Wednesday, June 09, 2010

overcoming narrow economics inertia

Because of the 2008 economic crisis I decided to study political economy seriously, something which I had previously put into the too hard basket. This study was and is difficult for me and was proceeding too slowly so I have taken time off work this year to move it along.

After over 6 months of reading and searching I have finally found a modern book which meets my needs:
From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the social and the historical in the evolution of economic theory by Dimitris Milonakis and Ben Fine. Check out the contents page at this amazon link using their look inside feature (one page of contents is missing at google books, why do they do that?)

I'm about a third of the way through but have read enough to say it is very good.

Tracing the history of how the methodology of economics went so wrong provides insight into a big part of the solution of what to do to repair the enormous damage that has been done. And the damage goes back over a century. Obviously there is a need to make many new economists political economists who understand how it should be done, rather than universities continuing to churn out narrow econometrics experts, who don't understand the big picture. How are we going to overcome a hundred years of narrow economics inertia? Make a start by buying and reading the above book.

btw I'm now buying books through The Book Depository since they have free delivery, which saves a lot.

1 comment:

plakboek said...

Thankou for sharing this bill