What I’ve been reading

1. Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life.  From this book one learns that young Beatle Paul had more sex with more women than most people had thought, his daily pot habit started earlier than most people had thought (it inspired “Got to Get You Into My Life”), and Paul not John was the musical innovator (duh).  I enjoyed this book (duh) and it had a reasonable amount of detail about his last twenty years.  Good for fans, at the very least, but it will not convert the uninitiated.

2. Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Euro: How a Common Currency Threatens the Future of Europe.  Recall that while Krugman is much more influential in America, Stiglitz is more influential in Europe and in most of the developing world, thus the topic of this book makes sense.  I agree with most of the arguments, though not the view that trade surpluses are essential for understanding the problem.  This book is good for fans, at the very least, but it will not convert the uninitiated.

3.George J. Borjas, We Wanted Workers: Unraveling the Immigration Narrative.  My favorite two-sentence sequence in this book is: “It is worth emphasizing that the distributional pain is the flip side of the economic gain.  And ironically, the greater the distributional pain, the greater the economic gain.”  Good for fans, etc.