1 comments about Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies.

1. As in his prior book, "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism" Esping-Andersen once again analyzes the western welfare states' regimes but within its current postindustrial economic changes. Addition to the variables he used in his prior book, de-commodification and stratification, he uses "familization" to explain the regimes. He also reviews many comments he got from his first regime analysis through this book and concludes that his analysis is still valid.
   This book's analysis may not fit every welfare states that currently exsist but may provide good ground work? for understanding the welfare states and its current transitions with the burgeoning of globalization.

5 comments about Probability Theory and Statistical Inference: Econometric Modeling with Observational Data.

1. I own a number of econometric and statistics texts, but this is easily the most comprehensive and probably the most important stats book that I own. Not only does it cover just about every stat concept one would need for doing applied research, but it teaches the reader how to think logically and clearly about econometrics problems. It teaches the reader how to properly integrate economic theory and statistical information for conducting good research. If you want to learn applied econometrics the proper way, read this book.



2. Like many, I used the 1986 big green Spanos book to learn econometrics. Simply put, this latest follows the course charted by the first book -- it first covers probability theory, and then uses this to motivate the modelling portion of the book. Unlike the 1986 book, which was terse in places, this monograph is much more comprehensive. It isn't so much that new subjects are covered (though some are), but the current treatment far surpasses the 1986 book. More graphs, to aid geometric intution, are included. More text discusses the implications of the mathematics. More useful, in short, for a graduate student trying to learn econometrics. The only book I think is in this class is DeGroot, and that book suffers from little attention paid to econometrics (though it does do the probability material quite well).

   Highly, highly recommended. And one other bonus: Spanos discusses in the introduction why he refuses to water things down, and even has a quote from the mathemetician Binmore.




3. This book is absolutely remarkable.

   It presents the material traditionally taught in the second-year statistics (but actually goes well beyond, e.g. stochastic processes) and will be of interest to all people interested to (re-)learn statistics well, either undergraduates, or advanced students of any level. Professors should also read it maybe use it in class. Students will thank them.

   The author took more than 14 years to polish it, and I would bet that scholars of pedagogy will put this book as an example of the highest possible level of their discipline. I would also bet that this book will have a long and brilliant career in statistical education. On gets the feeling that the author gave the same care and energy to the elaboration of this book as people commonly give to research.

   The author is also a man with a mission. In his preface, one can read with pleasure and disbelief a passionate attack on the dumbing-down of undergraduate education in Europe and America. Having taught undergrads in commerce with the "predigested pap" he is talking about, I can really relate to the frustration of the author. There is no dilution of material or dumbing down here: all the ugly details are given, which makes that book not only a pedagogical tool but also a great reference.

   There is no book on the market that is so polished in both presentation and discussion, that exposes intermediate stats at such an intelligent, comprehensive level, and finally that uses the historical development to project such clarity on the actual state of the science. I would say the closest competitor to this book is the great volume "Intermediate Statistics" by Dale Poirier, which has more econometrics and which might be a bit more comprehensive on the bayesian side, but the main focus of this one is on UNDERSTANDING and SYNTHESIZING. By the way, the focus of this book is statistics, not econometrics, despite the fact that the author has written extensively in econometrics.

   I wish I would be an undergrad again and re-learn statistics with this book. Nevertheless, readers of all levels will learn something from it.

   Ah, and the price is right. Value for your money!




4. the book is great for anybody who wants to know the foundations of statistical and probability modelling. it covers all aspects of modelling like defining a statistical space, probability model, estimation, inference and its chapters on stochastic process were very informative. It was a great learning experience through this book. Basically it explains why we do it and how we do it



5. a very solid text on probability and statistics/econometrics. will definitely be on my reference bookshelf

5 comments about Friedrich Hayek: A Biography.

