Rating: 8.2/10. Explains the Canadian real estate situation, both from an economic and monetary policy perspective and implications for personal finance. Hilliard MacBeth has the controversial opinion that Canada is about to hit a housing bubble, with corrections on the order of 40-50%. The recent rise in real estate prices are due to low interest…
Category: Economics
China Emerging by Wu Xiaobo
Rating: 7.6/10. I got this book in Shenzhen, one of the few English books about China in the bookstore. It describes the history of China from 1978 to today. In 1978, China was very poor, having experienced famines and the cultural revolution under Mao Zedong’s rule. The early 1980s was a turning point for China,…
The Climate Casino by William Nordhaus
Rating: 9.8/10. This book is about climate change in the eyes of an economist, quite an in-depth treatment about a very complex and politicized topic, and one that’s commonly misunderstood. There are two extremes: conservatives deny it altogether and environmentalists warn about impeding catastrophe. The reality is somewhere in the middle: if we don’t do…
Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Rating: 8.2/10. Why is the city of Nogales, Arizona so much richer than Nogales, Sonora, when they’re only separated by a fence? This book explains why some countries like Canada are so much better off than Mexico, and most countries in sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to survive. According to this book, the crucial difference is…