Any recommendations? Read any book that made you think, I get it all now? Most of the academic books make my brain hurt - not that that is saying a lot.
Animal Spirits by Schiller & Akerlof Irrational Exuberance by Schiller
Liar’s Poker The Big Short
Here’s an online version of Keyne’s General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/ It will put you to sleep let me tell you.
The Great Reflation - Boeckh *its brand new but its pretty good. Economics in One Lesson - Henry Hazlitt
Another that you can read after/before Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt is Economic Sophisms by Bastiat.
Definitely the book by Hazlitt if you have no background in Econ. Mobs, Markets, and Messiahs by Bill Bonner is an amazing History/Econ book. Highly informative, and it will make you laugh.
Dwight Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Here’s an online version of Keyne’s General Theory > of Employment, Interest, and Money. > > http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economic > s/keynes/general-theory/ > > It will put you to sleep let me tell you. I read this in undergrad. It’s all about Chapter 2, right?
^^I second Mobs, Markets and Messiahs. I almost included that, but decided not to since it leans more to the history side. 2 more that are market related econ books: When Markets Collide - El Erian Unexpected Returns - Ed Easterling - this one is good for linking up economic cycles with the stock and bond markets and how everything “technically” works. Its kind of worthless when there is this much stimulus and government intervention, but in a normalized environment it is very useful.
i like Hayek, Galbraith, Friedman Keynes is a bad read. written in a rush.
^ True. I’m working on “The Road to Serfdom” by Hayek right now and it’s pretty good.
Muddahudda Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Dwight Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Here’s an online version of Keyne’s General > Theory > > of Employment, Interest, and Money. > > > > > http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economic > > > s/keynes/general-theory/ > > > > It will put you to sleep let me tell you. > > > I read this in undergrad. It’s all about Chapter > 2, right? Pretty much. “At different points in this chapter we have made the classical theory to depend in succession on the assumptions: (1) that the real wage is equal to the marginal disutility of the existing employment; (2) that there is no such thing as involuntary unemployment in the strict sense; (3) that supply creates its own demand in the sense that the aggregate demand price is equal to the aggregate supply price for all levels of output and employment. These three assumptions, however, all amount to the same thing in the sense that they all stand and fall together, any one of them logically involving the other two.”
Let me save you the time. Murders&Executions Economics Book After making a lot of extremely unrealistic assumptions, everything works out nicely. The end.
there is a lot one can learn from economics if they stay away from mathematics. one of my(and most academic) biggest mistakes was/is spending so much time learning maths in econ when the fruits were really in plain language. i don’t regret studying econ but i wish i never got pass basic calculus. if you need an equation to explain the result, ignore it. economics is basic common sense that should be understantable within 5 minutes of explanation.
I don’t fully agree with that… sometimes you need an equation or a diagram to get you the insight. But I do agree that if you can’t explain the result in plain language or the causal mechanism behind the equation, one should be dubious.
bchadwick Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I don’t fully agree with that… sometimes you > need an equation or a diagram to get you the > insight. But I do agree that if you can’t explain > the result in plain language or the causal > mechanism behind the equation, one should be > dubious. Please provide me an instance of this where one cannot get 90% of the theory without the mathematics. I don’t consider a diagram per se to be “mathematics” on a high level. Mathematics helps, but there needs to be a balance and i think econ has been overdone with it for the worst. i’m not talking about some obscure mathematical truth where given some lemma a result will occur, but an economic theory or idea relevant to the real world. Adam Smith, Hayek, Mises, Keynes did quite well without having to put forth an equation to explain their thoughts. Even modern ideas related to imperfect information, behavioural econ, to game theory can essentially be learned to very useful degrees without knowing anything but basic algebra. you might disagree with game theory as that is more a branch of mathematics, but econ game theory is pretty basic. the complicated stuff is useless.
the giving tree
Frank, I think we’re more or less on the same page. The problem in economics is that you need barfonious amounts of math to be published or get tenure, and you have people who know more and more about less and less, or departments that seem to think that “if you can do math, you can do any kind of economics, so let’s hire a X to cover labor economics, even though all their background is in trade theory. Since they do math, they can do anything.” The money multiplier is something where the mathematics really helps in terms of getting the insight. Sure, you can explain it qualitatively, but the magnitude of the effect is can be impressive and you need the math to see that.
I agree. I’m just kind of upset at myself spending all those hours going through math proofs and what not. perhaps because i’m not working as an economist, what i have learned turned out to be very useless.