In Richard Davies’s “Extreme Economies,” it emerges in places as diverse as a Middle Eastern refugee camp and a U.S. penitentiary. Markets, Mr. Davies engagingly shows, can make an extreme situation less extreme. But Mr. Davies also shows how government responses can be ineffective or do harm in their own way. All that is left after all this, Mr. Davies notes, is a wasteland that supports nobody. From such varied experiences, Mr. Davies draws a compelling portrait of markets functioning—and sometimes malfunctioning—in all sorts of conditions and cultures.

Source: Wall Street Journal March 30, 2020 22:52 UTC