Economics Audiobooks | Business & Economics

The John Deere Way: Performance that Endures

Renowned business author David Magee fuses both the interesting history and philosophy of one of America's most well-known companies in this entertaining aid for business management. While other American businesses are crumbling under low-cost foreign competition, John Deere Company thrives by maintaining such ideas as building the best product, being open for change and innovation, listening rather than leading and keeping virtuous business practices.

David Magee (Author), Thomas Anthony Penny, Thomas Penny (Narrator)

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Getting Personal In Business

Lindsay Andreotti and Brain Hilgendorf were successful executives in the business environment, and they noticed that business could be based on something more than compensatory relationships. Drawing upon timeless principles that define quality of life and intimacy in relationships, they have shaped them into practical business tools for executives, managers and employees

Brian Hilgendorf, Lindsay Andreotti (Author), Michael Toms (Narrator)

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The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More

The New York Times bestseller that introduced the business world to a future that's already here--now in paperback with a new chapter about Long Tail Marketing and a new epilogue. Winner of the Gerald Loeb Award for Best Business Book of the Year In the most important business book since The Tipping Point, Chris Anderson shows how the future of commerce and culture isn't in hits, the high-volume head of a traditional demand curve, but in what used to be regarded as misses--the endlessly long tail of that same curve. "It belongs on the shelf between The Tipping Point and Freakonomics." --Reed Hastings, CEO, Netflix "Anderson's insights . . . continue to influence Google's strategic thinking in a profound way." --Eric Schmidt, CEO, Google "Anyone who cares about media . . . must read this book." --Rob Glaser, CEO, RealNetworks

Chris Anderson (Author), Christopher Nissley (Narrator)

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Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives

Starting with the publication of their seminal bestseller, Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have given millions of readers new ways to think about personal life in today’s high-speed world with its constantly changing, seemingly random impacts on our businesses, governments, families and daily lives. Now, writing with the same rare grasp and clarity that made their earlier books classics, the Tofflers turn their attention to the revolution in wealth now sweeping the planet. And once again, they provide a penetrating, coherent way to make sense of the seemingly senseless. Revolutionary Wealth is about how tomorrow’s wealth will be created, and who will get it and how. But twenty-first-century wealth, according to the Tofflers, is not just about money, and cannot be understood in terms of industrial-age economics. Thus they write here about everything from education and child rearing to Hollywood and China, from everyday truth and misconceptions to what they call our “third job”—the unnoticed work we do without pay for some of the biggest corporations in our country. They show the hidden connections between extreme sports, chocolate chip cookies, Linux software and the “surplus complexity” in our lives as society wobbles back and forth between depressing decadence and a hopeful post-decadence. In their earlier work, the Tofflers coined the word “prosumer” for people who consume what they themselves produce. In Revolutionary Wealth they expand the concept to reveal how many of our activities—whether parenting or volunteering, blogging, painting our house, improving our diet, organizing a neighborhood council or even “mashing” music—pump “free lunch” from the “hidden” non-money economy into the money economy that economists track. Prosuming, they forecast, is about to explode and compel radical changes in the way we measure, make and manipulate wealth. Blazing with fresh ideas, Revolutionary Wealth provides readers with powerful new tools for thinking about—and preparing for—their future.

Alvin Toffler, Heidi Toffler (Author), Melissa Edris (Narrator)

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Wall Street and Its Mystery Men

