From Pacific Standard, how the Gini Coefficient, an equation cooked up by Mussolini’s numbers guy, came to define how we think about inequality — from Occupy Wall Street to the World Bank to the billionaires at Davos. One of the more interesting ironies of history is that Jacob Marschak, the man who laid the foundation for modern quantitative finance, began his career as a Marxist revolutionary. Scientists’ contributions to finance: Clive Cookson reviews The Physics of Finance by James Owen Weatherall. Outsmarting con artists: Laura Carstensen has co-founded a research center aimed at preventing catastrophic incidents of financial fraud. Good fences make good bankers: Too Big to Fail becomes Too Big to Jail — an update. Chris Arnade on why it’s smart to be reckless on Wall Street. Banker prep: Kevin Roose on how getting a Wall Street internship became a cottage industry. The way they live now: Michael Lewis reviews Capital by John Lanchester.