1. This biography is one of those that once you start reading, you can't put it down! This long-overdue biography on Hayek is more of a commentary upon his major works and thoughts, interwoven with the major movements within his life.Most personal reflections of the man himself come from people who, in most cases, only knew him briefly or in limited circumstances, which is one of the major weaknesses of the work. However, the insights into the man are, at times, critical and help to remind us that the great man was human! Yet, one is left with the feeling that there is much more to be revealed, not so much about his weaknesses, but his undoubted greatness! This book is a MUST for every lover of Hayek. But there is room, in the future, for a further biography, written in the same strain as Skidelsky's excellent work on Keynes



2. 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.



3. Hayek's life deserves-no demands- a biography of the highest order. I read Hayek in my studies in college and I was fascinated by his theories. He was a man who thought and wrote on profound economic issues.
   This biography, while seemingly well researched, does a disservice to the man. I (and a book club for an ivy league college) found it poorly written and structured. Sentences, paragraphs and thoughts collide.
   I would only recommend this book to diehard Hayek groupies (though it may cause pain). Individuals who want to learn more about him might benefit from skimming through the book. However, I would caution those individuals who seek out intelligent biographies of interesting people-that despite Hayek's very interesting life, this is not an intelligent biography worthy of him.



4. 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.




5. Until nearly the end of the 20th century, Friedrich Hayek seemed to be destined to be ignored and to remain in the backdrop of economic, political and philosophical history. Keynesian economics ruled, with its reliance upon state control of the levers of the economy. Hayek's vision of a renewed classical liberalism with free markets and individualism cut against the conventional intellectual wisdom of his day. Despite that, Hayek was convinced that total systems such as socialism or communism would lead to tyranny. Hayek argued that the Keynesian viewpoint, because of its reliance upon state controls, was destined to limit individual's liberty.
   
   Hayek believed that there was an inevitable conflict between socialism and freedom. He argued passionately, and at times he was a solitary voice, for freedom and liberty. Today with the collapse of communism and the resurgence of free markets across the globe, Hayek's ideas have gained new prominence. Hayek's intellectual contributions to our world in terms of political science, philosophy, and economics can not be underestimated.
   
   The author, Alan Ebenstein, holds a Ph.D. in economics. His account of Hayek's life is illuminating, not covering just his economic and philosophical contributions. Ebenstein covers Hayek's life from the early years and his flirtations with Fabianism (the advancement of socialist ideas through gradual means and through the insertion of its ideas into intellectual circles of influence) through to his legacy as a visionary thinker. Ebenstein's biography of Hayek's life appears to be fair and balanced on the whole. Since the author is a trained economist, you can see the benefit of his background throughout the biography without the dulling effects many associate with the dismal science. If you want to learn more about Hayek the man and his ideas, this is an ideal and recommended book.

1 comments about Competition and Growth: Reconciling Theory and Evidence (Zeuthen Lectures).

1. P. Aghion is one of the most important economists nowadays. With a solid background in mathematics, his studies are focused on relevant aspects of modern economics. One of this issues is the relationship between competition and innovation. There are microeconomic and macroeconomic issues to discuss. Traditional neoclassical economists are frequently naive when they try to link macroeconomy and innovation using the their oversimplified models. Exchange and interest rates behaviour are enough to prescribe policies that often lead to terrible results. One the other side, Heterodox economists always overestimate the importance of tacit knowledge and learning, without showing any concern with the link between development, education standarts and competition.
   Aghion give us many clues about these complex issues. I strongly recommend this book (and endogenous growth theory too) to economists who want to improve their capacity to formulate viable and sound policies for sustainable development.

1 comments about Economics and the Theory of Games.

1. I am a PhD student at Cornell studying game theory, and this is by far my favorite non-cooperative game theory book. It's written at a similar level as Fudenberg and Tirole's book but with better examples, explanations, and organization. These strengths make it a very good book to learn advanced game theory. Additionally, it covers popular recent topics such as evolutionary game theory and networks in more detail than in other advanced books (F&T, Osborne & Rubinstein, Myerson, etc.).
   
