Course: Syllabus

Inequality, Crises and 21^st Century Capitalism

Professor. Andrés Solimano
University of Economics, Prague

November 2014

Topics
The course is intended to give students an analytical and empirical overview of the main trends of global capitalism in the 21^st century. Special attention will be paid to the evolution of inequality, the rise of economic elites, the middle class and working class and the nature and effects of financial crises. The Latin American experience will be treated with more detail in a global context.

21st Century Capitalism: Concept and Historical Evolution.

Arrighi, G. (2010) The Long Twentieth Century. Money, Power and the Origins of Our Times. Verso, London, New York.

Frieden, J. (2006) Global Capitalism. Its fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, London.

Solimano, A. (2014) Economic Elites, Crises and Democracy, Beyond Neoliberal Capitalism, Oxford University Press.

Harvey, D. (2014) Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Oxford University Press.

Picketty, T. (2014) Capital in the 21^st Century. Harvard University Press.

Marx, K. and F. Engels (1848[1979]), The Communist Manifesto, Penguin books: London.

Blyth, M. (2011) Great Transformations. Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. .

Polanyi, K. (1944), The Great Transformation: Economic and political origins of our time, Rinehart: New York.

Marglin, S. A. and J.B. Schor (1991) The Golden Age of Capitalism. Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience. Oxford Clarendon Press.

Harvey, D. (2004) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press

Duménil, G. and D. Lévy (2011) The Crisis of Neoliberalism, Harvard University Press.

Inequality of Income and Wealth. Theory and Measurement.

Picketty, T. (2014) Capital in the 21^st Century. Harvard University Press

Lakner, C. and B. Milanovic (2013) “Global Income Distribution. From the Fall of the Berlin Wall to the Great Recession” World Bank

Atkinson, A., Picketty, T. and E. Saez (2011) “ Top Incomes in the Long run of History “ Journal of Economic Literature, 49,1-73.

Alvaredo, F., A. B. Atkinson, T. Piketty, and E. Saez: 2013, ‘The World Top Incomes Database’. http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/, Accessed 24/01/2013.

Davies, J. (2008), Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective, Oxford University Press.

Davies, J., S. Sandstrom, A. Shorrocks, and E. N. Wolff (2006), “The World Distribution of Household Wealth”, UNU-WIDER:Helsinki.Available at:www.iariw.org/papers/2006/davies.pdf

Solimano, Andrés (editor, 1998). Social Inequality, Values, Growth and the State, University of Michigan Press.

Forbes Magazine (2011), “The World’s Richest People. World’s Billionaires”, Online edition, available at: www.forbes.com.

L.F. Lopez-Calda and N. Lustig, editors, (2010) Declining Inequality in Latin America. A Decade of Progress? UNDP, New York and Brookings Institution, Washington DC.

Social Structure of 21st Century Capitalism: Economic Elites, The Middle Class and Labor

Solimano, A. (2014) Economic Elites, Crises and Democracy, Beyond Neoliberal Capitalism, Oxford University Press. Chapter 2 , 3 and 4.

Solimano, A., (2008), “The Middle Class and the Development Process”, Chapter 2 in A. Estache and D. Leipziger, editors, Stuck in the Middle. Is Fiscal Policy Failing the Middle Class?, Brookings Institution.

Atkinson, A., Picketty, T. and E. Saez (2011) “ Top Incomes in the Long run of History “ Journal of Economic Literature, 49,1-73.

Solimano, A. and D. Avanzini (2012) “The International mobility of Elites: Talent, Entrepreneurial and Political” CIGLOB Working Paper.

Wright-Mills, C. (1956[2000]),The Power Elite, Oxford University Press: New York.

Milanovic, B. and S. Yitzhaki (2002) “Decomposing World Income Distribution: Does the World have a Middle Class?” Review of Income and Wealth 48 (29:155-178.

Mooney, N. (2008) (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents. The Decline of the Professional Middle Class. Beacon Press, Boston.

Mosca, C. (1939) The Ruling Class, Elemnti di Scienza Politica.Mc Graw-Hill Book Company, New York, Toronto, London.

Pareto, V. (1991) The Rise and Fall of elites. An Application of Theoretical Sociology, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick (USA) and London (UK).

Stiglitz, J. (2011) “Of the 1 % by the 1 % for the 1%” Vanity Fair, May.

Solimano , A. (2010) International Migration in an Age of Crises and Globalization. Cambridge University Press

Solimano, A. , editor, (2008) The International Mobility of Talent. Oxford University Press.

Florida, R. (2005). The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent, HarperCollins: New York.

Bellamy Foster, J. and R. Mc Chesney (2012) The Endless Crisis. MR press, New York. Chapter 5.

Financial crises: Origin and Propagation.

Solimano, A. (2014) Economic Elites, Crises and Democracy, Beyond Neoliberal Capitalism, Oxford University Press. Chapters 5 and 6.

Reinhart, C. y Rogoff (2011 ) This Time is Different. Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

Stiglitz , J. (2010) Free Fall. America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy. W.W. Norton and Company.

Solimano, A. (2010), “How relevant is IMF Research on Macro-Financial Linkages to reduce the frequency of financial crisis and recessions in the World Economy? An Overview”, Paper prepared for the Independent Evaluation Office of the IMF.

The Latin American experience

UN-ECLAC (2011) La Hora de la Igualdad, Report, Santiago, Chile.

Solimano, A. (2012) Chile and the Neoliberal Trap. The Post Pinochet Era. Cambridge University Press.

L.F. Lopez-Calda and N. Lustig, editors, (2010) Declining Inequality in Latin America. A Decade of Progress? UNDP, New York and Brookings Institution, Washington DC.

Smith, P. (2005) Democracy in Latin America. Political Change in Comparative Perspective. Oxford University Press.