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Economic Reading List
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13-08-2010 9:33pm#1
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Do you want to read their original texts, or their work distilled by other economists? Vis-à-vis theory: economists are more likely to read this than Smith's The Wealth of Nations
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In terms of history of economic thought, I found The Genesis of Macroeconomics, by Antoin Murphy, quite interesting. JK Galbraith's A History of Economics and Bob Heilbroner's The Wordly Philosophers are also worth reading. There's some overlap, but they cover the contributions of William Petty, John Law, Richard Cantillon (Irish; Spanish sounding name; wrote in French!), David Hume, François Quesnay, Turgot, Adam Smith, Henry Thornton, T.R. Malthus, Marx, David Ricardo, Veblen, etc. You would be better off reading these three books than antediluvian texts (tomes, in some cases), in my opinion.
If you want to read about Keynes—or, more accurately, John Hicks' interpretation of Keynes—then any intermediate macro textbook will cover IS-LM. Hyman Minsky wrote a book on Keynes and IS-LM. I'll let someone more familiar with Hayek and von Mises give a concise list for them.
I haven't read Lunn's book, but, for behavioural economics, Nudge by Sunstein & Thaler and Animal Spirits by Akerlof & Shiller are worth reading.Gregory Mankiw (who wrote my old text book on economics) wrote a great paper explaining the limits of theory in macro, stating..... 'God put macroeconomists on earth not to propose and test elegant theories but to solve practical problems'
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/files/faculty/40_Macroeconomist_as_Scientist.pdf
Michael Woodford wrote a paper on how modern macro is used by policy making institutions (mostly central banks). Mankiw’s piece appears idiosyncratic to the CEA.
http://www.columbia.edu/~mw2230/Convergence_AEJ.pdf0 -
Pete's book is good but I recommend you just go straight to the bible. The closest thing to a page-turner I've ever come across in the discipline.An ESRI economist Pete Lunn wrote a very good book called 'Basic Instinct' that's worth reading (imo) because its shows the problems and limits with 'theory' in economics. (and is very readable).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/nov/01/economics
I have a theory that we could save tens of millions of euro every year by abolishing prisons and instead making criminals do problem sets from Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green. That'd learn 'em.Économiste Monétaire wrote: »Vis-à-vis theory: economists are more likely to read this than Smith's The Wealth of Nations.
+1. Good introduction to the history of macro.In terms of history of economic thought, I found The Genesis of Macroeconomics, by Antoin Murphy, quite interesting.
Meh. Road to Serfdom is the best exposition of that point of view.I'll let someone more familiar with Hayek and von Mises give a concise list for them.
Nudge > Animal Spirits, imho. It'd be interesting OP for you to read Hayek, then Nudge. See on which side of the fence you sit.I haven't read Lunn's book, but, for behavioural economics, Nudge by Sunstein & Thaler and Animal Spirits by Akerlof & Shiller are worth reading.
Actually, in terms of reading order, this mightn't be a bad approach:
1) Genesis of Macro (Murphy)
2) Road to Serfdom (Hayek)
3) Judgment Under Uncertainty (K, T, S)
4) Nudge (Sunstein and Thaler)0 -
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That shows, at a push, that forecasting and financial regulation have had no success. It says nothing about any of my original lists: growth theory, game theory, econometrics, industrial organisation, behavioural economics. In fact, game theory, econometrics and behavioural economics could all shed light on the current crisis. None of these fields really existed in the 1940s.We've had 60 years of scholarship and look at the mess we're in today. Over 60 years to get it right or at least partially right and still no success.
Saying it in another language doesn't make it true either, even if it's in a verbose old language that the majority of the population have to google to understand. You suggest economics does not need to be complex. I would like this to be the case. Unfortunately, I think "the economy" is very complex. Simple principles can shed a lot of light, but complexity is necessary to understand nuances.the problem with economics today is that it has been made far too complex when it doesn't need to be.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
If "they", "used"? Who are they? What use of macroeconomics? The most accepted parts of economics will not tell you much about where the economy is going at any given time period but rather it will provide you with good reasons why incomes/growth rates have been different in the past and good policies that will encourage growth.Well if they had used macroeconmics over the last decade they would have seen where our economy was going.
I'd say the problem with Keynesianism, as usually defined by the layman, is that it's too simplifiedThe problem with keynesian economics is that it's wrong.
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