Category: Books
What I’ve been reading
1. John B. Thompson, Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century. By an order of magnitude, this is the best book on the economics of contemporary publishing. It covers the UK scene as well.
2. Adam Feinstein, A History of Autism: Conversations with the Pioneers. A lengthy and informative treatment of how thought on autism evolved, and most of all a tale of how badly science can misfire, even "these days." I am not sure how much the portraits of researchers are intended as positive, but overall I take away from this book the message that many of them are arrogant and also partially incompetent. It is possible that this is a better book (and for different reasons) than the author himself realizes.
3. Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail. An excellent book, based on a blockbuster combination of writer and topic.
4. Jean-Christopher Valtat, Aurorarama. Think French steam punk, Inuit characters, a strange dark ship hovering over an ice-locked retro-futuristic town, and a plot which might have come from an incoherent Japanese anime movie. So far I like it and it's also my favorite book cover in some time:
There were other books which I put down quickly or not quickly enough. I'm also reading more Thomas Bernhard, never a mistake.
Where in the federal government do the economists work?
There has been so much talk lately about ethics and economists and now there is a whole new book out it, the new and useful The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics, by George F. DeMartino. I was intrigued and surprised by the p.24 chart about where economists (as defined by title, not Ph.d.) work in the federal government, not counting the Federal Reserve System.
1. Department of Labor, 1262 economists, 30.5 percent of the total, 1208 of those are at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2. Agriculture, 533 economists
3. Treasury, 473
4. Commerce, 462
5. Defense, 225
6. Energy, 168
7. EPA, 163 (is that enough?)
8. HHS, 137
9. Transportation, 88
10. Interior, 86
11. FTC, 74
12. HUD, 62
13. Justice, 61
14. FDIC, 61 (do bank examiners produce the real value there?)
15. All others, 275. The total is 4130 economists in the Federal government, as of 2008, and I believe those numbers are not counting consultants.
Should we make them swear an oath not to act against the truths of their discipline for political gain?
*The Return*
The author is Daniel Treisman and the subtitle is Russia's Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev. Is this the first non-fiction book to be making my "Best of 2011" list? Most of all, it argues persuasively that, rather than botching the transition away from communism, the Russians/Soviets did a remarkably good job, relative to what could have been expected. It's also the best all-round book-length treatment of what the subtitle indicates and it is readable as well. Excerpt:
But [under Putin] did the bureaucracy become more effective and the population safer? The state certainly grew. In Putin's eight years as president, about 363,000 additional bureaucrats were hired, mostly federal agents stationed in the regions. Law enforcement mushroomed. In the United States, there are two judges and prosecutorial employees per 10,000 residents. When Putin took over, Russia had eight; when he left, it had fourteen. Federal spending on law enforcement and national security rose from $4 billion in 1998 to $26 billion in 2007.
Despite this influx of resources, most indicators suggest the state became less, not more, effective. It built less housing, paved fewer roads, and laid fewer water mains and gas lines per year than under Yeltsin. The number of public schools and buses in service fell faster than before. Reforms of the education and health systems were repeatedly postponed…As for keeping citizens safe, few saw any improvement.
Here is a recent review of the book from the WSJ; I liked the book more than he did.
I Chose Liberty
I Chose Liberty, a collection of short intellectual biographies of contemporary libertarians edited by Walter Block, is quite entertaining. Richard Epstein, Gordon Tullock, Judge Napolitano, John Hasnas, Ron Paul, Bryan Caplan, myself and many others are included.
Need I tell you whose biography begins:
When I was about thirteen, I decided I wanted to read all of the good books in the public library. I started with the Dialogues of Plato…
You can buy it here or here is the free pdf.
Hat tip: Bryan Caplan.
*FIxing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control*
For centuries, farmers in Austria shot consecrated guns at storms in attempts to dispel them. Some guns were loaded with nails, ostensibly to kill the witches riding in the clouds; others were fired with powder alone through open empty barrels to make a great noise — perhaps, some said, to disrupt the electrical balance of the storm. In 1896, Albert Stiger, a vine rower in southeastern Austria and burgomaster of Windisch-Feistritz, revived the ancient tradition of hagelschiessen (hail shooting) — basically declaring "war on the clouds" by firing cannon when storms threatened. Faced with mounting losses from summer hailstorms that threatened his grapes, he attempted to disrupt, with mortar fire, the "calm before the storm," or what he observed as a strange stillness in the air moments before the onset of heavy summer precipitation.
That is from the new and quite good book by James Rodger Fleming. If you are wondering, Windisch-Feistritz is now in Slovenia and it is known as Slovenska Bistrica. It looks like this.
*Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis*
That is the new book by Paul W. Glimcher, of NYU, Center for Neuroeconomics. This book is especially strong on how valuation takes place in the mind. At times the book feels as if one has stepped into an alternate universe, in which the subjectivist Mengerian Austrians are now doing neuroeconomics instead…
Economics and Michel Foucault
Joshua Miller, a loyal MR reader, asks:
Another cut on local knowledge: what is economics' relationship to Michel Foucault? Often I see folks like you and Hanson making points that the rest of the social sciences and humanities would call Foucauldian, about the role of disciplinary power in knowledge-production, but you don't seem to ever reference or perhaps even read him. Perhaps he is simply not considered very interesting? Given the fact that there is some history of economics in his "Les Mots and les choses," I'd think there'd be more of an attempt to discredit or claim him.
Foucault is interesting, but use him with caution. Most of his books have not held up very well as history, even if he succeeded in drawing people's attention to some neglected factors. On top of that, his theoretical framework is incoherent. Try reading The Archaeology of Knowledge. I find The Order of Things to be an insightful but skewed account of the seventeenth century; detailed objections aside, it goes astray by assuming, implicitly, explicitly or otherwise, that structural categories somehow interact with each other in the world of ideas. It's much more micro and disaggregated than he lets on, but still I am glad I read the book. This volume is a good, readable introduction to his work.
