economist

Ebenstein's biography of Hayek is well received, as the other reviews testify. It's informative, readable, and generally fair-minded. Nevertheless I feel that the merits of this book do not deserve such high praise as was given, even by such outstanding men as Friedman. Ebenstein's understanding of Hayek's ideas is narrow and derivative, his portrayal of the man is flat. Above all, the most fundamental aspect of Hayek's thought, namely his elucidation of a complex spontaneous order (independent of the properties of the elements), is neglected. Ebenstein also completely misunderstood Hayek's criticism of Mill, which is characterized as unfair in this book. This is no minor misunderstanding, as what's at stake is Hayek's attack on the concept of social justice, again one of the most important parts of his political philosophy. Reading this book, one gets the impression that Ebenstein is a hard-working, sincere, and intelligent fellow. But as the author of the first substantial biography of Hayek, he simply does not possess enough learning or insight to carry out this task adequately.

This biography has many short chapters, and displays a considerable balance. The structure of the book reflects the nature of Hayek's thoughts. "Hayek put forward the difficult idea of spontaneous order. In a spontaneous order, individuals may exchange and interact with one another as they desire. There is no central management of individual decision making." (p. 3). The fame of Friedrich Hayek is associated mainly with the political views needed to maintain a thriving economy as much as with the idea that no one person knows everything that is going on in an economy which functions as Adam Smith pictured, with each person acting in his own interest in order to produce the mix of goods and services that best provides the needs of all. Adam Smith is listed in the index, but not quite as much as Milton Friedman, who is occasionally mentioned as being more popular than Hayek, as well as more correct in the analysis of monetary policy in the United States at the start of the great depression.

Hayek finished a law degree and a second degree in political science from the University of Vienna before he lived in the United States from March 1923 to May 1924. (p. 31). One of his first economic articles in 1924 was "on American monetary policy suggesting that an expansionist credit policy leads to an overdevelopment of capital goods industries and ultimately to a crisis. . . . So I put in that article a long footnote sketching an outline of what ultimately became my explanation of industrial fluctuations. . . . A rate of interest which is inappropriately low offers to the individual sectors of the economy an advantage which is greater the more remote is their product from the consumption stage." (p. 41). The Federal Reserve Bank had been designed to keep the economy moving by offering great deals to capitalists, but when Hayek noted the tendency to produce instability, he became the head "of the evolution of Austrian business cycle theory." (p. 41). When the depression became the lowest point reached by the American economy in the 20th century, Hayek continued to think that low interest rates in the 1920s had produced the instability which produced it, while Milton Friedman produced a monetary explanation which is more widely accepted.

Public opinion is often a matter of simplifications which avoid the complexity that real problems present. Chapter 8, on Keynes, quotes Keynes attacking Marxism as if Marxism were nothing but a public opinion. "How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeois and intelligentsia who, with whatever faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human advancement?" (p. 68). German was a problem for Keynes, who wrote "in German I can only understand what I know already!" (p. 70). Hayek tried to review Keynes' TREATISE ON MONEY for an English journal, "Economica," when he was about to start teaching at the London School of Economics. Keynes seemed to think that his criticism could be characterized as "The wild duck has dived down to the bottom--as deep as she can get--and bitten fast hold of the weed and tangle and all the rubbish that is down there, and it would need an extraordinarily clever dog to dive after and fish her up again." (pp. 357-358). Hayek was allowed to publish a reply in the "Economic Journal" edited by Keynes "to an article by Piero Sraffa attacking him, and concluded his reply, `I venture to believe that Mr. Keynes would fully agree with me in ... that he [Sraffa] has understood Mr. Keynes' theory even less than he has my own.' Keynes then footnoted, `I should like to say that, to the best of my comprehension, Mr. Sraffa has understood my theory accurately.' " (p. 72). The finishing touches on this argument are complex. Keynes wrote that his footnote was appended to Hayek's reply "with Prof. Hayek's permission," (p. 72), a sure sign that Keynes was amused at agreeing far more with Sraffa, however Hayek might feel about it, and that he had done everything he could to force Hayek to see it his way.

