Brad DeLong on popular economics

by Tyler Cowen on November 6, 2007 at 4:23 pm in Books | Permalink

From the Chronicle of Higher Education, including a discussion of Discover Your Inner Economist, Robert Frank, Freakonomics, and Steve Landsburg.

3 comments

Keith November 6, 2007 at 4:59 pm: I scanned the review, and I must protest the following:

“In the beginning were the Steves — Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, that is.”

Levitt’s book is fine and all, but the simple fact is that Landsburg and David Friedman were writing Freakonomics-type books a decade before Freakonomics was “hot,” and that deserves mention.

Landsburg published “The Armchair Economist” back in 1995, Friedman published “Hidden Order” in 1997, and Landsburg wrote “Fair Play” in 1997.

Whether we agree with them or not, Friedman and Landsburg are the true pioneers of this genre, and that deserves recognition.
Urstoff November 6, 2007 at 7:24 pm: Schelling wrote “Micromotives and Macrobehavior” in 1978. If it’s not quite an everyday economics book, then it is at least the immediate progenitor of the genre.
Brad DeLong November 6, 2007 at 11:22 pm: Touche…

Friedman’s _Hidden Order_, especially, is an absolute gem.

But when one is trying a Genesis-John mashup, one does what one can…

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