Current Issue

Table of Contents

Economic Growth in the Anthropocene
By Partha Dasgupta
The explosion of global economic activity following the Second World War coincides with a
new geological time, the Anthropocene, where humans are the main factor in the broader
Earth system. A feature of this coincidence is the decumulation of natural capital (wetlands,
grasslands, biomes such as the oceans and soils, etc.). To better understand this
decumulation and its relation to broader human economic activity, I here focus on the
maintenance and regulating services that undergird natural capital (climate regulation,
decomposition of waste, nitrogen fixation, etc.). From this focus, I propose a model relating
human ecological footprint and stocks of natural capital. I close by offering some policy
proposals to regulate this relationship going forward. Click here to read.

The Future of the United States Is in Africa
By Neeraj Kaushal
In the second half of the twenty-first century, Africa will emerge as the primary source of new immigration to the United States. A confluence of global demographic and economic forces will drive this shift. Such migration will meet US needs no less than those of African migrants. African immigrants will not outnumber African Americans, but they will dramatically alter the composition of black America and the racial mix of political and economic elites in the US. Click here to read.

From Progress to Pessimism: The Case of Sweden (and Europe Too)
By Leif Pagrotsky
Sweden recently installed one of the most right-wing governments in Europe, a four-party bloc including the contractual support of the far-right nationalist party, the Sweden Democrats. This article argues that citizens’ lack of trust in a perceived inefficient economic and political system, one that therefore doesn’t work for all citizens, is a dominant political factor all over Europe, including Sweden. Click here to read.

Women vs. Capitalism
By Vicky Pryce
Gender equality has so far eluded us. There are still many restrictions on women’s employability across the world. Even among developed free market–type economies, pay gaps and scant representation in senior positions remain. Indeed, progress has stalled in recent years leaving women more likely to be ghettoized in lower wage occupations and subject to conscious and unconscious bias with negative impacts on productivity, growth, and general well-being. It seems that capitalism, unaided, won’t solve it. Click here to read.

Capitalism and the Challenge of Inequality
By Andrzej Rapaczynski
Rapidly rising income and wealth inequality in the United States and other Western countries has been commonly identified as an inherent and nefarious feature of the capitalist system. In fact, however, rising inequality within the economically advanced countries has been accompanied by both a significant relative improvement of the economic and social position of the previously disadvantaged groups, such as women and ethnic minorities, and an unprecedented reduction of the inequalities between the people living in the advanced countries and the rest of the world. This change is largely due to the phenomenon of globalization that brought the advantages of the capitalist economic system to the developing world. Rising inequality is also an effect of the deep technological transformation of Western economies in which an increasing share of national wealth is produced by a much smaller number of highly skilled and educated people than had ever been the case in the past. To be sure, the growing inequality does raise the specter of political instability and may call for some counteracting redistributive measures. But the most important condition of all such measures is not to base them on a theory that might undermine the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the capitalist market economy. A program of restituting to the descendants of American slaves the value of the labor unjustly taken from their ancestors might both alleviate some of the existing inequalities and reduce racial animosities, while at the same affirm the liberal commitment to the institutions of private property and inheritance. A provision of a certain amount of capital to each high-school-graduating student might widen and equalize their opportunities, while giving them a stake in the free market economy and redefining the concept of American citizenship. Click here to read the paper.

Adam Smith on the Origins and Consequences of Human Action in Society and Economy
By Vernon L. Smith
The year 2023 in human intellectual history marked the 300th anniversary of the birth of Adam Smith (1723–1790), Scottish Enlightenment scholar par excellence who shaped the Western sweep of free liberal migrants and their national constitutions that have influenced so much of the world. Smith’s own spirit was free, inspired others, and articulated a homegrown response that redefined the British colonial policy that helped make America. This essay considers Smith’s intellectual trajectory, his theories of sociability, and his wit. Click here to read.

Edmund Phelps, Creative Nobelist: Review of Phelps’s My Journeys in Economic Theory (2023)
By Tunku Varadarajan
This review of Edmund Phelps's memoir, My Journeys in Economic Theory, first appeared under a different title in the Wall Street Journal on May 12, 2023. Click here to read.