Category: Books

Emerson did not care for Jane Austen

by  Tyler Cowen in

I am at a loss to understand why people hold Miss Austen’s novels at so high a rate, which seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world.  Never was life so pinched & narrow.  The one problem in the mind of the writer in both the stories I have read, “Persuasion”, and “Pride & Prejudice”, is marriageableness; all that interests any character introduced is still this one, has he or she money to marry with, & conditions conforming? ‘Tis “the nympholepsy of a fond despair”, say rather, of an English boarding-house.  Suicide is more respectable.

That is from Emerson’s Notebooks, August-September 1861.

The economics of the Michelin Guide

by  Tyler Cowen in

Michelin stresses though that when taken together, the maps, guides and digital businesses are profitable. But the losses incurred by the red books have become such a concern that Michelin has turned to outside consultants. Accenture looked last year at three different scenarios for the red books, including outright closure.

The nuclear option was quickly rejected, partly in recognition of the undoubted brand value of the guide but also because of the political impossibility in France of such drastic action. However, Accenture warned that to carry on with things as they are today would mean yearly losses at the guide hitting €19m by 2015, representing a cumulative loss of €70m over the next four years.

The thinking seems to be that Michelin would do well to seek a share of the good fortune that its awards bestow on restaurants, possibly by creating a “red book” website that provides paid-for links for those establishments with Michelin stars and allows users to make online reservations.

Here is more.

Harold Innis, an underappreciated economist, on commodity-driven growth

by  Tyler Cowen in

This Canadian economist (1894-1952) deserves an installment in the “underappreciated economists” series.  In addition to his seminal work on the economics of media and communications (better and earlier than McLuhan), he has some excellent pieces on the fur trade in Canadian economic history, and they are more contemporary than at first meets the eye.  Innis’s editor, Daniel Drache, sums up the main point:

Innis could not stress strongly enough that internal markets respond to a different logic and set of needs than externally based systems of exchange.  This occurs because the international price mechanism is volatile and subject to violence and instability in income fluctuation.

Most of all, Innis is worried about commodity and resource-based growth.  Five or ten years from now, will Canadians, Australians, and Brazilians be talking about Harold Innis as we do Hyman Minsky?

Innis also argued that the importance of the fur trade gave Canada a somewhat more peaceful history with its Native Americans than we had in the United States.  Here is a very good Wikipedia entry on Innis, who is still worth reading.

A new novel about an economist, by an economist

by  Tyler Cowen in

The author is Michael W. Klein, the title is Something for Nothing, and it is coming September from MIT Press.  Here is the catalog description:

David Fox (Ph.D. Economics, Columbia, Visiting Assistant Professor at Kester College, Knittersville, New York) is having a stressful year. He has a temporary position at a small college in a small town miles from everything except Albany. His students have never read Freakonomics. He thinks he is getting the hang of teaching, but a smart and beautiful young woman in his Economics of Social Issues class is distractingly flirtatious. His research is stagnant, to put it kindly. His search for a tenure-track job looms dauntingly. (The previous visiting assistant professor of economics is now working in a bookstore.) So when a right-wing think tank called the Center to Research Opportunities for a Spiritual Society (CROSS)–affiliated with the Salvation Academy for Value Economics (SAVE)–wants to publish (and publicize) a paper he wrote as a graduate student showing the benefits of high school abstinence programs, fetchingly retitled “Something for Nothing,” he ignores his misgivings and accepts happily.  After all, publication is “the coin of the realm,” as a senior colleague puts it.

But David faces a personal dilemma when his prized results are cast into doubt. The school year is filled with other challenges as well, including faculty politics, a romance with a Knittersville native, running the annual interview gauntlet, and delivering the culminating “job talk” lecture under trying circumstances. David’s adventures offer an instructive fictional guide for the young economist and an entertaining and comic tale for everyone interested in questions of balancing career and life, success and integrity, and loyalty and desire.

