, you will enjoy both the power of his concepts and of his writing. If phrases like “policy is social agriculture” don’t stop and engage you, what will?
The human race has often put a high value on struggle, strife, turmoil, and excitement. Peace has been regarded as a utopian, unattainable, perhaps dull ideal or as some random element over which we have no control. However, the desperate necessities of the nuclear age have forced us to take peace seriously as an object of both personal and national policy. Stable Peace attempts to answer the question, If we had a policy for peace, what would it look like?
A policy for peace aims to speed up the historically slow, painful, but persistent transition from a state of continual…
Born of refugee parents, I grew up stateless in occupied, cold war-era Berlin, Germany. It is perhaps not surprising that the how and why of war, and the economic deprivation and poverty it produces, came to be my professional interest. I earned a doctoral degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame (USA) and became a professor of economics with specialties in development economics and the economics of conflict, war, and peace. I like “grazing” along disciplinary boundaries and have written on economic aspects of military history, the economics of the firearms market, the impact of war on nature, and the economics of genocides and other mass atrocities.
Most people in most countries grow up learning to think of security in terms of the use, or threat of use, of military force against actual or potential adversaries. But can security not also be achieved by nonmilitary means?
For one thing, the idea of security is not limited to security from military attack. Threats to physical survival, health, economic wellbeing, environmental resources, and political rights all illustrate a larger version of the security we seek.
A master of well-structured, systemic thinking, in this book Fischer introduces a powerful way to apply a simple concept taken from engineering science to creatively address pressing human problems.
Current agreements and negotiations on disarmament have clearly economic implications. Their effect abnd their perception remain inadequately known and uncertain. Based on the analysis of the actual disarmament process, this book questions a number of "sacred cows" frequently encountered in international fora and thinking on economic aspects of disarmament. The long debated link between disarmament and development for example is critically examined. Similarly the very idea that disarmement would yield automatic returns - the famous peace dividend - is called into question. At the same time, conversion also has its cost. For the purpose of the research which led to…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I'm Associate Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, USA. My expertise is in conflict, war, and peace economics. I'm deeply motivated to understand the broader impacts of violent conflicts in low-income countries with the hope that doing so will pave the way for us to live in a more harmonious world. Recently, I've been interested in economics of cultural heritage destruction during violent conflicts. My aim is to understand patterns of heritage destruction in the past such that we can incorporate heritage destruction in atrocity forecasting models of today. I'm just as passionate to teach what I have learned over the years and what I'm curious to explore in the future.
I bought Kalyvas’s book back in 2009 as a doctoral student looking to understand the social science literature on civil war violence and finished reading it only in 2023 as an associate professor interested in studying target choice for a class I was teaching.
Though singularly focused on civil wars, the book goes deep in constructing theoretical arguments to support the premise of the book and travels broad in applying the models across various civil wars. It teaches readers to look beneath the surface to understand what we observe on the outside.
It is a great resource for those looking for good examples of how to develop a theoretical model. Finally, I also highly recommend this book to graduate students looking for research ideas.
By analytically decoupling war and violence, this book explores the causes and dynamics of violence in civil war. Against the prevailing view that such violence is an instance of impenetrable madness, the book demonstrates that there is logic to it and that it has much less to do with collective emotions, ideologies, and cultures than currently believed. Kalyvas specifies a novel theory of selective violence: it is jointly produced by political actors seeking information and individual civilians trying to avoid the worst but also grabbing what opportunities their predicament affords them. Violence, he finds, is never a simple reflection of…
I'm Associate Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, USA. My expertise is in conflict, war, and peace economics. I'm deeply motivated to understand the broader impacts of violent conflicts in low-income countries with the hope that doing so will pave the way for us to live in a more harmonious world. Recently, I've been interested in economics of cultural heritage destruction during violent conflicts. My aim is to understand patterns of heritage destruction in the past such that we can incorporate heritage destruction in atrocity forecasting models of today. I'm just as passionate to teach what I have learned over the years and what I'm curious to explore in the future.
This book asks policymakers to look beyond incentives when designing policies.
Whether we are trying do something at a personal level, such as have our children do chores, or achieve something much bigger, such as combat obesity, designing appropriate incentives (carrots or sticks) is generally believed to help us achieve our goals.
Bowles warns us that this view assumes that incentives and morality are independent and that such view is faulty. Numerous experimental evidence attests to his argument. In its stead, he suggests shaping norms as a much more viable option.
When I presented these concepts in my economics elective this semester, one student commented that this was a “paradigm shift” in their understanding of economics; hence, the reason why I recommend this book.
Why do policies and business practices that ignore the moral and generous side of human nature often fail?
Should the idea of economic man-the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus-determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding "no." Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may "crowd out" ethical and generous motives and thus backfire.
But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the…
I am a Full Professor and Lab Director in Economics. My interest in this field began when I traveled abroad and observed the differences in prices, goods, and quality of life. In order to gain a deeper understanding, I decided to switch from my previous academic background in Engineering, Mathematics & Physics to Economics, Finance & Data Science. Today, I am dedicated to expanding my knowledge and sharing my insights through teaching, academic publications, and LinkedIn posts. According to the latest rankings, I am humbled to be among the top 3% most productive economists worldwide (IDEAS-RePec, 2023), as well as being ranked among the top 4% researchers in Financial Economics, and the top 5% in Econometrics (Researchgate, 2023).
