Reviews

THE UPSIDE of INEQUALITY

• “The conservative answer to Thomas Piketty that you’ve all been waiting for. . .a rousing, well-studied defense of conservative beliefs about how markets and incentives drive prosperity, what’s holding back our economy today, and how to get it roaring again.”
  
• “Conard’s central idea is that risk-bearing equity capital is the truly scarce asset in most economic situations, and economic analysis should adapt accordingly. He is very creative in seeing some of the implications of this view. I. . .found it very stimulating to ponder. It puts many of the pieces together in a new and different way.“
  —Tyler Cowen
  
• “Conard’s contrarian argument for pro-growth policies…couldn’t have arrived at a more opportune moment. He propounds a way forward that comports with free-market principles and common sense.”
  
• “The Upside of Inequality is a well-written, thought-provoking book. It will be invaluable to anyone who wants a clear-eyed look at the country’s economic problems and their possible solutions.”
  
• “Ed Conard’s voice is a much-needed injection of fresh thinking (and) deserves a considered reading from anyone concerned about inequality.”
  
• “In stark contrast to The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution, Edward Conard’s The Upside of Inequality…challenges the prevailing assumptions that animate progressive interpretations of inequality. Reading Sitaraman and Conard side-by-side… Conard’s reading of the evidence…is more plausible.”
  —Neil Gilbert, University of California, Berkeley.
  
• “Ed Conard challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates. He debunks the myth that inequality is a conspiracy perpetuated by robber barons, and sheds light on the complex economic phenomena that shape America’s success. Readers of all political persuasions will benefit from this highly-informative book.”

  —Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute

• “This provocative new book by Ed Conard is a must-read for serious students of economic policy. Conard’s core thesis—that advancement in living standards is constrained by risk capital and properly trained talent—suggests an inequality borne of returns from innovation. Some of his arguments may rankle the left or the right, but his solutions are sensible and all the more compelling in the context of this paean to risk taking.”

  —Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers

• “Conard makes a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality, which is that scarce entrepreneurial effort and risk-tolerant capital are the resources that are both most central to economic growth and most sensitive to the potential distortions imposed by taxation and regulation. Whether or not one accepts this argument, it’s an argument well worth having.”

  —David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• “I profoundly disagree with much of what is in Conard’s book but respect the clarity with which he makes his case. Agree or disagree, this book can sharpen your thinking on critical economic issues, making it a very valuable contribution.”

  —Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and Director of the National Economic Council, President Emeritus, Harvard University

• “Economists tend to be enslaved by their models, and too often their work is obscure, unimaginative and irrelevant. Conard’s visionary take on the constraints to growth and their effect on inequality is nothing short of revolutionary.”

  —Kevin Hassett, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers

• “Ed Conard puts forward a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy. Critics may dismiss it as a defense of the 1%, but it’s much, much more than that. I rarely see economic analysis as insightful as this.”

  —Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management

• “Page after page, Ed Conard challenges conventional wisdom about the causes of growing inequality, the constraints to growth, and the feasibility of commonly proposed solutions to advance a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes in a world with an abundance of workers. Whether you agree or not, this is serious thinking for serious thinkers.”

  —Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts

• “Ed Conard provides a much-needed reappraisal of the role of inequality in a free-market economy. The most crucial insight of economics is that incentives matter, and those incentives will inevitably show up as an unequal distribution of economic resources. Conard argues forcefully that the well-intentioned policies of reducing inequality in the short term are not necessarily beneficial in the long term, as inequality and economic growth are closely linked.”

  —George J. Borjas, Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, author, Labor Economics and Immigration Economics

• “Ed Conard reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking. That is why it is highly rewarded. Intellectual and political attacks on those who use these attributes will prove to be counterproductive.”

  —Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group LLC, former Director of the National Economic Council

• “In this significant contribution to economic thought, Ed Conard extends our theory that equity and risk-underwriting constrain growth and uses it to identify important consequences for economic policy.”

  —Bruce Greenwald, Co-author (with Joseph Stiglitz), A New Paradigm in Monetary Theory, Heilbrunn Professor of Finance, Columbia Business School

• “The Upside of Inequality is one of those rare books. Conard refreshingly places the credit for economic prosperity where it belongs: On the willingness of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors to assume risk and on the availability of properly trained talent to turn risk into success.”

  —Andrew Puzder, former CKE Restaurants CEO and U.S. Labor Secretary nominee

• “I expected the book would mostly be faith disguised as debate, but I was clearly wrong, and found The Upside of Inequality to be very thoughtful and intelligently argued. I don’t agree with all of it, but I do agree with much of it and, what is far more important, I agree with an approach that tries to avoid the ideology that plagues most economic debates and focuses on trying to specify the conditions under which one approach or another works.”

  —Michael Pettis, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment