Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception
George A. Akerlof and Robert J. Shiller
Princeton University Press, September 2015, $31.95

Phishing for Phools explores in fascinating detail the central role of manipulation and deception in the financial and political areas, among others. It explains a paradox: why, at a time when we’re better off than ever before in history, all too many of us are leading lives of quiet desperation. At the same time, the book tells stories of individuals who have stood against economic trickery—and how trickery can be reduced through greater knowledge, reform, and regulation.

Why Should Anyone Work Here? What it Takes to Create an Authentic Organization
Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
Harvard Business Review Press, November 2015, $37.50

It used to be that businesses could ask individuals to conform to the organization’s needs. Now leaders are charged with creating the best company on earth to work for. They must transform their organizations to attract the right people, keep them, and inspire them to do their best work. In Why Should Anyone Work Here? Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones identify the six key organizational attributes to do just that. In separate chapters, they delve into each one: (1) let people be themselves, (2) practice radical honesty, (3) magnify people’s strengths, (4) stand for authenticity (more than shareholder value), (5) make work meaningful, and (6) make simple rules. The authors illustrate the kind of strong, attractive workplace culture that leads to sustained high performance.

StandOut 2.0: Assess Your Strengths, Find Your Edge, Win at Work
Marcus Buckingham
Harvard Business Review Press, August 2015, $31.50

In the years since the publication of First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, millions have come to the simple but powerful realization that to get the most out of people, you have to build on their strengths. Yet, as Marcus Buckingham astutely points out, though the strengths-based approach is now conventional wisdom, the tools and systems inside organizations—performance appraisals, training programs, and succession-planning systems—remain stubbornly remedial and exclusively focused on measuring skills, finding gaps, and attempting to plug them. It’s a crisis for individuals and organizations, with management ideas and everyday practice utterly out of sync. That’s about to change. StandOut 2.0 enables you to identify your strengths—and those of your team—and act on them.

Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently
Kenneth L. Fisher and Elisabeth Dellinger
Wiley, March 2015, $35.95

Many believe that doing the opposite of everyone else is the key to avoiding the herd’s faulty investment decisions. Wall Street defines contrarian investing as betting on the opposite of the crowd. The problem is, stocks often don’t do the opposite of what most people expect. Those who bet on the opposite behave as crowd-like as the crowd they try to game! If the herd thinks stocks will rise 10 percent, the anti-herders bet they’ll fall, but markets can also skyrocket or zigzag sideways. In Beat the Crowd, Kenneth Fisher shows you how to look beyond both crowds and find real contrarian opportunities that pay.

Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies – sixth edition
McKinsey & Company Inc., Tim Koller, Marc Goedhart, David Wessels, Barbara Schwimmer, and Franziska Manoury
Wiley, August 2015, $114.00

Valuation is the single best guide of its kind, helping financial professionals worldwide excel at measuring, managing, and maximizing shareholder and company value. This new edition provides insights into the strategic advantages of value-based management, complete detailed instruction, and nuances managers should know about valuation and valuation techniques as applied to different industries, emerging markets, and other special situations. The companion website features short-form content on key issues, including videos, discussion of trending topics, and real-world valuation examples from capital markets. And the included DCF (discounted cash flow) model download allows you to complete computations automatically for error-free analysis and valuation of real companies.

The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace
Eric Rauchway
Basic Books, October 2015, $36.50

Shortly after assuming office in early 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt made the bold decision to take the U.S. off the gold standard. This was only the first step of many toward using monetary policy as a political tool. In The Money Makers, Eric Rauchway reveals how FDR and his brilliant team of advisers, including John Maynard Keynes, paved the way for economic recovery on the back of the “Roosevelt dollar.” By responding decisively to the Great Depression at home, they warded off indigenous fascist movements and ensured an Allied victory in World War II, laying the foundation for decades of global peace and prosperity. Capturing not only the contentious debates among these headstrong figures but also the spirit of innovation that united them, Rauchway argues that we have forgotten their accomplishments. One result is that our modern preference for monetary stability over economic growth has led to stagnation and rising inequality. By uncovering the origins of mid-century economic success, Rauchway shows how we can recapture prosperity for our own age.

Guide to Intellectual Property: What it is, how to protect it, how to exploit it
Stephen Johnson
PublicAffairs Books, July 2015, $23.99

Intellectual property (IP) is often a company’s single most valuable asset. Yet IP is hard to value, widely misunderstood, and frequently underexploited.

IP accounts for an estimated $5 trillion of GDP in the U.S. alone. It covers patents, trademarks, domain names, copyrights, designs, and trade secrets. Unsurprisingly, companies zealously guard their own ideas and challenge the IP of others. Damages arising from infringements have fostered a sizeable claims industry. But IP law is complex, and the business, financial, and legal issues around it are difficult to navigate.

This guide to intellectual property will help companies, investors, and creative thinkers understand the scope and nature of IP issues, pose the right questions to their advisers, and maximize the value from this crucial intangible asset.

Between Debt and the Devil: Money, Credit, and Fixing Global Finance
Adair Turner
Princeton University Press, October 2015, $37.95

Adair Turner became chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority just as the 2008 financial crisis struck, and he played a leading role in redesigning global financial regulation. In Between Debt and the Devil, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn’t happen because banks are too big to fail—our addiction to private debt is to blame.

Turner challenges the belief that we need credit growth to fuel economic growth and that rising debt is okay as long as inflation remains low. He explains why public policy needs to manage the growth and allocation of credit creation and why debt needs to be taxed as a form of economic pollution. He also debunks the big myth about fiat money—the erroneous notion that printing money will lead to harmful inflation.

Between Debt and the Devil shows why we need to reject the assumption that private credit is essential to growth and fiat money is inevitably dangerous. Each has its advantages, and each creates risks that public policy must consciously balance.