*On What Matters, vol. I*, review of Derek Parfit

by  Tyler Cowen in

Derek Parfit is one of my favorite philosophers, and favorite writers at that, so for many years I have been looking forward to his next book, which is now out.  The main argument is that rule consequentialism, properly understood Kantianism, and contractualism all can be understood as a broadly consistent moral theory, all climbing up the same mountain from different sides.

The text is recognizably Parfit, but I am not convinced by its major arguments, and I also believe the Parfitian method — any reader of him will understand this reference — does not succeed in all of the new areas under consideration.

The philosophical patron saints of the book are Kant and Sidgwick, and I would suggest also Bloomsbury.  Parfit is an extreme rationalist and he thinks (hopes?) we can find, and agree upon, the right answers to moral questions.  (At the same time he deeply fears that we cannot, and he is a philosophic conservative as Keynes was.)  What’s missing is Hume, not the Hume of is-ought worries but the Hume who came to terms with the tensions between the arguments of philosophy and the experience of everyday human life.

My favorite features of the Parfit book include the early comparison of Kant and Sidgwick and the general concern with the frequency and intensity of moral disagreement.

Parfit at great length discusses optimific principles, namely which specifications of rule consequentialism and Kantian obligations can succeed, given strategic behavior, collective action problems, non-linearities, and other tricks of the trade.  The Kantian might feel that the turf is already making too many concessions to the consequentialists, but my concern differs.  I am frustrated with this very long and very central part of the book, which cries out for formalization or at the very least citations to formalized game theory.

If you’re analyzing a claim such as — “It is wrong to act in some way unless everyone could rationally will it to be true that everyone believes such acts to be morally permitted” (p.20)  — words cannot bring you very far, and I write this as a not-very-mathematically-formal economist.

Parfit is operating in the territory of solution concepts and game-theoretic equilibrium refinements, but with nary a nod in their direction.  By the end of his lengthy and indeed exhausting discussions, I do not feel I am up to where game theory was in 1990.

I read the standard game-theoretic results as implying that ethics is a far more indeterminate enterprise than Parfit might like to see.  Any particular specification of rule consequentialism tends to require increasingly baroque refinements to cover all the different possible kinds of situations.  At the end we’re not left with much in the way of a rule at all, other than a general injunction to tell people to do something good and then to rejigger the rule itself, or complicate it with more contingencies, to cover the required ground.

To pose a simple example: “maximize your marginal impact” won’t as an injunction address a lot of environmental problems.  “Maximize your average impact” fails in cases where you are truly decisive.  What might other more complex rules be, and what are the expectations those rules are making about the behavior of others, what you infer from their behavior, what they infer from your inference, and so on.  The path out of these boxes takes us very far away from a rules concept that say Sidgwick might have found intuitive.

Hume has been locked out of the room and he is not allowed to re-enter in the form of Parfit having a dialogue with Cho and Kreps.

Now maybe, just maybe, that game-theoretic messiness does not have to be fatal for rule-consequentialism.  Still, I propose a rewrite.  Cut or severely limit the hundreds of pages on this topic, start with what game theory already is showing, describe that mess in philosophic, conceptual terms, and then consider whether that mess is compatible with the analogous messes found in Kantianism and contractualism,  Maybe it can be shown that they are (broadly) the same mess.  Nonetheless, such a collection of messes may be surrounding the same mountain but they will not scale it and Parfit would have to gaze once again into the abyss of, what is to him, ethical nihilism.  (Cut back to David Hume for a different attitude.  Perhaps Parfit’s very strong philosophic and personal desire to succeed and solve the whole problem draws him from the path that will get us up the mountain some small degree.)

For these reasons I see the biggest and most central part of the book as a failure, possibly wrong but more worryingly “not even wrong” and simply missing the questions defined by where the frontier — choice theory and not just philosophic ethics — has been for some time.

On other points, the criticisms of subjective and desire-based theories are good, but I view Parfit’s conclusions as already having been established.

The talk of Kantian dignity, and of “treating people as a mere means” I do not think can be well-defined.  I kept on wanting to see the Marginal Revolution (the real one, the 1871 one) inform this discussion.