I enjoyed reading this book as it provided a deep, and engaging overview of economic theory.
The authors manage to strike a balance between providing a high-level theoretical discussion and making the content accessible to a wider audience. One thing that stood out to me was the authors' emphasis on the diversity of the various schools of economic thought.
In their work, they avoid the common pitfall of suggesting that the history of Economics has “ended”, and instead observe the evolution of economic theory over time. Also, I appreciate the fact that they do not believe that theories in fashion today necessarily provide an adequate explanation for the functioning of the economy.
Overall, I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining insight into Economics’ controversial development.
This book provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter, and modern theories are presented as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between pure historians of thought who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying facts, and pure theorists who are interested in the evolution of the logical structure of theories.
The second edition contains several changes and additions. The authors give due consideration…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am passionate about the dissemination of economic ideas both inside and outside university spaces. In addition to classroom lectures at my university, I give a lot of public lectures on economics. Through these talks, I introduce the audience to the tradition of doing economics using a critical perspective. I have an MA and MPhil in Economics from the University of Hyderabad and a PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney.
This book on measurement in economics was published in 1951. Stone discusses the link between theory and empirics in this book.
I like this slim book of Stone’s because it shows the strengths and weakness of empirical exercises in economics. It also raises foundational questions regarding empirical constructs.
Books like this allow us to ask foundational questions regarding the links between theory and empirics in economics as well as theory and applications in statistics.
First published in 1951, and originally delivered as the Newmarch Lectures for 1948-9, this book examines the role of measurement in obtaining and applying economic knowledge. Esteemed economist Richard Stone, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, divides his topic into four sections: questions of fact and empirical constructs; the truth or falsity of a hypothesis; the estimation of parameters; and questions of prediction. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economics and the development of the discipline.
I am an economics professor who believes my profession has important things to contribute to society but has done a poor job. My colleagues spend much of their time writing esoteric articles that 6 other academics will read, and one in a million will actually improve the lives of people. I consider myself a “blue-collar academic”; I am basically a farm kid (still live on a small farm) with a bunch of degrees attempting to bring good economic insights to more people so those ideas can be applied and used by real people living real lives so I am always on the search for others who are doing just that.
So many people miss the fact that economics is a social science; it is about us as people, and I love this book because it does not forget that, indeed, it reminds me that everyone is an amateur practicing economist.
I like this book because it applies economics to every day and not-so-everyday situations and explains how people can use economic ideas to practically make their lives better. It is one of the few books I have read that has changed a common activity I do: what I order at a restaurant.
In Discover Your Inner Economist one of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant.
Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen shows how economic notions--such as incentives, signals, and markets--apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business. What does economic theory say about ordering from a menu? Or attracting the right mate? Or controlling people who talk too much in meetings?…
I grew up listening to my grandfathers tell stories about the Great Depression (1930s). My cousins would want me to go out and play, but I wanted to stay indoors and listen to the stories. The Depression proved my grandfathers were not the best cotton farmers, but they were good storytellers, and I ended up an economics professor. Along the way, I ran across a thought from renowned British philosopher Francis Bacon: “Histories make men wise, poets, witty, mathematics, subtle;” Modern economics has gone in for subtlety, and maybe is a little too careless of wisdom. This thought sent me delving deeper into economic history, and I ended up writing five books in economics history.
This book is perhaps one of the best-kept secrets in economics, overshadowed by Keynes’ more path-breaking General Theory, but oozing with wisdom on every page. Here Keynes transcends the bounds of economics. In his words: “It is one of the objects of this book to urge that the best way to cure this mortal disease of individualism is to provide there shall never exist any confident expectation either that prices are generally going to fall or that they are going to rise; and also that there shall be no serious risk that a movement, if it does occur, will be a big one.” Of course, inflation is the subject here. Its writing style alone elevates it above the commonplace. In this book, the reader finds the balance of practical judgment found in the best economists.
This book, is devoted to the need for stable currency as the essential foundation of a healthy world economy. Describing the various effects of unstable currency on investors, business people, and wage earners, Keynes recommends the implementation of policies that aim at achieving stability of the commodity value of the dollar rather than the gold value. Keynes's brilliant, clear analysis of the world monetary situation at the beginning of the twentieth century, with his many suggestions and his masterful elucidation of economic principles, stands as a vital primer for anyone interested in developing a better understanding of basic economics and…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
We are law professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Eyal Zamir is interested in the intersections of law, economics, ethics, and psychology. In addition to theoretical studies of these issues, he engages in experimental legal studies, as well. Barak Medina studies constitutional law, human rights, and economic analysis of law. He is interested in constitutional interpretation and the interaction between common-sense morality, public opinion and adjudication.
This collection of essays by some of the leading contemporary scholars in ethics and in economics provides both critical surveys of the various interactions between these two bodies of thought and original suggestions for future advancements in this important intersection.
The collection includes both general and theoretical inquiries and more specific applications. It may be of interest both to academics (scholars and students) and to policymakers and laypersons.
Economics and ethics are both valuable tools for analyzing the behavior and actions of human beings and institutions. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, considered them two sides of the same coin, but since economics was formalized and mathematicised in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the fields have largely followed separate paths.
The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics provides a timely and thorough survey of the various ways ethics can, does, and should inform economic theory and practice. The first part of the book, Foundations, explores how the most prominent schools of moral philosophy relate to economics;…
