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Daniel Altman
Chief Economist, Big Think
Daniel Altman is Big Think's Chief Economist and an adjunct faculty member at New York University's Stern School of Business. Daniel wrote economic commentary for The Economist, The New York Times, and The International Herald Tribune before founding North Yard Economics, a non-profit consulting firm serving developing countries, in 2008. In between, he served as an economic advisor in the British government and wrote four books, most recently Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy.
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Plenty of people are happy for their leaders and bosses to make choices for them, as long as they probably would have made similar choices themselves. Yet when leaders and bosses don't truly represent the interests of their constituents and employees, nudging can be toxic.
Today Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times has posted a thoughtful blog about universal health coverage, inspired in part by the tragic events in Aurora, Colorado. I’ve been involved in the […]
Are the Republicans deliberately hurting the economy to hamper President Obama's chances of reelection, or are they just doing it because of misbegotten ideas?
Almost everyone agrees that poverty is not a good thing. Almost everyone would like to end poverty. Almost everyone would benefit from ending poverty. So why don’t we? To find […]
Gold is in fashion these days thanks to uncertainty in the global economy and worries that the United States and other countries will devalue their debts through inflation. Gold is valuable, and […]
Even economists aren't satisfied with gross domestic product and incomes anymore. Now we also want to know how happy people are and how much they feel they can realize their potential.
The challenge for democracies is to become just as farsighted as the state capitalist systems that have drawn the world's envy. But while we try to bring about this small revolution in our thinking, the state capitalists may be dealing with a much bigger revolution of their own.