1 comments about Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence.

1. This is a major study by any standard. It presents both a grand synthesis and a great depth of hard data to back it up, and I can see nothing that would cast it in serious doubt. Inglehart and Welzel make a very strong case that for the most part socioeconomic conditions drive popular values and that these values in turn drive the institutions of government. If you take a subsistence agricultural society and industrialize it then, after a time, its people will turn away from a sense of impotence in the face of divine forces toward a confidence in society's potential to master nature and itself. If their government already had elements of democracy then they will probably embrace more democratization, based in mass parties and movements. But if they lack a democratic tradition they may well turn to the apparent strength and security of mass totalitarian government.
   
   Moreover, if this industrial society becomes rich enough and sophisticated enough to move into an era of postindustrialism - an era in which industry produces more and more wealth with less and less direct labor and more and more people find secure and well-paid work in directing and facilitating industry through skilled mental labor - further values changes will come, but in a different direction. These postindustrial humans will grow suspicious and even hostile toward authority and relatively more concerned about freedom for themselves and others than further enrichment. This, in turn, will bring overthrow of any totalitarian institutions and both a broadening and deepening of democracy and popular commitment to democracy. But it will be democracy of autonomous individuals rather than disciplined masses.
   
   While socioeconomic changes are strongly correlated with movements of values in particular directions, the starting point - the basic values of the particular culture - continues to matter for as long as anyone has so far measured. Values associated with religion in particular tend to persist, even if formal mass religious institutions fade. Hopes and fears of spreading "westernization" or "Americanization" are unfounded. Democracy and freedom are not western or American exports - they arise anew wherever socioeconomic conditions and values favor them, always rooted in the local society.
   
   But there is no "end of history" here. The process can work equally well in reverse and serious regression in socioeconomic conditions can bring dark consequences for values and political institutions.
   
   All this is not simply theory, buttressed perhaps by a sprinkling of selective historical analysis. These processes have been observed and statistically measured in a great many societies, worldwide, over the past 15 years and more. There is good evidence that the flow of cause is from economics to social values to politics, and not much if at all in the other direction. And while we lack much information for periods before 1980, what we do know suggests that these processes have operated in pretty much the same way for many decades, and even longer. In short, this seems to be something that is deeply embedded in the nature of human society.
   
   I have a much longer and more detailed review (much more than will fit here) on my Web site at analysis.williamdoneil.com

2 comments about Economic Issues Today: Alternate Approaches.

1. "Economic Issues Today" is the layman's guide to the big economic issues affecting American society in our time. The book covers a wide range of issues from consumer welfare and income distribution to big business and international economics. For each topic (and there are 14 topics altogether) the conservative, liberal and radical views are presented. Given the number of topics there is only limited discussion on each.

   Carson, Thomas and Hecht have tried to present the basic arguments of each side, while reserving judgment on what they think is the `right' view. They admit that they were tempted to do this, but decided that the reader should be the final judge as to the merits of each argument. Because of this, the essays read as a debate between three economists, each from a different school of thought, but without the jargon usually involved in such debates. On some issues, one side clearly shines but on others there did not seem to be a winner to me. The only caveat here is not to take the representative views here as that actually held by the sides in real life. The arguments employed by actual conservatives , liberals and radicals are obviously much more thorough and realistic. The essays at time make it seem that some of the sides have very simplistic and unrealistic views on life, and the reader may be tempted to believe it especially if it confirms their prior biases. The authors have written a short bibliography for those readers interested in finding out more about the differing views. The bibliography is short, but it lists the major figures that have had a large influence on their respective schools of thought.

   Carson et al. have done an excellent job by not letting their biases show when relating the three different paradigms, I would highly recommend this book to undergraduates in economics or politics or to any general reader who wants to find out more about the economic arguments employed by conservatives, liberals and radicals when they talk about the economic issues of today.




2. Here is a great way to learn economics without all the mathematics! Carson, Thomas, and Hecht have produced a short, very readable book covering the burning economic issues of our time. The unique thing about this book is that it provides three different viewpoints (Conservative, Liberal, and Radical) for each issue covered!

No comments about Uncertain Times: Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care.

2 comments about A History of Economic Theory: Classic Contributions, 1720-1980 (Softshell Books).

1. The only book I've seen, outside the Palgrave reference book, that gives brief vignettes on different economists and their schools. Author does not mince words, writes strong, and gets to the point. A nice one-volume tome. Also includes some mathematics, which is nice.



