I had an amazing vacation weekend with the family, complete with an unforgettable Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts concert! And on the drive I was able to listen to talks and books for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was the second day of the National Bureau of Economic Research's organizational economics symposium. I particularly liked the talk by Daron Acemoglu on firm decentralization and medium-run growth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGcjQwjoM-U

Last was "Capitalism: A Global History" by Sven Beckert. This is a sprawling, 1000+ page chronology, tracing many economic developments from the around the 1500s to the modern day. There's a lot less analysis than I'd like here, and I mostly rate this book highly because of its scope and ability to be used as a reference for specific topics. One of my other issues with the book is the shocking lack of time spent pinning down the nature of "capitalism" itself here, which Beckert hand waves as "using capital to accumulate more capital," which strikes me as both at odds with unique aspects of the economic system of the last ~500 years but also with the definition employed throughout the book. For a much clearer exploration of the concept I'd recommend "Conceptualizing Capitalism" by Hodgson, and if Beckert used Hodgson's approach he could've provided a much more focused, useful volume. As it stands, if you're looking for an intro to global economic history and don't mind a massive page count, this is the book for you. Highly recommend https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/541160/capitalism-by-sven-beckert/