New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought
Author: Todd G. Buchholz, Martin Feldstein
List Price: $14.95
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ISBN: 0452280524
Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) (April, 1999)
Sales Rank: 11,503
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
New Ideas from Dead Economists by Buchholz and Feldstein
This book will complement any collegiate economics course in
basic economics or economic theory. The authors discuss important
economists of the past. For instance, Adam Smith's theories are
given quite a bit of space in this book. Smith taught that
the division of tasks into component parts will increase output
due to the shear specialization and learning curve effects.
He explained that free trade benefited England because goods
could be bought cheaper than they could be produced in the mother
country. As a result, English labor could specialize in areas
of comparative advantage. Malthus warned that the population
boom would result in greater poverty down the line. Economists
can argue this even today. Malthus argued for delayed marriage
to enhance the standard of living for married couples.
Ricardo argued that consumers could consume a greater variety
of goods with free trade regardless of the stage in the
advancement of trading partners. Marshall and Jevons
argued that marginal utility diminished with each portion.
That is, more of a good thing would lead to less pleasure
incrementally. If people consumed all of their income,
Says Law found that "Full Employment" could remain. This is
overly optimistic because consumers don't always have the same
level of demand for goods and services-particularly during
weak economic cycles. This book is a good supplement to
the existing library of Economics volumes.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Must Have Economics 101
Buchholz gives the reader a lucid book on introductory economics. I call it introductory because this isnt a book written for advanced economic analysis. Its not for people who already did many courses in economics. Its definately not for economic teachers. This is a must have book for all those people who are interested in understanding or at least knowing about this complex subject. Its will more than enrich you, in case you started reading the book with no knowledge of economics.Buchholtz starts with the father of modern economics, Adam Smith and follows with giving (almost biographical) details of Malthus, Ricardo, Marshal, Keynes. The chapter on Monetarist and their attack on Keynes follows and its worth reading twice. Then he gives a brief description of all other important economists of last century. This is followed by chapters on new methods such as Public Choice and Rational Expectations. All chapters are written in a very informal, witty style and this helps the reader keep interest. Economics, being a rather dry subject is taught well here, with good illustrations and in a very non-technical way.
The downside of the book is not being able to cover more economists. The author talks about Rational Expectations without mentioning anything about John Muth or much of Robert Lucas. This was missing, but I assume he did that because anyone reading or learning about economics for the first time (the intended audience of this book) might not have to know about these economists. Like wise, Veblen, Galbraith, Samuelson and new economists such as Paul Krugman, Joseph E. Stiglitz are not covered. But again, its not possible to cover so many and I guess also due to the fact that teh author wanted to cover schools of economic thought more than individual economists themselves.
All in all, this book is very interesting to read as it is very well written. If you have read this review and have no idea of economics but want to have one, here we go, just buy the book!
Rating: 1 out of 5
Simplistic and Incomplete
The title of 'New Ideas from Dead Economists' is the most clever part of this book. The early sections on Smith, Ricardo, and Malthus lacked depth. Buchholz brought in too many contemporary topics in his discussion of Smith, and as is common, did not pay proper attention to Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. His discussions of Malthus and Ricardo are better, but he tries to hard to be entertaining rather than informative. Bucholz fails badly with Keynes, Marx and Vebelen. What he discusses of Keynes is not wrong, but there is far more to discuss. His chapter on Marx suffers from similar problems. He hits on the better known aspects of Marx's life and Marxian theory. Most readers would benefit from greater detail. His section on Veblen is about the worst part of this book. His interpretation of 'The Engineers and the Price System' is just plain wrong. The author cites some simple statistics on the education of businessmen and engineers in an effort to refute Veblen. This proves only that he misinterprets this material.
The author's discussion of new institutionalists is on target, but brief. His discussion of Rational Expectations is hardly worth reading. He seems to want to mock RE, but with enemies like Buchholz, Bob Lucas has little need of friends. The section on Public Choice is so incomplete, that readers are better off ignoring this too.
He has a good discussion of Marshall. But Marshall is not a particularly interesting economist. Bucholz mentions Hayek from time to time, but should have had a separate chapter for him, along with Mises.
The key problem with this book is that the author was more interested in keeping his readers entertained than in informing them. Readers that need a book to be 'cute' are never really going to get into economics. Readers that will really get interested in these ideas are better off getting more of just that, and in a fittingly serious tone.
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