For two centuries, Wall Street has symbolized American capitalism; since the early 20th century, it has been a financial symbol for the entire world. Wall Street’s development has been a story of technological change, business ingenuity and economic growth. Wall Street’s most important functions are investment banking and security trading; for much of its history, trading and speculation have bee a free and vigorous game of every man for himself. Since the 1930s, however, governments have paid an increasingly important role in shaping Wall Street, and the later 20th century has seen increasing global pressures as well. “Wall Street’s Mystery Men” reviews some of the most colorful and fascinating personalities from the past two centuries: J.P. Morgan, one of the greatest Wall Street titans, dominated the banking industry, organized American’s railroad and steel industries, and even bailed out the U.S. Treasury in 1895. Jay Gould was as famous as Morgan, but much more notorious; he tore down other empires to amass his own fortune. Hetty Green, Wall Street’s first female financier, parlayed a $6 million inheritance into a $100 million fortune, and feared assassination the entire time. Diamond Jim Brady was an emblem of the 1890s, whose activities showed a fascinating blend of shrewdness and luck. Jesse Livermore lived flamboyantly before meeting his ruin and tragic death.Bernard Baruch made a fortune in the Market, then moved on to politics and became a presidential advisor. Joseph Kennedy speculated his way to a $500 million fortune; he later headed the new Securities and Exchange Commission and fathered a U.S. President.

Ken Fisher, Robert Sobel (Author), Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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Thorstein Veblen and Institutionalism

Institutionalism is an economic point of view that emphasizes the role of social organization and structure in modern economic life. Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), an American son of Norwegian immigrants was instrumental in creating this school of thought in the early twentieth century, and he vigorously attacked what he regarded as the privileged “leisure class” in American. To Institutionalists, the important “institutions” of economic life include customs, habits, morals, and laws. These are believed to be more important in shaping economic life than are marketplace principles. Institutionalists emphasize a historical interpretation of social life, asserting that economic generalizations should be relevant to time and place. They believe that economics has few absolute principles, and therefore that economics cannot be a rigorous science. Institutionalist ideas greatly influenced economic policies that were created in response to the Great Depression. Among the most important followers of this tradition in the late twentieth century has been John Kenneth Galbraith.

Dr. William Peterson (Author), Lois Rukyser, Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never B

Author of the extremely popular "Dear Economist" column in Financial Times, Tim Harford reveals the economics behind everyday phenomena in this highly entertaining and informative book. Can a book about economics be fun to read? It can when Harford takes the reins, using his trademark wit to explain why it costs an arm and a leg to buy a cappuccino and why it's nearly impossible to purchase a decent used car. Supermarkets, coffee houses, airlines, insurance companies and more are sucking money from our wallets. To protect ourselves and our bank accounts, we must better understand why companies do what they do. Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "unequaled in its accessibility," The Undercover Economist is a sheer delight-and the one book on economics that every American should read.

Tim Harford (Author), Robert Ian Mackenzie (Narrator)

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Taxes, Estate Planning, and Asset Protection

To accumulate wealth, you must do more than invest well. You also must protect yourself (and your estate) against losses stemming from poor tax planning, vulnerability to lawsuits, property forfeiture laws, and probate. In the U.S., the first income tax was imposed from 1862 to 1870, to pay for the expenses of the Civil War. In 1894 another income tax was imposed, but was declared unconstitutional in 1895. After the Sixteenth Amendment was ratifies in 1913, income taxes were here to stay, and legal tax avoidance eventually becomes a concern of Americans of virtually all incomes. Tax avoidance techniques, or devices include tax havens, tax shelters, tax exempt bonds, life insurance, tax deferred annuities, retirement savings accounts, tax-deferred growth stocks, trusts, corporation, and transferring income to lower-bracket family members. Legal tax avoidance becomes illegal tax evasion if the taxpayer a (goes beyond the bounds of the law, and b) does so with the intent to evade taxes. While you are alive, other important threats to your assets include lawsuits (which increasingly make wealth vulnerable to aggressive litigants), and U.S. forfeiture laws (which can make property vulnerable to government agencies, even if you are not charged with a crime). Asset protection essentially involves planning the manner in which you hold title to assets, and in which you structure your business affairs. Asset protection typically is an adjunct to estate planning, a complicated matter usually requiring the advice of an attorney an/or professional estate planner. Probate, the legal process for settling an estate, can be very expensive; the techniques for avoiding probate include revocable living trusts; Joint Tenancy with Rights of Survivorship (JWTROS); payable-on-death accounts (a.k.a. Totten Trusts); naming a beneficiary on pensions and retirement accounts; giving away property while still alive; life insurance planning; and others.