2. Niehans appears to be unable to offer an objective assessment of many of the economists that he covers in a series of short essays in this book.Basically,Niehans views the history of economic thought as if it were composed of two different kinds of economists,the good guys who believe in Say's Law as a general covering law,which Niehans defines as the postulate that in the long run price adjustments alone will always guarantee the full employment of all resources(resource scarcity) excluding necessary slack and down time for repair,maintenance, retooling,rest,etc.,and the bad guys,who don't accept Say's law as the general case,but only as a special case operating only when economies are on the boundaries of both their static(short run)and dynamic(long run)production possibilities curves with an optimal stock of capital goods.The bad guys are the mercantilists,Sir James Steuart,Sismondi,Malthus,Marx,the laterJohn S Mills, the later Marshall,Veblen,and Keynes.The good guys are Smith,Bentham,James Mills,Say,Ricardo,Senior,Pigou,Robertson,Kalecki,Friedman and Modigliani.I will concentrate on covering some of the errors of ommission and commission made, with respect to the work of Keynes in the General Theory(1936),by Niehans throughout his book.The first incorrect assessment of Keynes's work is the claim that Keynes based his model in the GT on the assumption of rigid money wages(See Niehans,pp.114,350,353,355,356,471 for a few examples).Nowhere in the GT does Keynes assume money wages are rigid except as a simplification in the early chapters of the GT.Keynes assumed that short run money wages were held constant.Note also that prices are fully flexible in all chapters of the GT.Since a firms economic decision to hire labor in the labor market is a function of the real wage,and the real wage is completely flexible,I have no idea about the point Niehans is trying to make,since A C Pigou made the same identical assumption as Keynes did about money wages in the short run-they were held constant in the short run in his 1933 book,The Theory of Unemployment.In chapters 19,20,21,and the appendix to chapter 19 of the GT,money wages are assumed to be fully flexible in both the upward and downward direction.Keynes concludes in chapter 19 ,as a result of his analysis, that money wages that are sticky in a monetary economy are to be preferred to fully flexible money wages because, dynamically, sticky money wages are a necessary condition for the stability of money values over time.Niehans offers no evidence for his claim that Keynes's model in the GT was not fully articulated and left many confusions to be cleared up(Niehans,p.355).Niehans offers no textual evidence for his claim that Kalecki far exceeded Keynes in economic substance,analytic rigor and in lucidity of exposition.(Niehans,p.376).He offers no support for his claim that Keynes was neither a strong nor original theorist on page 444.I do not recommend this book for the novice reader.However,an experienced reader can overlook these deficiencies and profit from reading some of these essays.

5 comments about Economics and the Law, Second Edition: From Posner to Postmodernism and Beyond.

1. A nice piece of work. The authors undertake a difficult task: providing a readable introduction to the varied "law and economics" movement. The first chapter is one of the better narrative explications of the idea of efficiency that I have seen. It is followed by chapters on the various schools that make up the law and economics movement, each of which provides a good,brief intellectual history of the school and a helpful exposition of its content. For the undergraduate, this book is really a service since it also provides good follow up reading in the field. For the lawyer becoming interested in economics, this may well be the best place to start. Kudos to the authors and Princeton University Press: a clear and well-written book that serves an important purpose.



2. Houman Shadab's review is right on the money -- including what's left _out_ of this otherwise excellent introductory work. Since I like Hayek, Barnett, and Rothbard, I find the omission disappointing -- but c'est la vie.

   Anyway, if you're looking for a solid overview of the various schools of thought involving the relations between law and economics, this volume is a great place to start. (_Complete_ newcomers might also want to pick up Dennis Patterson's _Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory_, which includes a fine essay on "Law and Economics.")

   One tremendous merit of the present volume is that it doesn't limit itself to the "Chicago school." The U of Chi crowd gets a single chapter, and the rest of the book is devoted to the other schools of thought Mr. Shadab has helpfully listed below. The resulting volume is therefore pretty comprehensive (with the exceptions already noted).

   Readers interested in this topic may want to read Thomas Miceli's _Economics of the Law_ next. I don't personally favor the mathematical-models approach (for the usual Misesian/Rothbardian reasons) -- but Miceli's volume is a fine introduction to that approach and will afford the reader the opportunity to judge it on its merits.




3. What is law & economics? It is the school of jurisprudence in which the tools of microeconomic analysis are used to study law. Those of us who practice economic analysis have a deceptively simple task. We translate some legal doctrine into economic terms. We then apply a few basic principles -- cost-benefit analysis, collective action theory, decision-making under uncertainty, risk aversion, and the like -- to the problem. Finally, we translate the result back into legal terms.

   Law & economics unquestionably is the most successful form of intellectual arbitrage in the history of jurisprudence. Why? Traditional forms of legal scholarship were mostly backward looking. One reasoned from old precedents to decide a present case, seemingly without much concern (at least explicitly) for the effect today's decision would have a future behavior. Yet, law is necessarily forward looking. To be sure, a major function of our legal system is to resolve present disputes, but law's main job is to regulate future behavior. The law & economics movement succeeded because it recognized that judges cannot administer justice solely retrospectively. They must also consider what rules their decisions will create to guide the behavior of other actors in the future. Even more important, however, law & economics gives judges systematic mechanisms for predicting how rules will affect behavior.

   Mercuro and Medema's text offers a comprehensive overview of law & economics. Unlike many texts, it is not limited to the Chicago School (as exemplified by such stalwarts as Manne, Easterbrook, and Posner). They also describe the New Haven school (classically exemplified by Calabresi), the public choice theory of Arrow, Buchanan, and others, as well as both the traditional and new institutional economics. By reminding us that law & economics is not a homogeneous field, and providing a fair commentary on each of the major traditions within the larger discipline, they offer an excellent introduction to this important area of jurisprudence.

