Recent BooksSeptember/October 2019 225the global economy since 2007 should
change economists’ understanding o
macroeconomic policy. One obvious point
is that economists should pay much more
attention to the ¿nancial system and its
inÇuence on production and employment,
as well as to the policies that might
strengthen the system against external
shocks and destabilizing internal dynam-
ics. Many o the contributors also
argue that over the past decade, econo-
mies in Europe and North America
have relied too much on monetary
policy to shore up weak growth and not
enough on government taxing and
spending to boost demand. They note
that allowing capital to Çow freely
across borders, as it now does in many
parts o the world, creates severe
problems for emerging-market coun-
tries trying to manage their monetary
policies and currency exchange rates.
One disappointing omission is the lack
o a discussion o the inÇuence o
accounting rules on corporate behavior
and economic stability.Titans of the Climate: Explaining Policy
Process in the United States and China
BY KELLY SIMS GALLAGHER AND
XIAOWEI XUAN. MIT Press, 2019,
272 pp.This collaboration between an American
scholar-ocial and a Chinese counter-
part seeks to demystify how their
respective governments make and
execute policy and explores the two
countries’ diering motivations, proce-
dures, and constraints. The authors
focus on environmental policy, espe-
cially the 2014 agreement between
China and the United States, the two
largest emitters o greenhouse gases,the federal government is now less well
equipped to deal with one when it
eventually occurs.
Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade,
Immigration, and Global Capital
BY KIMBERLY CLAUSING. Harvard
University Press, 2019, 360 pp.
Amid a growing backlash against inter-
national economic interdependence,
Clausing makes a strong case in favor o
foreign trade in goods and services, the
cross-border movement o capital, and
immigration. This valuable book
amounts to a primer on globalization,
explaining without jargon both its
bene¿ts and its costs. The former, in her
view, greatly outweigh the latter, but
she also oers constructive proposals to
reduce globalization’s downsides.
Clausing’s ¿eld o expertise is tax
avoidance and evasion by multinational
corporations, which employ hordes o
well-paid lawyers to take advantage o
loopholes in national tax laws and
swarms o lobbyists to help create and
maintain those loopholes. Clausing
argues that the tax reform passed by the
U.S. Congress in 2017 contains many
moves in the wrong direction.
Evolution or Revolution: Rethinking
Macroeconomic Policy After the Great
Recession
EDITED BY OLIVIER BLANCHARD
AND LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS.
MIT Press, 2019, 392 pp.
This thought-provoking and accessible
collection o reÇections by economists,
central bankers, and government
ocials explores how the unusual
circumstances that have characterized