Hayek was admired most for his popular book, THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, which considered central planning in control of an economy as a major step on the way to totalitarianism. He expected his book, THE CONSTITUTION OF LIBERTY, to appeal to the same readers, but when it was published on February 9, 1960, people had other concerns. In "The New York Times Book Review," Sydney Hook presented the mainstream economic opposition to Hayek's major concerns. "He is an intellectual tonic. But in our present time of troubles, his economic philosophy points the road to disaster." (p. 203).

Considering disasters in the area of economics, it is difficult to counter the idea that any government program offers the kind of deviation from stability that anyone would expect from a drunken bat. One idea that was almost popular at the end of the 20th century was a lockbox, where workers' money could be kept until it was time for them to retire. Hayek followed John Locke in thinking that civil government can maintain an impartial liberty through "certain basic rules on everybody." (p. 224). LAW, LEGISLATION AND LIBERTY was supposed to provide some guidelines, but there was no lockbox in the title, or in the title of any of Hayek's books. Now tax law has changed, as a basic incentive for a rise in the price of common stock, without safeguards to see that income is taxed even once. Speculation seems to be the common assumption upon which everyone is now to be satisfied. Actually, I suppose the government might never stop flying around like a drunken bat. For all the complexity in this book, it is much less like a drunken bat than the opinions I find in any newspaper.

Ebenstein has written a fantastic book about the man who may go down as the greatest thinker of the 20th century. While it is obvious the Ebenstein greatly admires Hayek it does not prevent him from giving a very accurate assement of the man and his ideas. In several places in the book he points out mistakes and logically issues with several of Hayek's ideas. It seems to be all to rare these days to get such a fair and accurate view.

The biography sheds light on all the key periods and influence on Hayeks intellectual life. Its greatest service is the ability to explain many of Hayek's most complicated thoughts in terms that are both easy to understand but not over simplistic.

Highly recommended!

This book was required reading as part of my Microeconomics course. Although it's not quite on the level of Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen- the plot and story is relatively simple and easy to follow- it does show how one can see the basic laws of economics at work in just about every facet of day-to-day life.

Using opportunity cost, the laws of supply & demand, interdependent utility functions, and even the prisoner's dilemma to get to the bottom of the case, Harvard economics professor Henry Spearman tracks down the killer/killers of two high-society tourists at the Cinnamon Bay resort on the Caribbean island of St. John.

Interestingly enough, the foreword & afterword of the book both go into the economic possibilities of writing and publishing a mystery novel featuring an economist as the protagonist! Apparently, the possibilities looked good, since there's two follow-up Henry Spearman mystery novels out there, both of which I'm planning to take a look at once I get some free time in. Of course, I'll have to calculate the opportunity costs of other forms of recreation, the utility I receive from reading the other novels, etc. I have a feeling I'll receive a handsome profit out of the deal...

All told, "Murder at the Margin", if not exactly a great murder mystery, is a fairly interesting primer on the practical uses of economics, and makes for surprisingly quick reading!

'Late

The premise that an economist is capable of solving a murder mystery by using economic analysis appears at first glance to be absurd. However, this story is one where that concept is made thoroughly believable. The hero, modeled after economist Milton Friedman, analyzes all aspects of behavior in terms of maximum return on expenditure. And when people appear to be violating that principle, he is led down a dangerous path that allows him to find the killer(s).
Written by two economists, this book can also be used as a supplemental text in introductory economics. It is a refreshing way to study economics and mathematics without appearing to do so.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

This is a good mystery with a very creative plot. In addition, the characters are intriguing and fun to read about. There are great subtle touches, such as the way one hotel guest examines his bacon. (Yes, I know that sounds strange, but if you read the book you will understand)

It was the authors first effort, and being such it is not quite as good as the following two books, which I would rate at 4 1/2 and 5 stars. Still, it is a very good read.

In his autobiography, Russell Kirk told a story about Ludwig von Mises that I found revealing. The city of Geneva had allocated plots of land upon which citizens could grow their own food. When Mises visited economist Wilhelm Roepke in Geneva, he scorned this method as an inefficient way of producing food. Roepke replied that it was nevertheless an efficient way of producing human happiness.

