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  • Published: 23 April 2024
  • ISBN: 9780241703137
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $36.99
Categories:

Growth

A Reckoning




A revelatory account of the past, present, and future of economic growth - and how we should rethink it

Over the past two centuries, economic growth has freed billions from poverty and made our lives far healthier and longer. As a result, the unfettered pursuit of growth defines economic life around the world. Yet this prosperity has come at an enormous price: deepening inequalities, destabilizing technologies, environmental destruction and climate change.

Confusion reigns. For many, in our era of anaemic economic progress, the worry is slowing growth - in the UK, Europe, China and elsewhere. Others understandably claim, given its costs, that the only way forward is through 'degrowth', deliberating shrinking our economies.

At this time of uncertainty about growth and its value, award-winning economist Daniel Susskind has written an essential reckoning. In a sweeping analysis full of historical insight, he argues that we cannot abandon growth but shows instead how we must redirect it, making it better reflect what we truly value. He explores what really drives growth, and offers original ideas for combatting our economic slowdown.

Lucid, thought-provoking and brilliantly researched, Growth: A Reckoning is a vital guide to one of our greatest preoccupations.

  • Published: 23 April 2024
  • ISBN: 9780241703137
  • Imprint: Allen Lane
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 368
  • RRP: $36.99
Categories:

Also by Daniel Susskind

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Praise for Growth

Daniel Susskind is a compelling, insightful thinker on the largest and most fundamental economic topics. At a time when traditional notions of growth are increasingly being questioned, this book is profoundly important. Agree or disagree, anyone who wants to engage with the broad direction of economic policy needs to reckon with Susskind's views

Larry Summers

What type of economic growth we should pursue, how much of it, and for whose benefit will be crucial questions in the years to come, especially if current trends—more and more inequality, and an increasing concentration of power among the select few companies shaping the future of technology—continue. This well-written, thought-provoking book is essential reading for anybody interested in these epochal debates.

Daron Acemoglu, author of WHY NATIONS FAIL

For two centuries, economic growth has meant longer lives, better health, and material comfort. But has growth now come to an end? What can be done to restart the engine? Or should we halt growth deliberately, given its environmental costs? This panoramic book addresses the most fundamental economic questions from a deeply ethical perspective

Diane Coyle, Bennet Professor of Public Policy at Cambridge University and author of GDP: A BRIEF BUT AFFECTIONATE HISTORY

Growth – the lack of it, the search for it, the barriers to it – is the challenge at the core of most political debates and with which all politicians struggle. Susskind's study is a tour de force.

Gordon Brown

Daniel Susskind writes with verve, style and conviction about one of the most important issues of our age

Rory Stewart

This is a wonderfully elegant and authoritative explanation-cum-manifesto for what is perhaps the most important economic issue facing us today - the mystery of economic growth and what we need to do to solve it

Andy Haldane

Helpful for working out how to think about growth... His policy prescriptions centre on how to generate new ideas.

Soumaya Keynes, Financial Times

An ambitious attempt to resolve the growth dilemma.

Edward Chancellor, TLS

Clear and sensibleGrowth succeeds smartly as a history of thought

Wall Street Journal

Daniel Susskind provides a timely and thought-provoking book on the history of economic growth… well worth a read… it documents and unpicks much of what is taken for granted about growth. In doing so, it highlights the challenges that currently confront growth but concludes on an optimistic note

Guy Debelle, former Central Banker, Australian Financial Review

Insightful... a readable and useful introduction to the green-growth perspective

Nature

A forensic look at the whole issue of growth... his call for innovative ways to encourage and apply new ideas is thought-provoking

Financial Times

The paradox of growth—that we suffer from both too much of it and too little of it—drives Susskind's book. His narration properly captures the astonishing triumphs of these shifts, even as he considers their dangers

The New Yorker

A reasoned response to the challenges created by economic growth… Susskind argues convincingly

Martin Wolf, Financial Times Best Summer Book 2024

This is an excellent book, developing a clear argument and not afraid to look really big questions squarely in the eye... Susskind believes in the innovative powers of humankind to develop ways to tackle successfully the trade-offs we face; arguing that we should treasure the future and strike out into it with confidence.

Dame Kate Barker, The Society of Professional Economists
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