Outstanding Academic Titles 2025: Economics

Enjoy this week's Outstanding Academic Titles list snippet: Five titles pertaining to economics

Posted on January 15, 2026 in Outstanding Academic Titles

Enjoy these five selections from the Choice Reviews 2025 Outstanding Academic Titles list. This week, we highlight Outstanding Academic Titles focused on economics. A hearty congratulations to the winning authors, editors, and publishers!

1. Why states matter in economic development: the socioeconomic origins of strong institutions
Nawabi, Jawied. Routledge, 2024

What enables nations to become wealthy has been the subject of inquiry at least since the publication of Adam Smith’s 1776 magnum opus. The matter remains unresolved, especially with regard to the role of the government, but now Nawabi (CUNY) proposes to argue, compellingly and with empirical evidence, that states are indispensable in the effort to promote economic development. This book goes beyond the shibboleths of good governance, inquiring into the conditions that are likely to engender an effective administration. Initial conditions matter: the nature of colonial experience could affect the prospects for the sustained and equitable economic progress of developing countries. In particular, the ensuing pattern of land ownership after independence is of paramount importance. If the landlords remain wealthy and powerful, they can bring malign influence to bear on policies on education, employment, infrastructure provision, and social programs, all of which serve to perpetuate their exalted standing while consigning large numbers of the population to lives of poverty and exploitation. Even democracies are not exempt: Brazil and India are case studies in attenuated development. But the salubrious experience of South Korea since the 1950s, and European countries even earlier, shows that states can succeed in providing fertile ground for development. View on Amazon

2. Inertia: purposeful inefficiencies in financial markets
by Yuval Millo, Crawford Spence, and James J. Valentine Columbia, 2025

The modern financial curriculum is built on the premise that markets are efficient—a cornerstone concept for evaluating stocks, bonds, and other securities. The authors of Inertia: Purposeful Inefficiencies in Financial Markets turn this paradigm on its head. With incisive questioning, they invite readers to reconsider long-standing beliefs by examining the true role of financial intermediaries. Are these players merely facilitators of price discovery, or do they engage in a tacit collusion that yields a mutually agreed-on, yet inherently inefficient, market price? Delving further, the book contrasts the impact of active and passive investors. It probes why active management persists in an environment where historical returns often favor passive strategies. The authors also explore technology’s transformative role in modern trading, challenging readers to rethink how digital tools reshape market dynamics. These inquiries, woven throughout the text, expose the nuanced interplay between theory and practice, suggesting that what is often accepted as market efficiency may hide a fabric of systematic inefficiencies. By inviting such thoughtful skepticism, Inertia critiques traditional valuation methods and encourages a reexamination of financial education itself. The work is a bold call to reimagine the forces at play in financial markets—a must read for anyone eager to understand the complexities behind market prices. View on Amazon

3. The measure of progress: counting what really matters
Coyle, Diane. Princeton, 2025

Coyle (public policy, Univ. of Cambridge, England) offers a full-ranging account of attempts to measure aggregate economic activity, which is important for understanding economic growth. Most enlightening is her analysis of the current system of national accounts, which builds on her previous book, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History (CH, Sep’14, 52-0370). Gross domestic product (GDP), as the default and most readily available statistic, receives detailed attention, going far beyond well-known issues of missed nonmarket activities and uncounted externalities. Coyle explores the growing problem of the “hard to measure” four-fifths of the economy, which makes so much invisible that we are uncertain about what constitutes economic growth or what accounts for the productivity slowdown. Based in large part on Coyle’s own pathbreaking research, The Measure of Progress examines the impact of the digital economy on dematerialization, disintermediation, apparently free products, and globalization. Coyle provides compelling examples of each and describes how these new economic relationships are not accurately measured in GDP. In a shorter section, Coyle describes alternatives to GDP, among which she favors either asset-based measures or time-use approaches. Interspersed with personal reflections, the writing style is lively, though the use of technical terms requires a background in economics. View on Amazon

4. Hayek’s bastards: race, gold, IQ, and the capitalism of the Far Right
Slobodian, Quinn. Zone Books, 2025

Slobodian (history, Boston Univ.) delivers a biting, significant examination of a neoliberal strand he labels the “new fusionism,” which employs scientific verbiage to validate social Darwinism’s latest variant. Its proponents, not long ago viewed as far outside the mainstream, have become a major force in American political and intellectual life as well as elsewhere. Purportedly drawing on the ideological underpinnings of F. A. Hayek while disavowing market-driven morality, they scientize neoliberal thought while damning “egalitarianism, global economic equality” and international solidarity. The new fusionists condemn the supposed “barbarian collectivism at the gate”; champion Alt-Right libertarianism and rigid, race-based hierarchies; and view democracy with absolute disdain. Supporting “the disappearance of the State”—other than when it serves their purposes—they extol “revolution of white Euro males,” an ethno-economy, the “metamarket,” genetic elitism, and anarcho-capitalism. According to Slobodian, Hayek’s wayward descendants favor hard borders, hardwired human variance, and hard money. While supposedly elevating “property, family, and ‘Christian values,’” they idolize “economic shock therapy … social conservatism and authoritarianism” in the fashion of Javier Milei and, evidently, Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This thought-provoking work is recommended for all academic libraries and larger general ones. View on Amazon.

5. The young Fed: the banking crises of the 1920s and the making of a lender of last resort
Carlson, Mark. Chicago, 2025

The Young Fed is an outstanding introduction to the Federal Reserve’s adolescence. Many think of the Great Depression as the Fed’s first major challenge, but Carlson, an advisor for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, shows that the Fed learned important lessons on how to deal with banking crises in the 1920s. Carlson gives an overview of the economic history of the 1920s. He highlights the instability in commodity markets and the banking sector to set the table for his third chapter, which discusses the tools the Fed had at its disposal to assist banks in need. The fourth chapter focuses on the philosophical issues that the Fed Banks had to confront when deciding which banks to help and which should be allowed to fail. The book ends with an excellent chapter on case studies where the Fed intervened in banking crises and a chapter that draws parallels between the 1920s and banking crises from the modern era. Carlson’s book is a particularly rich exploration of the early years of the Fed because it draws on exceptional sources: a survey sent to six of the Fed Banks in 1927 and reports by the Comptroller of the Currency from the National Archives.  View on Amazon.

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