The 10 Rules of Successful Nations

This short primer distils Ruchir Sharma's decades of global analytic experience into ten rules for identifying nations that are poised to take off or crash. 
 
A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, 10 Rules is full of insights on signs of political, economic, and social change. Sharma explains, for example, why autocrats are bad for the economy; robots are a blessing, not a curse; and consumer prices don't tell you all you need to know about inflation. He shows how currency crises begin with the flight of knowledgeable locals, not evil foreigners; how debt crises start in private companies, not government; and why the best news for any country is none at all. 
 
Rethinking economics as a practical art, 10 Rules is a must-read for business, political and academic leaders who want to understand the most important forces that shape a nation's future.

Ruchir Sharma is Head of Emerging Markets and Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. He is the author of the international bestselling Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (2012), The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World (2016) and Democracy on the Road (2019). Sharma began his career as a writer and still contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs and other publications, and he is a contributing writer at the New York Times. One of the world's largest investors, he was named one of Foreign Affairs' Top Global Thinkers in 2012 and one of Bloomberg Market's 50 most influential thinkers in 2015.

This short primer distils Ruchir Sharma's decades of global analytic experience into ten rules for identifying nations that are poised to take off or crash. A wake-up call to economists who failed to foresee every recent crisis, including the cataclysm of 2008, 10 Rules is full of insights on signs of political, economic, and social change. Sharma explains, for example, why autocrats are bad for the economy; robots are a blessing, not a curse; and consumer prices don't tell you all you need to know about inflation. He shows how currency crises begin with the flight of knowledgeable locals, not evil foreigners; how debt crises start in private companies, not government; and why the best news for any country is none at all. 
 
Rethinking economics as a practical art, 10 Rules is a must-read for business, political and academic leaders who want to understand the most important forces that shape a nation's future.

Democracy on the Road

On the eve of a landmark general election, Ruchir Sharma offers an unrivalled portrait of how India and its democracy work, drawn from his two decades on the road chasing election campaigns across every major state, travelling the equivalent of a lap around the earth. Democracy on the Road takes readers on a rollicking ride with Ruchir and his merry band of fellow writers as they talk to farmers, shopkeepers and CEOs from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, and interview leaders from Narendra Modi to Rahul Gandhi. 
 
No book has traced the arc of modern India by taking readers so close to the action. Offering an intimate view inside the lives and minds of India's political giants and its people, Sharma explains how the complex forces of family, caste and community, economics and development, money and corruption, Bollywood and Godmen, have conspired to elect and topple Indian leaders since Indira Gandhi. The ultimately encouraging message of Ruchir's travels is that, while democracy is retreating in many parts of the world, it is thriving in India.

For a quarter of a century, Ruchir Sharma has been doing in India what political pundits should have done in the US, UK and France to understand Donald Trump, Brexit and the gilets jaunes protestors: he has left the big cities and listened to voters in the mofussil or provincial parts of the subcontinent. ... Above all, the trips allowed Sharma to predict and understand the rise of the Bharatiya Janata party's charismatic Narendra Modi, the collapse and later revival of the Congress party under the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, and the enduring influence of regional politicians such as Nitish Kumar in Bihar and the late J Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu

Sharma's account of his travels offers a fascinating insight into the quixotic characters populating India's political landscape. Along the way, we meet mavericks and ministers, holy men and hoaxers. Sharma is a diligent, informed and sympathetic guide

A high-speed, breezy drive through two decades of electoral politics

An immediate must-read. A definitive one-volume on the modern India

Packed with nuance and detail of the many Indias that make India

For many years Ruchir Sharma's writing has drawn on his travels as a global investor, which take him to a different emerging nation every month. Now a contributing writer at the New York Times, his columns and essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, The Times of India, and many other publications, both global and Indian. His earlier books, The Rise and Fall of Nations (2016) and Breakout Nations (2012), both became international bestsellers. In Democracy on the Road, Ruchir brings readers along on his travels through India, where he follows at least one big election every year.

India is a country obsessed by politics. In early 2019, it faces national elections, and urgent questions present themselves: will India continue down a path of populism and increasingly strident Hindu nationalism or will it return to its postcolonial secular vision? Is the long-promised economic boom finally at hand, or is some form of socialism part of India's DNA? Will the seemingly invincible Modi triumph again, or will India revert to its habit of throwing out incumbents? Bestselling author Ruchir Sharma has been on the road during Indian elections for twenty years and here distills the wisdom of his observations and experiences over that time in a deeply insightful book about the world's largest and most complex exercise in democracy.

Ten Rules of Change in the Post-Crisis World

The Rise and Fall of Nations

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER 
 
'Entertaining, acute and disarmingly honest' Economist 
 
'A vital guide to the new economic order' Rana Foroohar, Time 
 
The crisis of 2008 ended the illusion of a golden era in which many people imagined that prosperity and political calm would continue to spread indefinitely. In a world now racked by slowing growth and mounting unrest, how can we discern which nations will thrive and which will fail? 
 
Shaped by prize-winning author Ruchir Sharma's twenty-five years travelling the world, The Rise and Fall of Nations rethinks economics as a practical art. By narrowing down the thousands of factors that can shape a country's future, it spells out ten clear rules for identifying the next big winners and losers in the global economy. 
 