Mises was less interested in happiness, morality, and value judgments, in part because he considered them separate from his main interest, what he called the universal, scientific laws of economics and the "pure logic" of human action. He believed these laws were as simple and true as theorems in geometry.

Prof. Kirzner shows how Mises' views grew out of conflicts with various economic schools of thought, then analyzes his approach to market processes, monetary theory, cycle theory, and rate of interest. In the last chapter he portrays Mises as one of the most vigorous defenders of laissez-faire.

Kirzner knows his subject, and he does a decent job of trying to explain complex matters in a relatively short space. But the reader with no formal knowledge of economic theory will face some difficulties, including wrestling with terms such as fiduciary media, neutral money, positive time preference, sloping demand curves, praxeology, wertfreiheit, numeraire, and consumer sovereignty. Mises believed he was creating not merely a new economics but a new epistemology. Consequently he shares the philosopher's habit of defining and redefining terms, abstract generalizing, and numerous qualifications and asides. Much the same could be said for Kirzner, who repeatedly interrupts his prose with parenthetical commentary. I imagine many readers will find the book inaccessible.

Kirzner concludes that Mises never explored in detail the problem of translating theory into policy -- the very thing that readers will likely want to know. It was at this point, the last 20 pages or so, that I understood why the book was often unclear.

It is worth remembering that Mises called himself not a conservative but a classical liberal, a revolutionary even, in the utilitarian tradition of Bentham and Mill. He was an absolutist in regard to the free market. He believed any government intervention disrupted "natural" processes and necessarily led down the slippery slope to socialism. He saw little role for government except the protection of private property, and therefore scorned measures such as minimum wage, social security, protective tariffs, anti-trust, and progressive taxation. For Mises these were laws that had centralized power in democratic Germany and had paved the way for Hitler and the National Socialist party.

No surprise, then, that Mises attached high importance to his own theories and to defending them, for he believed quite literally that he was saving the human race. Unfortunately, this self-centeredness led also to intransigence and harshness toward those who disagreed with him, in a manner reminiscent of another libertarian icon, Ayn Rand. Both came dangerously close to believing in the Marxist fallacy of Economic Man.

This is a good overview of Mises, his life and background and his economics. It is workmanlike, basic and easy to read. It is not spectacular but it is very solid.

I did enjoy reading it, however. The first two chapters give alot of background information on von Mises's life and work and I found that interesting because it is always nice to know a bit about an author as a person rather than just his work. And the bottom line about von Mises is that he was a couragous, honest and brilliant man and the proof is in the tremendous admiration earned by worthy friends and supporters.

The Third chapter takes up von Mises's ideas on methodology, his a priorism and his commitment to value free economics. The two page section "The Intellectually Revolutionary Character of Economics" is really good. Section 5 of the chapter, "Mises' Methodological Defense" didn't really help me understand Mises's case for a priorism as opposed to empiricism, but I already know that from "Human Action" (huan events are complex and variables can't be held constant so it is always possible to come up with different plausible explanations for happenings; you can never isolate specific causes and their effects because it is not clear what is causing what). Section 6 "Mises and the A Priori: The Extremist?" explains what Hayek thought was a critique of Mises and Kirzner shows how it wasn't but I couldn't follow him. The one page section "Mises and the A Priori: Not So Extreme!" was appreciated because it gives alot more plausibility to Mises's claims about economics having to proceed a priori; I like the idea of economic logic but I think empirical studies and just common sense observation have got to play a role in economics, though I need to think about this more.

Chapter Four was pretty familiar but "The Entreprenurial Character of the Misesian Market Process" was welcome because it just emphasized for me how central the entreprenuer is to Mises's conception of how the market works.

I skipped Chapter Five on monetary theory, the business cycle and interest rates but it looks pretty good.

