The Economics of Hope; Numerical Arguments for Shared Prosperity

I am an Economics PhD, and the book is an economic policy manifesto, that takes large thematic problems and describes in very explicit detail possible solutions with a timeline. For instance there is a chapter on the Gender Wage Gap, and the book explains the current drivers related to that issue, potential solutions, and where we should be by 2030. The book is roughly 330 pages, includes many graphs, an accompanying website for readers to download data and check sources.

Economics is not the academy of money nor merely the study of aggregate business, firms, or enterprise. To reduce economics as synonymous to finance is a mistake; economics is the study of people and the quality of their lives. It is the sister of history —not math. 

The academy too often is presented as a discipline inseparable to business and long divorced from political relationships. But in the grandest view, economics is the triangulation between political, social, and market structures. 

Economics is more than just the exacting metrics by which to diagnose social issues, the discipline can ameliorate social conditions, not to simply understand but improve. This is not to suggest that solutions are forthcoming, without tradeoffs, or even easy to implement. However, with great effort, even great problems can be made better. 

For too long economics has been, or has been perceived as —in part— the school of justifying usury, of calculated cruelty, and of rationalized selfishness. Too few scholars have argued in favor of shared prosperity, of mutual benefit, and the economics of hope.

Debut work of Mark Sheppard M.A., M.P.P., Ph.D., an economist and economic policy analyst. Sheppard has worked for the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the California State Senate as an analyst. Sheppard is currently a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, a Wealth Project researcher at the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality. Sheppard holds a Bachelors from the University of California, Berkeley, in Legal Studies, and two graduate degrees, an MA in Political Economics from Georgetown University and a Masters in Public Policy  from the University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy. Sheppard is currently finishing a Doctoral degree in Economics, focused on inequality.