Harvard University Press: 1090 books

Europe’s financial crisis cannot be blamed on the Euro, James contends in this probing exploration of the whys, whens, whos, and what-ifs of European monetary union. The current crisis goes deeper, to conundrums that were debated but not resolved at the time of the Euro’s invention. And, Euro or no Euro, these clashes will continue into the future.

Investigative journalism holds democracies and individuals accountable to the public. But important stories are going untold as news outlets shy away from the expense of watchdog reporting. Computational journalism, using digital records and data-mining algorithms, promises to lower the cost and increase demand among readers, James Hamilton shows.

Jenifer Van Vleck's fascinating history reveals the central role commercial aviation played in the United States' ascent to global preeminence in the twentieth century. As U.S. military and economic influence grew, the federal government partnered with the aviation industry to deliver American power...

Most leaders of the U.S. expansion in the years before the Civil War were southern slaveholders. As Matthew Karp shows, they were nationalists, not separatists. When Lincoln’s election broke their grip on foreign policy, these elites formed their own Confederacy not merely to preserve their property but to shape the future of the Atlantic world.

Our image of the Roman world is shaped by the writings of upper-class intellectuals. Yet most of the material evidence we have—art, architecture, household artifacts—belonged to artisans, merchants, and professionals. Roman culture as we have seen it with our own eyes is distinctly middle-class and requires a radically new framework of analysis.

One of the outstanding monetary theorists of the past 100 years, Lucas revolutionized our understanding of how money interacts with the real economy of production, consumption, and exchange. These 21 papers, published 1972–2007, cover core monetary theory and public finance, asset pricing, and the real effects of monetary instability.

Consumers, investors, and corporations orient their activities toward a future that contains opportunities and risks. How do these actors assess uncertainty? Jens Beckert adds a new chapter to the theory of capitalism by showing how fictional expectations drive modern economies—or throw them into crisis when imagined futures fail to materialize.

Understanding wealth—who has it, how they acquired it, how they preserve it—is crucial to addressing challenges facing the United States. Edward Wolff’s account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of U.S. wealth since 1900 provides a sober bedrock of facts and analysis. It will become an indispensable resource for future public debate.

On the disputed topic of U.S. college admissions, everyone agrees that this high-stakes competition is unfair. But few agree on what a fair process would be. Stressing transparency in evaluating applicants, Rebecca Zwick assesses the goals and criteria of different admissions policies and shows how they can fail to produce the desired results.

Tracing credit from colonial times to the present and highlighting its productive role in building national prosperity, Rowena Olegario probes questions that have divided Americans: Who should have access to credit? How should creditors assess creditworthiness? How can borrowers and lenders accommodate to the risks of a credit-dependent economy?

Changes in longevity, marriage, and the workplace have undermined Social Security, making the experience of old age increasingly unequal. Anne Alstott’s pragmatic, progressive revision would permit all Americans to retire between 62 and 76 but would provide generous early retirement benefits for workers with low wages or physically demanding jobs.

Based on quantitative comparisons of colleges since the 1970s, Charles Clotfelter reveals that despite the civil rights revolution, billions spent on financial aid, and the commitment of colleges to greater equality, stratification in higher education has grown starker. He explains why undergraduate education—unequal in 1970—is even more so today.

Gender equality is a moral and a business imperative. But unconscious bias holds us back and de-biasing minds has proven to be difficult and expensive. Behavioral design offers a new solution. Iris Bohnet shows that by de-biasing organizations instead of individuals, we can make smart changes that have big impacts—often at low cost and high speed.

First Amendment defenders greeted the Court's Citizens United ruling with enthusiasm, while electoral reformers recoiled in disbelief. Robert Post offers a constitutional theory that seeks to reconcile these sharply divided camps, and he explains how the case might have been decided in a way that would preserve free speech and electoral integrity.