Why Economies Rise or Fall by The Great Courses

How can a nation create the conditions for economic growth and prosperity? And what, once these conditions are achieved, can it do to sustain this progress? Discover the answers (which may surprise you) in these 24 lectures that guide you through a stimulating and, above all, accessible examination of what economists know and don’t know about the elusive search for economic prosperity.

Here, you’ll learn how countries as widely different as the United States and Vietnam have grown their economies; how countries like China and India were able to recover from economic reverses; and, most important, why the critical test of any economic policy is its ability to productively alter human behavior for everyone’s ultimate benefit. By looking at economic growth as the result of incentivizing such productive behavior – “making productivity more profitable than all the alternatives” – Professor Rodriguez clears up an often-shrouded economic landscape. The result is a lecture series that brings the economic strategies chosen by nations down to street level by adding a newfound clarity to key issues: Why economies succeed or fail; how economic bubbles are created, why they burst, and how nations recover from them; the challenges posed by globalization; and more.

By the end of the last lecture, you’ll understand as never before both the benefits granted and the costs extracted by the “instant economy” that technology and globalization have brought us. You’ll grasp what China’s expected economic dominance may soon mean. And you’ll have a new appreciation of the juggling act policymakers perform as they try to heed history’s latest lesson in achieving national growth and maximum human happiness.

About the Author

Dr. Peter Rodriguez is Associate Dean for International Affairs and Associate Professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, where he teaches global macroeconomics and international business. The holder of a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, Professor Rodriguez has also taught at both that university and at Texas A&M, as well as at universities around the world, including on the water as a faculty member of Semester at Sea.

Product details

• Full Audiobook MP3 Program
• Full PDF Guidebook Included
• Listening Length: 12 hours and 11 minutes
• Author: Peter Rodriguez, The Great Courses
• Narrator: Peter Rodriguez
• Release Date: July 08, 2013
• Publisher: The Great Courses
• Version: Original recording
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00DTNWIEQ