   With that said, it is not an easy book, requiring strong math skills, etc. If you are looking for a simple introduction, check out the books by Gibbon or Gintis.

5 comments about The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Modern European Thought.

1. The world of capitalism is presented to us through the eyes of the greatest European thinkers. Muller examines the relationship between the individual and the state though the prism of the marketplace tapping into the writings from thinkers such as Adam Smith, Marx, Voltaire, Schumpeter and Hayek. The depth and breath of this economic treatise on the marketplace presents perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum while taking the time and care to place that thinker's perspective within its proper historical context.
   
   The thinkers that are tapped into come from a very broad swath of history. Their perspectives trace how western civilization left the feudal period where commerce and finance where frowned upon as immoral or dirty and how Europe eventually developed market-based institutions that we are so familiar with today. This book clearly shows how thinking men viewed the development of markets and how societies dealt with the social and moral benefits and costs of markets. Muller also describes how different societies in different time periods came to different conclusions on how a market should be regulated and managed as a result of the efforts of these great thinkers.
   
   The way we operate today is linked inextricably to the past. Market-based societies are a product of western European history and culture. The answer to why things are like today can be found in the past and Mueller provides the key.



2. This book is an amazing book and goes through and discusses exactly what many of the previous economic philosophers believe. Muller writes this wonderfully, and is typically an easy read. I wouldn't mind reading this book for fun actually.



3. This is essential reading for anybody who is seriously interested in the tradeoffs between capitalism and socialism. As Hugo puts the matter in "Les Miserables", socialism is a great system for distributing wealth, but poor for creating wealth. Capitalism is a great system for creating wealth, but poor for distributing it.
   
   Muller documents very well, and very fairly, the fact that this basic conundrum was well understood by most thinkers since the 18th centry. Muller presents the various solutions proposed by thinkers from all sides of the political spectrum to solve the conundrum.
   
   In a way, the book is depressing, because it shows that all possible solutions have already been thought of, and tried.



4. This is a remarkable book. Besides the usual variety that appears in most books on economic thought (Smith, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Schumpeter) it includes a nice selection of non-economists such as Voltaire, Burke and Marcuse. Muller is a master of situating intellectuals in their respective context and presenting them in lively detail. Having read Voltaire's "Candide", it was remarkable to find out about his personal adventures with financial speculation. When dealing with Smith, Muller takes pains to retain all the nuances, such as Smith's claim that division of labor, no matter how productive, could make human beings "as stupid and ignorant as it possible for a human creature to become". As Muller is a specialist on conservative thought, his treatment of a variety of criticisms of the market by conservatives is very intriguing. Furthermore, although chapters are written in a way to make them independent of each other, Muller links them nicely using common themes and referring back to already discussed, older ideas. One of such themes is the identification of capitalism with Jews. One might find it surprising how old and often recurring this identification was in European thought.
   
   My main qualm regards Muller's treatment of the left. Although all of the selections are understandable (Marx is a must, Lukacs is representative of 20th century communism and easy to juxtapose with Freyer, while Marcuse is representative of the New Left), large strands of interesting left-wing thought are omitted. Karl Polanyi who wrote the classic about the industrial revolution and the nature of the market ("The Great Transformation") and who seems like a perfect addition to such a book is only mentioned in one of the hundreds of footnotes. Anarchists seem non-existent. The reader might walk away with the feeling that the only things the left has to offer are nagging and central-planning. In the meantime, Hayek and Schumpeter - classical liberals with overlapping ideas (e.g. the role of the entrepreneur) are both given separate chapters. On an unrelated note, some might find the treatment of Keynes inadequate as well. In the first page of the Keynes/Marcuse chapter, Muller states that "[Keynes] provided an economic rationale for governments to try to actively combat unemployment by raising the level of government spending" (p. 317). You will hear the same reductionism in an intro to macro college course, but Keynes' insights were way more nuanced (the role of uncertainty - see: Duncan Foley's "Adam's Falalcy"; the need for a fundamentally different monetary policy - see: Allan Meltzer's and Geoff Tily's work) and often cannot be described as "Keynesian" (or rather, what came to be viewed as "Keynesian").
   