Chapter Six tries to address how Mises reconciled his idea of value free economics with his passionate arguments for capitalism and against socialism and interventionism. Socialism can't work and interventionism produces consequences the intervenionists didn't want and eventually leads to socialism (which doesn't work ;) I accept the arguments by Ayn Rand on the foundations and standard of ethics and so I can argue rationally for capitalism but I don't know that von Mises can.

In the end, I think that one has to read von Mises himself to get an appreciation of just how deep and comprehensive his grasp of human action and economics is. But this book does provide a little context and a useful overview. Maybe I was expecting too much; after all, how are you going to do justice to one of the greatest thinkers of all time in 200, double spaced pages? Can't be done.

ISI Books has just come out with a series called Library of Modern Thinkers, which will contain summaries of the thought of important (for lack of a better term) conservative and libertarian thinkers - kind of like an Oxford University Press "Past Masters." According to the jacket, current and forthcoming titles will cover Nisbet, Ropke, Oakeshott, de Jouvenal, Lytle. Francis G. Wilson and Will Herberg (in other words, thinkers that wouldn't be included in a series that contains volumes on such worthies as Foucault and Derrida).

If Prof. Kirzner's work on von Mises is representative, then this series will be an important contribution to the publishing world. Prof. Kirzner received his doctorate in economics in 1957 under von Mises and has written a number of important studies. This book is well organized and informative. It starts out with a chapter on von Mises' life, a chapter on his role in economics, and chapters on specific facets of his economic thought. It concludes with an overview of von Mises as the 20th century's preeminent free-market thinker.

As a layman in economics, I learned a lot about von Mises the man and economist. For example, there is a discussion on methodological differences between Hayek and von Mises, a discussion of the pioneering nature of much of his monetary thought, and how his thought differs from neoclassical economics. I found particularly insightful Prof. Kirzner's comment that Human Action isn't simply a compendium of Austrian thinking, but is truly a brilliant extension of Austrian thought to a vast swath of economic and sociological issues.

I have one big problem with the book. It is over 200 pages long, but it is double-spaced! In fact, there are no block quotes. Another quibble: according to the jacket, Friedman and Becker are "exponents" of the Austrian School.

More of a travelog than an interesting business book. I could not even finish it, which is very unusual for me.

Milton Friedman is one the of tough guy who always support the free market idea.He is the first guy who builds the monetary school and also a good story teller.He does do a great job and I guess that is not just luck.

The memoirs extend from the Friedmans' early years to 1997. The earliest times are recounted in separate voices by Rose and Milton, each telling her or his own story seriatim. For the later years, their narrative voices are presented sometimes jointly and sometimes in tandem. This method adds a great deal to the readability and interest of their story. It allows the reader to get different impressions of the same people and places and brings out the (rare) disagreements between the two authors. It provides more information and presents a more vivid picture than is typically the case in memoirs by a single author....

To read "Two Lucky People" is to get on intimate terms with a wholly delightful and wholly admirable couple. Here is a book to savor. Instructive and endlessly entertaining, it brings to life a whole era from the Great Depression to the present day.

The first edition of this book in 1980 established Blaug as a leading influence in this field, especially in his insistence on the importance of the testability or falsifiability of economic theories.

The first part of the book is a clearly written introduction to the modern philosophy of science. Popper is identified as the pivotal figure between the old positivism and the new heterodoxy of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. Unfortunately he is still depicted as a "falsificationist" rather than a critical rationalist, a serious mistake in the first edition which might well have been corrected. Hands and Caldwell have subsequently made that step so perhaps Blaug will fix this in the second revised edition. Lakatos may have been the major influence in this matter of misunderstanding Popper, in any case the time has surely come to move on with the assistance of Popper's theory of metaphysical research programs (which are subjected to critical appraisal) rather than the theory of "untouchable" hard cores that was the legacy of Lakatos.

