Political Economy
Readings and Links
Suggested Reading
Frieden, Jeffry. Debt, Development, and Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
This book examines the role of debt on developing states.
Kennedy Paul. The Rise and Fall of Great Powers. New York: Vintage, 1989.
A more recent take on the ideas raised by Mancur Olson in The Rise and Decline of Nations.
Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. 1936. Reprint, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1997.
One of the founding documents of Keynesian economics, written by the man himself.
Landes, David. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: Norton, 1999.
This book theorizes about why some nations succeed economically while others fail repeatedly.
Marx, Karl. Das Kapital. Translated by Ben Fowkes. 1867. Reprint, New York: Penguin, 1992.
A dense and difficult account of capitalist economics from the father of modern socialism.
Olson, Mancur. The Rise and Decline of Nations. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.
A classic political economy work in which Olson explores how a strong economy positively and negatively affects a society.
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. 1776. Reprint, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993.
Another classic work, which deals with free-market economies and capitalism.
Useful Websites
The website of the Environmental Protection Agency, a key regulatory agency.
The website of the Federal Reserve Board.
The website of the International Monetary Fund.
The United States Department of the Treasury keeps a running tally of the U.S. national debt, updated daily, on this website.
The website of the Office of Management and Budget, which helps the president put the budget proposal together. The site includes the most recent federal budgets.
The website of the World Bank.