   Despite these flaws, this is a very well-written, insightful and stimulating book. If you are interested in the history of economic thought and more broadly - the different attitudes toward the market economy, make sure to check it out.



5. What have different thinkers said about capitalism during the last 250 years? That is the topic of this book. The author is better at describing certain thinkers (e.g. Smith) and you wonder why others were included, but that always happens in a book like this. Overall the author is very knowledgeable and interesting
   
   Where this book REALLY STANDS OUT is the engaging style of writing. It is a sheer joy to read this book. That is not always the case even if you like a book. So even if you are just moderately interested in the topic, I could fully recommend this book. It is excellent.

No comments about Economics of Agglomeration: Cities, Industrial Location, and Regional Growth.

No comments about Risk Transfer: Derivatives in Theory and Practice (Wiley Finance).

1 comments about Analyzing Modern Business Cycles: Essays Honoring Geoffrey H. Moore.

1. If you're interested in why there are business cycles, and how to understand what's going on, this is a must read. Top of the class.

2 comments about The Essential Wallerstein.

1. Here at last is a collection of Wallerstein's essays that span his entire career. This will be useful as a text for an advanced undergraduate class, or for interested readers, because it covers such a wide spectrum of IW's thought. His arguments are quite compelling, and after digesting Wallerstein's analysis, one will not view our world the same way. It begins with an interesting introduction on his personal path-breaking arrival at world-systems as units of analysis (as opposed to nation-states, etc.).

   One can trace this development through the four sections of essays. The first covers his work on Africa which led him, like those working at the time on Latin America, to realize that nations-states are not independently developing societies, but political units of a larger whole in which people are interconnected geo-politically, economically, and socially. But unlike most dependency theorists, Wallerstein looked for the origins of underdevelopment in the transition from capitalism to socialism, which brought him to Braudel, the late great French historian. Under Braudel's influence, Wallerstein broke through earlier debates on where and when capitalism began by focusing on one key problem: how people historically linked such that they form a social whole, and how one measure this geographically. The answer was an extensive division of labor: a political economy. Few could have accomplished what Wallerstein did in his mostdetailed studies of capitalism begining with the monumental Modern World-System I (1974) in terms of the elegant theorizing he developed on the basis of an exhaustive study of the literature(s) that covered myriad and subtle points of debate among historians.

   The key points of his research are summed up in the second set of essays. Whereas others failed to see the interconnections (e.g. Perry, 1974), Wallerstein showed how and why different regions changed politically, economically, and socially as a result of being part of the same system. Regardless of whether one agrees that the 1450-1750 period can be characterized as full-blown capitalism or not, it is difficult to refute Wallerstein's argument that what was then the "Third World" (New Spain and Eastern Europe) was in fact part of the same social system as was Western and Souther Europe). To hold fast to the deepness of the integration of areas is something which other world-systemists, including AG Frank, have recently neglected, and who have misinterpreted long distance commercial ties for binding ties of *significant,* or integrative, historical causality.

   The third set of essays examines the major institutions of the modern world-system, including the "economic" aspects of its cycles of growth and stagnation in relation to the geographic spread of the system (the spread and densit of commodity chains), and how class and social relations (e.g. housholds) change in different ways in the three main areas of global stratification -- core, semiperiphery, and periphery -- but how they system stays ideologically glued by the notion, or rather myth, of national development. In the final set of essays, Wallerstein argues how this notion, and the entire ideological carapace of capitalism, including the social sciences, has become unglued, and how the system is entering into a long period (50 years or so) of decay. The insights are plentiful and gripping, especially the prognosis for the future -- which is what the entire project is really about: to understand the past to effectively change the present and direct the future toward a better global society.