Blaug may be ready to make a decisive step in this area. Recently, meditating on the outcome of the second Greek Islands conference on methodology, he wrote "I have come slowly and extremely reluctantly to the view that they [the Austrians] are right and that we have all been wrong [on Walrasian general equilibrium]". This concession to the Austrians is a major shift for Blaug and this may enable him to take the next step and perceive the overlap between the Austrian assumptions and the major elements of Popper's program. There include realism, non-determinism, the flux of time, methodological individualism and the uncertainty of knowledge

The second part treats the history of economic methodology. This provides an opportunity to rubbish the modern Austrians for their a priori heuristic postulates (this is the old, or rather the younger, Blaug speaking). There is a chapter on falsificationism, and various other "isms" including operationalism, Friedman's instrumentalism and Samuelson's descriptivism. Unfortunately the treatment of instrumentalism and descriptivism (or conventionalism) falls far short of that which is offered in Boland's The Foundations of Economic Method (1982)

The heart and soul of the book should be the third part which is a methodological appraisal of various aspects of the neoclassical research program. As C Wright Mills pointed out, discussion of methodology in isolation from actual work in progress is unlikely to be fruitful, so this part of the book should stand as a test (a possible falsification) of the value of Blaug's methodological apparatus. It might have been even more helpful to include two of his own special areas of interest - education and the arts, in this section, but perhaps this work is not a part of the neoclassical research program.

The fourth part is a short commentary on what we have now learned about economics with advice on falsificationism, applied econometrics and the best way forward.

This old and very short book on methodology enables novices to enter a philosophocal debate that is fragmented and decentralised. The book uses simple language and tries to educate not impress. Together with Alan Chalmers Mark Blaug is the best starting point for any student. However, it stops in the 1980s and therefore cuts off the debate at a critical point of time.

It's a great book to introduce undergraduate students on economic method topics. Mark Blaug first provides an overall vision of philosophy of science, then comments the method of the economists of the XIXth and XXth century, and finally in the third part he shows the discussion on certain topics such as theory of the firm, human capital capital firm, etc, excellent to start a course-conclusion paper. It's great!

The usefulness of this volume will depend both on your target
audience and on your "native" English (Oxford or American).
If you are a scientist writing papers in American English,
the book will be of limited value since some of the "no-noes"
of the Economist Style Guide (e.g. writing in the passive
voice) are accepted conventions of the genre, and some of the
usage recommendations are specific to Oxford English. By the
same token, the volume will be quite helpful when writing
documents addressing a general audience in the UK, Canada, or "down under".

A useful reference, well written of course, a bit humourous in spots, authoritative. Recommended.

A fascinating book, and something that should be mandatory reading for all graduate-level economics students prior to their taking advanced theory classes. A careful reading of this book will give the reader insight into the current state of the profession, an understanding of how it became so, and, perhaps, a more sympathetic view of the "supporting cast" of economists.

One is struck by the wide disparity in the quality and content of these essays. Some are quite insightful: either shedding light on a particular economist's field(s) of interest, or else opening the particular economist's psyche for the reader to see. Tibor Scitovsky's piece is an excellent example of writing that does both; the reader comes away with knowledge of the intellectual underpinnings of Scitovsky's work as well as some clarity into what motivated him in the first place. His is, in my opinion, the most thought-provoking piece in the book. Also notable, William Baumol's essay is a clearly written, lucid exposition of his worldview, and even the most ideologically opposite reader comes away with an appreciation for Baumol the man.

Other essays are turgid and difficult to wade through (like much of economic writing, I'm afraid). Maurice Allais' work was so uninteresting as to make me wish I were reading something else. To be fair, it must be noted that Allais' piece was translated and may have been brilliant in the original French.

Some of the economists obviously took lightly the task of setting their life philosophies in print, while others took advantage of the opportunity to try to wrest validation for their now-discredited theories. Samuelson's piece, in particular, came across as shrill and catty, resulting to the often-used but rarely effective (except in the academic world) tactic of criticizing an opponent with an a priori sense of correctness (by which I mean including in the criticism the inflection that "everyone who's anyone already believes this, I'm just doing the world a favor and putting it in print." Samuelson does himself much disservice by attacking his betters, especially Hayek and Friedman, in this manner.)

A pleasant surprise was discovering that the life philosophies of some of the economists from whom I least expected it turned out to be interesting and enjoyable to read. Shigeto Tsuru's essay falls into this category. Although I disagree with almost all of his economic work, Tsuru demonstrates his intellectual consistency and helps the reader to understand his motivation, as well as admire his intellectual honesty in staying true to his ideals.