I very much agree with Parfit’s argument that no one — not even evil people — should deserve to suffer.  I also agree with Parfit’s notion of the irreducibly normative.

Until the material on consequentialism is nailed, I don’t think the integration with contractualism can work.

I would describe the Parfitian method as “the postulation of bold, minimalist claims, explored by the use of brilliant hypotheticals and counterexamples.”  In Reasons and Persons the Parfitian method works because the potential for philosophic vagueness is limited by the vividness of the counterfactual (or real world) examples.  Most readers of that book are still thinking about split brains, the Repugnant Conclusion, and Future Tuesday Indifference, among numerous other examples.  You could question whether all of the terms were pinned down rigorously, but you still knew that the thought experiment was making you rethink some of your priors.  In the subject areas of On What Matters the semantics are too slack, too open to multiple interpretation, and too many of the central concepts cry out for formalization.  There are not compelling new metaphors and examples to pin down the discourse.  Parfit’s greatest strength is as an imaginer, often outside of traditional philosophic dimensions, and yet here he is so concerned with justifying his disagreements with his peers and colleagues.  Their ghosts and comments and discourses are shackling him, and if you visit the best pages of Reasons and Persons you will see they hardly mention the names of other philosophers at all, much less current philosophers.

I do not wish to put you off Parfit.  He is a philosopher of major importance and, non-trivially, one of the most philosophical philosophers, perhaps ever.  He lives, thinks, feels, breathes, and exudes philosophy in a way which is, in and of itself, a major contribution to human thought and being.  Reading him is an unforgettable and illuminating experience.  His best arguments have great real world import.

It is stunning to read the last three pages of the preface, which list everybody who gave him comments.  It’s a long list, but I’m not sure it was the right list to have chosen.

Addendum: Here is Peter Singer’s review.  Here is a review from Constantine Sandis.

Paul Starr’s *Remedy and Reaction*

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is Austin Frakt’s review.  I thought the book was beautifully written, crystal clear, well-informed, and the single best introduction to the history of American health care policy.  That said, I am not sure specialist readers will learn much from it.  I did not find it conceptually very deep.

The book’s home page is here.  You can pre-order it here.

*Between Parentheses*

by  Tyler Cowen in

That’s the new collection of Roberto Bolaño’s assembled bricolage, essays, speeches, and critical notes.  It wins the award for “the book this year which has most made me want to read other books.”  It also reveals how smart and original he was as a reader, not just as a writer.  I enjoyed this passage, among many others:

Of those three lineages — the three strongest in Argentina literature, the three departure points of the literature of doom — I’m afraid that the one which will triumph is the one that most faithfully represents the sentimental rabble, in the words of Borges.  The sentimental rabble is no longer the Right (largely because the Right busies itself with publicity and the joys of cocaine and the plotting of currency devaluations and starvation, and in literary matters is functionally illiterate or settles for reciting lines from Martin Fierro), but the Left, and what the Left demands of its intellectuals is soma, which is exactly what it receives from its masters.  Soma, soma, soma Soriano, forgive me, yours is the kingdom.

Strongly recommended, but only for those with a preexisting interest in, and knowledge of, Latin American literature.  It gets an A+ for “helps you see an apparently familiar area in an entirely new light.”

What I’ve been reading

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin.  I hadn’t read this since I was fourteen, but it held up surprisingly well and I enjoyed it thoroughly.  This time around I could see how much the author is the daughter of anthropologist Alfred Kroeber.

2. My Blood Approves, by Amanda Hocking.  A landmark in the history of e-publishing, and a real button-clicker too.  But I can’t say I actually think it’s good.  Still, I finished it.

3. Patrick French, India: A Portrait.  Consistently thoughtful.  I didn’t love it, but a reader could do much worse.  I finished it.

4. John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America’s Untamed Edge.  Yes, this book covers Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.  A revelation, I loved it.  Could Gimlette be my favorite current travel writer?

5. Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America.  I like the first hundred pages very much, so you’ll probably be hearing more about this one, which is a major study of its topic, with a good deal of coverage of Canada and Mexico too, often from a comparative perspective.

Also in my pile is Menzie D. Chinn and Jeffry A. Frieden, Lost Decades: The Making of America’s Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery.

*Unnatural Selection*

by  Tyler Cowen in

The author is Mara Hvistendahl, and the subtitle is Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.  It will make my best books of 2011 list, excerpt:

A recent paper in the journal Reproductive Health Matters states, “For women attempting to have a son and experiencing pressure to fulfill their ‘womanly duty’ by having a male child, sex-selective abortion can be extremely empowering.”  The other, more tragic factor…is that women know best just how difficult it is to be female.

…Liao Li also tells me she prefers daughters.  “Girls are very good,” she says.  “They’re soft.  And they take care of you when you’re older.”  But she aborted two female fetuses, she intimates, because having a son is crucial to keeping up appearances: “If you don’t have a boy, you lose face.”

Women have become, in a sense, their own worst enemies.  Development, remember, was supposed to improve the lot of women — and in many areas it does.  But when it comes to reproduction, the opposite happens: women use their increased autonomy to select for sons.

Here is one good review.  I also learned from this book how prevalent the sex imbalance problem is becoming in some parts of the Balkans.

What I’ve been reading

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. Red April (Abril Rojo], by Santiago Roncagliolo, translated by Edith Grossman.  This Peruvian “Shining Path noir” tale is as good as the strongly positive reviews indicate and it has an excellent dark humor.  Here is an interview with the author.

2. Effi Briest, by Theodor Fontane.  Remarkably vivid and full of life, despite its reputation as a stodgy 19th century novel.  It also can be funny and very much to the point about human nature.

3. Made in Britain, by Evan Davis.  Too simple for my tastes, but this is nonetheless an effective accounting of where the British economy remains strong and also where the weaknesses are starting to bite.  The author has a good understanding of economics and he avoids the mercantilism that you might fear is implicit in such an enterprise.

4. Hart Crane, The Bridge.  Two-thirds of this is stunning, mostly the first half and most of what comes after “Three Songs.”  Plus it’s fairly short and easy to read, though difficult to comprehend at the highest levels.  Think of it as the next step after Leaves of Grass.

5. Popular Crime, by Bill James.  Silly idea, or self-recommending?  Perhaps a bit of both, because this is the Bill James, writing a 500-page treatise on popular crimes and also on other people’s books on popular crimes.  The classic error detection and pattern recognition skills are still there.  The bottom line is that a) I finished it (skimmed maybe a fifth, some of the cases I didn’t care about), and b) I liked it increasingly as my read progressed, and c) I have no trouble with books which fall outside of the usual “central narrative” structure but you might.  If you think you might like it, at the very least try it.  That said, if you’re looking to pick holes in it, you certainly can; here is one critical review.  Here is another review.

6. Javier Marias, A Heart so White.  Loved it, a modern classic by Spain’s leading writer.

*How U.S. Economists Won World War II*

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the subtitle, the title is Keep from All Thoughtful Men and the author is Jim Lacey.  Excerpt:

Just fifty years before World War II there had been only one individual in the government with the title of economist, and that person was listed as an “economic ornithologist.”  World War I saw a few trained economists brought to Washington in policy positions, but their influence remained constrained to providing advice on price administration and shipping.  They had little impact on mobilization planning.  It was the Great Depression that brought economists into Washington policy circles, first by the hundreds and then by the thousands.  By the time World War II began, the federal government employed an estimated five thousand economists.

David Warsh reviews the book here.  I found some parts boring, some parts very valuable, overall worthwhile.  Contra Higgs, Lacey argues that wartime mobilization proceeded with a surprisingly low sacrifice from U.S. consumers, with most of the impact coming on postponed purchases of durables.

Here is an essay (pdf) on early pioneers of economic ornithology.  I’ve never heard of a field exam in that area.