Perhaps Foucault is best on prisons and hospitals, though again caveat emptor on the history. His most valuable insight, both theoretically and historically, is that what appears to be "enlightenment" (or for that matter "Enlightenment") is often anything but.
Foucault is important, and he deserves to be read, but I am not sure he will be much read fifty years from now. I also view "engaging with him" as a much overdone and much overrated exercise, carried in large part by the less salubrious tendencies in Continental and U.S. humanities scholarly discourse. It is better to simply work on the topics he cared about, using his books as a reminder to consider some different angles.
Did you know that Foucault — at least the late Foucault — appreciated Mises, Hayek, and Friedman?
*Progress for the Poor*
That is the new, "Kindle singles-length" book by Lane Kenworthy, who writes the blog Consider the Evidence. It is about how the poor are making, or not making, progress, and also how the poor could make better progress. I especially liked the chapter on how the quality of government expenditure can help alleviate the consequences of poverty. It is due out in 2011, from Oxford University Press, so why are there still no links for the book, Amazon or otherwise? In any case, recommended.
Here is a related paper. Here is Kenworthy on Bill Simmons.
The 19th century was truly bad for Mexico and for Mexicans
From an international perspective, Mexicans' height in the mid-eighteenth century was "not too short"…The declining trend over the second half of the eighteenth century was nothin exceptional in international perspective either. The early nineteenth century, however, was a watershed as the trends diverged: height recovered or stagnated in France, Spain, and other countries, but it continued to decline in Mexico: by the 1830s, Mexicans had finally become "too short." …I have proposed that population growth, and more frequent El Niño events, and real grain prices reduced the availability of food and had a likely detrimental effect on living standards.
That is from an essay by AmÃlcar Challú, from the new and excellent book Living Standards in Latin American History: Height, Welfare, and Development, 1750-2000, edited by Ricardo D. Salvadore, John H. Coatsworth, and AmÃlcar Challú.
*The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do*
That's Eduardo Porter's new book, a behavioral economics treatment of how prices are set. Recommended. I'll be at the book party tonight, look for me if you'll be there too.
Since I cannot reread Heinlein, I should not read a biography of Heinlein
But I can browse one. William H. Patterson's Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century, Learning Curve 1907-1948, would appear to be definitive. The very thick volume one — over six hundred pages with notes – stops at 1948. It is very well written and engaging and connects Heinlein to broader American history. There is plenty on Heinlein and free love, Heinlein and H.G. Wells, Heinlein in the Navy, Heinlein and Missouri, and many other topics.
In my pile
*The World in 2050*
The author is Laurence C. Smith and the subtitle is Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future.
This book is excellent on at least two questions:
1. Which environmental problems remain real, even taking into account the dynamic adjustment properties of markets?
2. Why the northern countries will grow in economic and political importance over the next forty years.
Excerpt:
Extraction industries will favor projects nearer the water. Looking ahead, our northern future is one of diminishing access by land, but rising access by sea. For many remote interior landscapes, the perhaps surprising prospect I see is reduced human presence and their return to a wilder state.
My main criticism of this book is that it does not direct enough criticism at government water subsidies and their role in worsening this environmental problem.
Here is the book's rather non-Hayekian close:
No doubt we humans will survive anything, even if polar bears and Arctic cod do not. Perhaps we could support nine hundred billion if we choose a world with no large animals, pod apartments, genetically engineered to algae to eat, and desalinized toilet water to drink. Or perhaps nine hundred million if we choose a wilder planet, generously restocked with the creatures of our design. To be, the more important question is not of capacity but of desire: What kind of world do we want?
Definitely worth the read. I don't agree with everything here, but this is a book (very well-written by the way) which should be making a splash. For the pointer I thank a loyal MR commentator.
Markets in everything
Kindle eBook, for $6,431.20 — Selected Nuclear Materials and Engineering Systems.
Don't forget, we get a commission if you buy one.
For the pointer I thank Jason Lewis.
Joseph Gibson on how to improve Congress
Chug refers me to this new book. A few of the ideas are:
1. Make Congress a temporary job, a bit more like jury duty or serving in the military.
2. Allow all financial contributions but require full disclosure on the internet.
3. Lower or eliminate the fixed allotment for Congressional staff, to limit the "bubble" which surrounds Congressmen.
4. Do not allow fundraising while Congress is in session, to make sessions more urgent.
5. Require that bills be written in plain English.
6. Allow formal vote-trading, so minority legislators could have some prospect of promoting their better ideas.
7. Make it easier to repeal unnecessary laws.
8. Eliminate the "hold" and make filibusters much harder.
9. Make confirmations quicker and easier.
10. Make the House smaller.
There is more, but that is a start.
In general I find Congressional reform proposals, including filibuster abolition, difficult to evaluate. There is no simple model at hand. Sometimes the median voter model is useful, but in most cases it implies the reforms don't matter, a conclusion which I would not wish to accept so readily. Multi-dimensional cycling models often imply that either a) it still doesn't matter (the agenda setter remains in charge), or b) it matters some huge amount in a way which is difficult to forecast but the entire political equilibrium can shift and not just locally.
There are many "near median voter models," perhaps too many.
There is also the Becker QJE 1983 model about the bargaining power of different interest groups. Still, when it comes to outlining exactly how the procedural reforms shift the political bargain, we are again looking at a black box. The first cut version of the model seems to imply that political procedures don't much matter.
The overall problem is that plausible models generate either no changes or large, non-local changes. Maybe we should take those results seriously, but then in the former case it doesn't matter and in the then-more-relevant latter case we still can't predict the nature or even the direction of the non-local shift.