ECONOMICS

The past two decades have seen a global financial crisis, increasing levels of inequality, a pandemic and the intensification of the climate emergency. As debate rages about how to ensure a fairer society, this book asks where we want to be in 20 years’ time and how we might get there.

UK and US pension policy expects consistently informed decision-making in finance. Deviating from this is often deemed “irrational”, ignoring uncontrollable factors in individuals’ lives.

Challenging existing policy approaches, this book proposes a fresh perspective on rationality when it comes to financial policy and practices.

This book takes a critical political economy approach to understanding food insecurity in Canada and the UK. It provides a vision of a future whereby public control over the distribution of resources –including food – will eliminate food insecurity and other conditions that threaten health.

Combining robust evidence with real-life stories, this book reveals the shocking impact of austerity policies on life expectancy and offers an optimistic vision of what can be done to restore life expectancy and reduce health inequality.

Given the destructive consequences of capitalism, it has never been more urgent to reconsider democratic planning. But how can we construct this in realistic terms? This accessible work bridges current movements with academic and public discourse to offer an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to planning in the 21st century.

This pioneering work debunks the neoliberal origin myth of how capitalism came into the world. Rössner follows the development of capitalism from the Middle Ages through the industrial revolution to the modern day, casting new light on the areas where premodern political economies of growth and development made a difference.

This landmark book charts the rollercoaster history of both rich and poor, and the mechanisms that link them. Stewart Lansley examines the ideological rifts that have driven society back to the divisions of the past and asks why rich and poor citizens are still judged by very different standards.

Over recent years, a series of challenges including Brexit and the rise of Euroscepticism, have manifested in landmark moments for European integration. First published as a special issue of Global Discourse, this edited collection investigates whether these crises are isolated phenomena or symptoms of a deeper malaise across the EU.

This edited collection analyses recent changes in the private rental housing market, using case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA, and assesses the initial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book draws on comparative and international political economy to explore alternative options for future economic development in the wake of COVID-19. Covering all major infrastructures of contemporary capitalism affected by the pandemic, it analyses the impacts of the crisis on our global socio-economic-political systems.

Bringing together philosophical insights with social theory, this book develops a better understanding of the role luck plays in generating and reinforcing inequality. The author offers a political economy of life chances and an analysis of durable and demonstrable social inequalities, revealing how they are sustained and reproduced.

Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.