Michael Ketcher, Vernon K. Jacobs (Author), Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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The German Historical School of Economics

In the middle and late 1800's, a group of German university professors developed the study of economics as a historical discipline, emphasizing careful analysis of real-world circumstances rather than abstract "principles" and "laws". Led by Gustav von Schmoller (1838-1917), these professors denounced the abstract theories of classical economists and their ideas of "natural law", believing that these ideas had very little empirical foundation and offered no solutions to pressing social problems under laissez faire. These German scholars feared Marxist agitation and the socialist takeover of Germany, seeking instead a middle ground between laissez faire and possible Marxist revolution. They pressed for social welfare legislation that would relieve the misery of the underprivileged; they wanted to preserve the market economy, parliamentary democracy, and private ownership of the means of production. This welfare legislation passed in the 1880's, and has been emulated in Scandinavia, the United States, and other countries.

Dr. Nicholas Balabkins, Nicholas Balabkins (Author), Dan Church, Lois Rukyser, Louis Rukeyser, Paul Meier, Travis Hardison (Narrator)

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The Classical Economists

The classical economists pioneered a new way of thinking about the uniquely human tendency to produce, trade, consume, and accumulate. Adam Smith (1723-1790) explained how the division of labor expands productive power and argued for freedom in economic affairs; Smith attempted to explain the basis of value, prices, the role of money, and other important concepts related to prosperity and an improved standard of living for all members of society. David Ricardo (1772-1823), a London stockbroker, developed the concept of diminishing returns, the wages-fund doctrine, and classical rent theory. Another classical theorist, Thomas Malthus (1776-1834), proposed that workers are doomed to subsistence wages, because populations increase geometrically while food production increases arithmetically. Other classical economists, including James Mill, John Stuart Mill, and Nassau Senior, extended and refined classical economics to meet new controversies and ideas throughout the nineteenth century.

Dr. E.G. West, E. G. West (Author), Lois Rukyser, Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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The Austrian Case for the Free Market Process

Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) and Friedrich Hayek (born 1899) were perhaps the foremost defenders of the free market and limited government during the mid-twentieth century ascendancy of Keynesian economics. Mises highlighted the problem of economic calculation in non-market economics. He saw the price system as the basis of economic calculation, and emphasized the importance of sound money for it to work properly. He denounced the government manipulation of money, and saw government credit expansion as the cause of the economic boom that collapsed in the Great Depression. Mises created an all-encompassing theory of economics as a system of human action. Hayek emphasized the role of knowledge in economics, asserting that man "cannot acquire the full knowledge that would make mastery of events possible." He advocated a competitive system of privately issued currencies of a superior alternative to government control of the currency. Hayek insisted that capitalism has improved the living conditions of workers, contrary to popular conceptions. Hayek received the Nobel Prize in 1974.

Dr. William Peterson (Author), Lois Rukyser, Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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The Keynesian Revolution

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) was without question the most influential economist of the twentieth century. His most important work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, was published in 1936, and it was widely perceived as offering plausible explanations and solutions for the Great Depression. Keynes' economic analysis was highly complex and subtle. It suggested that capitalism is vulnerable to instability caused by insufficient consumer demand. He emphasized the reluctance of workers to accept reductions in nominal wages, preventing free market adjustments to unemployment Keynes also suggested the possibility of a "liquidity trap," which could prevent market forces from restoring full employment. Based on these and other perceived defects in the capitalist system, Keynes suggested government intervention in the economy, and modern politicians have accepted and applied Keynesian ideas with great enthusiasm.

Frank Vorhies, Fred Glahe, Professor Fred Glahe (Author), Lois Rukyser, Louis Rukeyser (Narrator)

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Economics Audiobooks in Business & Economics