Books by Robert D. Putnam

If you recall, Robert D. Putnam, in his last book , expressed surprise that Chetty and Hendren, et.al. (2014) did not find evidence of a decline in intergenerational mobility.  Putnam predicted that researchers would find such evidence soon enough.  After all, it seems the returns to education have been rising, geographic mobility has been falling, market concentration is up slightly, life expectancy is behaving in funny ways, and regional disparities seem to have grown. Chetty and Grusky, et.al...

Ratner has a new study titled ‘Inhibited from Bowling Alone,’ a nod to Robert Putnam’s book about Americans’ waning participation in group activities, that’s set to publish in the Journal of Consumer Research in August . In it, she and co-writer Rebecca Hamilton, a professor marketing at the McDonough School of Business, describe their findings: that people consistently underestimate how much they will enjoy seeing a show, going to a museum, visiting a theater, or eating at a restaurant alone. T...

That is the new Robert D. Putnam book and it focuses on the widening opportunity gap among America’s young.  Much of the work is narrative and case studies, starting with Port Clinton, Ohio but not stopping there.  Any Putnam book is an event, and this one is the natural sequel to Charles Murray’s Coming Apart .  The writing and the underlying intelligence are of an extremely high quality.

2. Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us .  This book is very well done, but it suffers from the "I already agree with it" problem; it shows for instance that religious people make better neighbors, even after making the relevant statistical adjustments.