One final note: It is striking the amount of influence certain economists held over this generation, and by extrapolation, hold over the world as we know it. One wonders what shape the world would be in if Joseph Schumpeter, J.M. Keynes, A.C. Pigou and a few others had chosen other professions.

I enjoyed reading this book because it comprises twenty-two essays in which economists illustrate their lives and personal philosophies. The economists who come from quite different points of the ideological extent display inspiring intellectual depth and breadth of knowledge. They expose their life philosophies and consider on their conceptions of human nature, society, justice and the source of the creative impulse. The self-portraits expose details of the economists' personal and professional lives that capture the meaning of the total person. Furthermore, they illustrate the result of their labor, and they change one's notions of what an economist can do or be. Overall, I found this book very interesting and I believe it should be in the collections of all academic libraries.

"Most of the essays in "How to Be Human Though an Economist" were published originally in Deirdre McClosky's regular column in the "Eastern Economic Journal." The material is sophisticated and serious but not technical, and many noneconomists will be able to follow along with difficulty. In a short review, it is impossible to summarize all the essays. In general, the book has to do with the economics profession - what McClosky thinks is wrong with it and how to fix it. Much of the material will be familiar to anyone who has read McClosky's earlier books - "The Rhetoric of Economists" (1985), "The Writing of Economics" (1986), and "The Vices of Economists; The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie" (1997). The essays are grouped loosely around basic suggestions that sounds like those in the latest self-help book: be yourself, be brave, be ethical, write better, read more."

"A large section of the book is devoted to McClosky's on-going and largely futile war on "statistical significance." McClosky is not the only critic of how empirical statistical research is conducted, but she is certainly the most vocal one. Every economist who has ever estimated a regression equation should read these essays."

-From "The Independent Review," Fall 2002

This book is a collection of short articles published previously, all for the generalist economist. McCloskey skewers mainstream economics for its insular habits, woeful statistical techniques, and inability to change. I found all of the essays provocative. The style is chatty and conversational, and as McCloskey has interacted with many of the world's leading economists and Nobel laureates, it makes a great read. Highly recommended.

The history of economic thought has its fair share of textbooks that cater for introductory studies. Fusfeld's "The Age of the Economist" is one of these texts. Certainly, it is a close substitute for Robert Heilbroner's world-conquering "The Worldly Philosophers". Though not quite as good as Heilbroner in the story-telling department, Fusfeld is better in the area of breadth. "The Age of the Economist" covers a wider range of thinkers right up to the present. Also following Heilbroner, it makes an admirable attempt at fusing together the intellectual, sociological and economic influences shaping the thought of various individuals, schools and movements through time. This is a difficult, but essential task to perform in an introductory text, not least because it impresses upon the uninitiated the importance of taking account of the many and various influences upon the history of economic thought. This is something that is, sadly and, in my opinion, inexcusably neglected in more advanced texts. (Such texts should be properly entitled "Histories of Economic THEORY" rather than "Histories of Economic THOUGHT".) Anyway, Fusfeld does a good job in crafting an introductory history of economic thought text and includes a valuable bibliographical essay, thus enabling the curious reader to delve into the subject in greater depth.

Do not expect some key information about Harvard, Wharton or NYU. This book just lists about 200 MBA with a quick overview (2 pages) on each. If you want to apply to an MBA in Australia or in China, this book can give you all the basic information you need to know.

This book is a godsend to anyone contemplating one of the many top-notch MBA programs outside of the US. Bickerstaffe doesn't attempt to "rank" the schools, which seems to be the only way anymore that the US programs are described in the guidebooks. Instead, he provides factual information often difficult to locate anywhere else. I was surprised to find a book like this existed. Great find.

The best book I have seen in one year searching and investigating about MBAs,GMAT, European vs American programs,etc. If you are planning to buy this book, wait for the 2001 edition which should have recent data.

Don't waste your time looking up for another book, this is THE MBA BOOK.