   One nice touch, which makes the text useful for a wide audience, is that it does not assume familiarity with either economics or law. The introduction offers a brief historical overview of basic jurisprudence, as well as an appendix explaining basic economic principles. Consequently, the book will serve well the interests both of lawyers who need to brush up on economics and economists interested in law.

   Criticisms that led me to subtract one star: There is little in the way of critical evaluative judgment. Indeed, Mercuro and Medema disavow any effort at criticism. As a result, the reader is left to his own devices. Second, I am not persuaded by Mercuro and Medema's decision to include a rather lengthy chapter on critical legal studies. Criticism of law & economics has been a major project of CLS scholars, but CLS scholarship has had no influence of any significance on any of the dominant strains of law & economics thinking. In this case, moreover, the failure to exercise critical evaluative judgment means that the generalist reader may have difficulty assessing the (bogus) claims made by CLS. In general, while maintaining facial neutrality on their own part, Mercuro and Medema give far more attention to CLS and Marxist critiques of law & economics than they do to conservative critiques thereof or to law & economics criticisms of CLS.




4. The authors know what they are talking about. The book is a survey of the main strains of law and economics theories and approaches. It provides examples of each theory and that can be illuminating. However, more examples could have given a better sense to the differences across the several theories. The notes are well written and provide all you need for further reading.



5. Nice introduction, very clear. I think that this is the first steep in this field. After reading this book I highly recommend Cooter's book Law and Economics (3rd Edition).

No comments about On the Wealth of Nations.

1 comments about Calculus for Business, Economics, Life Sciences and Social Sciences (10th Edition).

1. I used this textbook in my first calculus class. The applied calculus class showed me some of the things this stuff can actually be used for. The authors and editors have combined excellent graphics, and outstanding homework problems. If you are a gluton for punishment from word problems, or if you need help at the most basic level of calculus, this is the book you'll need.

3 comments about Introductory Economics.

1. This books sucks,I have never had an intro level book read so horribly - they are like all over the place talking about this and then say but we will cover that in a later chaper! Why did they even bring it up! Does not have far enough graph examples - try again!



2. If you're like me, interested in economics with no previous background in math or econ, then this is the best place to start. I enjoyed it greatly. Yes, it is "dumbed down", so if you do have previous knowledge of math or econ, then this is most certainly not the book for you, but that does not mean that this book is in anyway "dumb". This book is simply what it claims to be, an introduction to the world of economics. It is well written and easy to understand. Though I do believe the Micro section is stronger than the Macro, it is a great place to begin. Consider it an Intro to an Introductory course.



3. I teach economics at Northeastern Wisconsin Techncial College in Green Bay, Wisconsin, so it's likely that my students are buying this book from Amazon. As I tell them in the class, economics is about making decisions after considering both costs and benefits. Selecting the textbook is an example of that. The 'costs' are that there's no glossy paper, no color pictures, and no up-to-the minute applications. The 'benefits' are that it is an inexpensive textbook that covers the basics that we need for class, and that it can be supplemented with real world examples from online articles and RSS feeds. I think there is a real benefit to students when they have to read only short, self-contained chapters. But if you're looking for something that attempts to cover absolutely everything and tries to include current events, this is not the book for you. Instead, try one of those 1000-page encyclopedic variations that are good for weight training. I have found that students can't or won't read all of that material anyway!

1 comments about Classical Economics Reconsidered.

1. I have heard a lot of good things about Thomas Sowell. I have no doubt that he is a brilliant man. And I admire his conservative/libertarian principles. But this book was so difficult to understand, I wondered what use is an abundance of knowledge if one is unable to dispense it to others? Since I have read other Sowell books, I have concluded that it is the subject matter and not the author, which contributes to its lack of readability. If you're an experienced economist, you'll probably enjoy this book. If you're a novice in economics, don't bother. Instead, I would recommend Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson" to get an understanding and appreciation for classical economics.

1 comments about An End to Poverty?: A Historical Debate.

1. It is very disappointing to see so little information provided by the publisher on this book, not even a table of contents. The time has come for Amazon to demand a higher standard of due diligence by publishers.
   
   For those who wish to immerse themselves on the pros and cons of the debate over poverty, this is an essential intellectual foundation to the current work by Jeffrey Sachs who is both the advisor to the Secretary General of the UN on the Millennium project, and the head of the Columbia Earth Institute.
   
   Thomas Jefferson said that "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." He probably would have agreed to amend that to say an educated, healthy citizenry able to work. A historical appreciation of the phrase "pursuit of happiness" suggests that Jefferson actually meant, in lieu of selfish pleasure, the pursuit of self- actualization.
   
   This book completes a circle with C. K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks) which suggests that there is a four trillion a year marketplace among the five billion poorest, and that unleashing their entrepreneurial initiative could save the world, and the definitive work by Jeffrey Sachs, on how can end poverty for $70 per year per person.