Capitalism without Capital
The Rise of the Intangible Economy

By the second semester of my freshman year at Harvard, I had started going to classes I wasn’t signed up for, and had pretty much stopped going to any of the classes I was signed up for—except for an introduction to economics class called “Ec 10.” I was fascinated by the subject, and the professor w......more

I generally do not like the genre of popular business/economic trade books, but I will make an exception for this. This is a book by two economic researchers discussing the rise in importance of “intangible assets” in the global economy. The general punchline is that these sorts of assets are not we......more

The title “Capitalism Without Capital” tells part of the book’s story. The first half of the book is simply principles of macroeconomics with explanations for gross domestic product and other variables. I could have skipped that part without missing much of the story. In general, intangible capital,......more

An outstanding book that will change the way you think about the economy. Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake’s book has a sweeping premise but is grounded in the economics literature while taking great care to never overclaim. The strength of the book is taking an idea that is the subject of an incr......more

A large part of this book is just a recap of every significant piece of economic research that has been published over the last 40 years, including everything from Edward Glaeser's work on inter-industry spillovers in large cities to Sherwin Rosen's 1981 article on the "superstar economy." Yet the c......more