12 research papers—one per chapter—explained in layman’s terms. This was a really interesting way to consume research I would have never touched otherwise.
The best bits for me were the historical lessons at the beginnings of every chapter: here’s were we started, here’s where we are right now. I hadn’t truly appreciated how far humans have advanced in so short a time.
Unfortunately this was not really the focus of the book. The focus of the book was to highlight the results of modelling research done by the Copenhagen institute, and this mostly took the form of “if we spend x, we obtain y phenomenal returns” ad nauseum. This book could have been a blog post with some tables, and it would have been just as informative.
I’m not really equipped to evaluate how reliable the results presented in this book are. I will say it gave me a new (and more economic) appreciation of trade, immigration, and immunization.