'The nub of the book is how to spot which countries are likely to succeed, and which to fail, in this impermanent world. Sharma offers a framework of 10 rules. The more of these rules countries achieve, the more they are likely to rise rather than fall ... it may just help you avoid picking losers' David Smith, Sunday Times 
 
'Amazing ... fascinating insights ... quite simply the best guide to the global economy today' Fareed Zakaria 
 
'Lively and informative' Martin Wolf, Financial Times 
 
'As ambitious as it is well executed ... a mix of humble pragmatism and daring decisiveness' Reuters

Filled with amazing data ... fascinating insights and revealing anecdotes, this is quite simply the best guide to the global economy today.  Whether you are an observer or an investor, you cannot afford to ignore it.

A fine guide to the great emerging market boom and bust.

Sharma's wealth of knowledge ... and ample experience on the ground are strong foundations for his exploration of what makes economies break out, or break down.

For sheer readability and insight on the developing world drama, I dare say you won't find a better choice.

In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles

Breakout Nations

The argument of BREAKOUT NATIONS is that the astonishingly rapid growth over the last decade of the world's celebrated emerging markets is coming to an end. China, in particular, will soon slow, but its place will not necessarily be taken by Brazil, Russia or India, all of which Ruchir Sharma shows have weaknesses and difficulties often overlooked in the inflated expectations and emerging markets mania of the past decade. The new 'breakout nations' will probably spring from the margins - even from the shadows. Sharma identifies which they are most likely to be, and why. 
 
Sharma, head of one of the world's leading emerging market funds, has spent two decades travelling the globe to find out what is happening on the ground in developing countries. With this first-hand knowledge, he takes his readers on a tour of two dozen of the world's most interesting economies, introducing the critical players and describing and analysing the forces - many unique to each nation - which will make the successes and flops of the future.

Ruchir Sharma

Sharma stands apart because he is not ideologically driven in presenting a valuable analysis of the issues confronting capitalism. The result is a fresh and accessible contribution to the debates about our economic system that should be read and considered by all sides.

Robert Rubin, former US Secretary of the Treasury and chairman of Citigroup

Sharma&rsquo;s new book offers an important perspective on capitalism from a global strategist. This book will reshape how you think about the world and is bound to provoke people on both the left and the right.

Lawrence H. Summers, former US Secretary of the Treasury

In his timely and consequential book, Ruchir Sharma chronicles the government bailouts, interventions, and machinations that have brought the West to this hinge point in history. His message to policymakers: Try capitalism, the real kind.

Kevin Warsh, former US Federal Reserve Board Governor

What Went Wrong With Capitalism is a plea for government sanity, for true competition, and against crony capitalism, it is exactly the message our world needs to hear. I am not sure there will be a more correct book this year.

Tyler Cowen, the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and co-author of the Marginal Revolution blog

A blunt broadside against the welfare state of finance. It will make the right kind of enemies.

At a moment at which democracy and free markets are under intense challenge all over the world, we are lucky that the brilliant and incomparable Ruchir Sharma has brought us a characteristically original and provocative book that tells us how to understand the ways that capitalism is falling badly short. Everyone should read, absorb and debate Sharma&rsquo;s wise arguments

Brilliant ... As Ruchir Sharma argues in his brilliant new book, ‘Because the EU lacks the power to tax and spend directly ... it has turned itself into a pure regulatory state … issuing rules and regulations at an exponential pace.'

What ails capitalism, in Mr. Sharma's argument, is government largess specifically in the form of bailouts, tax favors and loose monetary policies that keep companies flush with cash ... his analysis of the Federal Reserve's easy-money policy over the past four decades is trenchant and timely.

Ruchir Sharma

Praise for What Went Wrong With Capitalism

Sharma stands apart because he is not ideologically driven in presenting a valuable analysis of the issues confronting capitalism. The result is a fresh and accessible contribution to the debates about our economic ...

Sharma’s new book offers an important perspective on capitalism from a global strategist. This book will reshape how you think about the world and is bound to provoke people on both the left and the right.

In his timely and consequential book, Ruchir Sharma chronicles the government bailouts, interventions, and machinations that have brought the West to this hinge point in history. His message to policymakers: Try cap ...

Sharma stands apart because he is not ideologically driven in presenting a valuable analysis of the issues confronting capitalism. The result is a fresh and accessible contribution to the debates about our economic ...

Sharma’s new book offers an important perspective on capitalism from a global strategist. This book will reshape how you think about the world and is bound to provoke people on both the left and the right.

In his timely and consequential book, Ruchir Sharma chronicles the government bailouts, interventions, and machinations that have brought the West to this hinge point in history. His message to policymakers: Try cap ...

Sharma stands apart because he is not ideologically driven in presenting a valuable analysis of the issues confronting capitalism. The result is a fresh and accessible contribution to the debates about our economic ...

Sharma’s new book offers an important perspective on capitalism from a global strategist. This book will reshape how you think about the world and is bound to provoke people on both the left and the right.

In his timely and consequential book, Ruchir Sharma chronicles the government bailouts, interventions, and machinations that have brought the West to this hinge point in history. His message to policymakers: Try cap ...

Books by Ruchir Sharma

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