   The weakness of Wallerstein's work in general, however, with his focus on the structural regularies (with the main exception of the limits of geographic expansion that are key to the system's demise) is a tendency to see capitalism as *essentially* the same from 1550 to the resent present. This stands in contrast to more recent writers working either at the same global level, such as Giovanni Arrighi (see his 1994 magnum opus), or those who combine global and local (anthropological) levels, such as Dale Tomich (1989) who offers a theoretically powerful and historically specific study of modern slavery. Nonetheless, Wallerstein is a must read for all concerned with globalization and the future of our world.




2. [I'm submitting this review again to fix errors in my review which is currently posted]

   Here at last is a collection of Wallerstein's essays that span his entire career. This will be useful as a text for an advanced undergraduate class, or for interested readers, because it covers such a wide spectrum of IW's thought. His arguments are quite compelling and after digesting Wallerstein's analysis, one will not view our world the same way. It begins with an interesting introduction on his personal path-breaking arrival at world-systems as units of analysis (as opposed to nation-states, etc.).

   One can trace this development through the four sections of essays. The first covers his work on Africa which led him, like those working at the time on Latin America, to realize that nations-states are not independently developing societies, but political units of a larger whole in which people are interconnected geo-politically, economically, and socially. But unlike most dependency theorists, Wallerstein looked for the origins of underdevelopment in the transition from capitalism to socialism, which brought him to Braudel, the late great French historian. Under Braudel's influence, Wallerstein broke through the earlier debates on where and when capitalism began by focusing on one key problem: how people are historically linked to each other such that they form a social whole, and, how one measures this whole geographically. The answer: an extensive division of labor or a political economy.

   Few could have accomplished what Wallerstein did in his detailed studies of capitalism, beginning with the monumental Modern World-System I (1974), in terms of the elegant theorizing that he developed on the basis of an exhaustive study of the literature(s) that covered myriad and subtle points of debate among historians over the transition to capitalism. The key points of his research are summed up in the second set of essays. Whereas others failed to see the interconnections (e.g. Perry, 1974), Wallerstein showed how and why different regions changed politically, economically, and socially as a result of being part of the same system.

   Regardless of whether one agrees that the 1450-1750 period can be characterized as full-blown capitalism or not, it is difficult to refute Wallerstein's argument that what was then the "Third World" (New Spain and Eastern Europe) was in fact part of the same social system as was Western and Southern Europe). To hold fast to the deepness of the integration of areas is something which other world-systemists, including AG Frank, have recently neglected, and who have misinterpreted long distance commercial as binding ties of *significant,* or integrative, historical causality.

   The third set of essays examines the major institutions of the modern world-system, including the "economic" aspects of its cycles of growth and stagnation in relation to the geographic spread of the system (the spread and density of commodity chains), and how class and social relations (e.g. households) change in different ways in the three main areas of global stratification -- core, semiperiphery, and periphery -- but how they system stays ideologically glued by the notion, or rather myth, of national development.

   In the final set of essays, Wallerstein argues how this notion, and the entire ideological carapace of capitalism, including the social sciences, has become unglued, and how the system is entering into a long period (50 years or so) of decay. The insights are plentiful and gripping, especially the prognosis for the future -- which is what the entire project is really about: to understand the past to effectively change the present and direct the future toward a better global society. The weakness of Wallerstein's work in general, however, with his focus on the structural regularities (with the main exception of the limits of geographic expansion that are key to the system's demise), is a tendency to see capitalism as *essentially* the same from 1550 to the recent present. This stands in contrast to more recent writers working either at the same global level, such as Giovanni Arrighi (see his 1994 magnum opus), or those who combine global and local (anthropological) levels, such as Dale Tomich (1989) who offers a theoretically powerful and historically specific study of modern slavery. Nonetheless, Wallerstein is a must read for all concerned with globalization and the future of our world.