Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

From 2008 to 2015, the narrative follows economics student Yuan Yang, who grows frustrated that her courses at Oxford and the London School of Economics ignore the unfolding financial crisis, inequality, and climate change. She connects with peers worldwide to launch a network of over 80 student groups in more than 30 countries demanding a new economics curriculum. Reviving earlier dissent, such as a 2011 Harvard walkout, the Kick It Over movement escalates protests at the 2015 American Economic Association conference.

Author and economist Kate Raworth recounts her own path: studying economics at Oxford in the 1990s, then rejecting its narrowness for real-world work with entrepreneurs in Zanzibar, the UN in New York, and Oxfam on global supply chains and climate impacts. Returning to economics, she sought to flip its purpose from theory inward to goals outward. She drew the Doughnut—two concentric rings defining a social foundation and an ecological ceiling—to reorient economic purpose. Raworth argues that images have always shaped economics, tracing a lineage from François Quesnay’s Tableau Économique to Paul Samuelson’s 1948 textbook Economics, which standardized diagrams like the Circular Flow for mass audiences. She notes the power of visuals, referencing neuroscience and historical examples like Copernicus’s heliocentric sketch.