Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation

by Tyler Cowen, Andrew Garman (Narrator)

The widening gap between rich and poor means dealing with one big, uncomfortable If you're not at the top, you're at the bottom.

The global labor market is changing radically thanks to growth at the high end and the low. About three quarters of the jobs created in the United States since the great recession pay only a bit more than minimum wage. Still, the United States has more millionaires and billionaires than any country ever, and we continue to mint them.

In this eye-opening audiobook, renowned economist and best-selling author Tyler Cowen explains that High earners are taking ever more advantage of machine intelligence in data analysis and achieving ever-better results. Meanwhile, low earners, who haven't committed to learning or to making the most of new technologies, have poorer prospects. Nearly every business sector relies less and less on manual labor, and this fact is forever changing the world of work and wages. A steady, secure life somewhere in the middle is over.

With The Great Stagnation, Cowen explained why median wages stagnated over the last four decades; in Average is Over he reveals the essential nature of the new economy, identifies the best path forward for workers and entrepreneurs, and provides listeners with actionable advice to make the most of the new economic landscape. It is a challenging and sober must-listen - but ultimately exciting and good news. In debates about our nation's economic future, it will be impossible to ignore.

Audible Audio

Published October 2, 2013

About the author

Tyler Cowen (born January 21, 1962) occupies the Holbert C. Harris Chair of economics as a professor at George Mason University and is co-author, with Alex Tabarrok, of the popular economics blog Marginal Revolution. He currently writes the "Economic Scene" column for the New York Times and writes for such magazines as The New Republic and The Wilson Quarterly.

Cowen's primary research interest is the economics of culture. He has written books on fame (What Price Fame?), art (In Praise of Commercial Culture), and cultural trade (Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures). In Markets and Cultural Voices, he relays how globalization is changing the world of three Mexican amate painters. Cowen argues that free markets change culture for the better, allowing them to evolve into something more people want. Other books include Public Goods and Market Failures, The Theory of Market Failure, Explorations in the New Monetary Economics, Risk and Business Cycles, Economic Welfare, and New Theories of Market Failure.