Economics has become omnipresent in contemporary society -- we calculate everything in terms of percentage of GDP and don't quite believe in anything that doesn't have a number attached. However, three young economists have called for major revamping of the discipline itself.
Here's a review of their book, The Econocracy -- it's The Guardian, so it is a long, in-depth, and thorough discussion:
Take your time with this one -- it's worth it.
Via Nick's Place.
Here's a review of their book, The Econocracy -- it's The Guardian, so it is a long, in-depth, and thorough discussion:
In the autumn of 2011, as the world’s financial system lurched from crash to crisis, the authors of this book began, as undergraduates, to study economics. While their lectures took place at the University of Manchester the eurozone was in flames. The students’ first term would last longer than the Greek government. Banks across the west were still on life support. And David Cameron was imposing on Britons year on year of swingeing spending cuts.
Yet the bushfires those teenagers saw raging each night on the news got barely a mention in the seminars they sat through, they say: the biggest economic catastrophe of our times “wasn’t mentioned in our lectures and what we were learning didn’t seem to have any relevance to understanding it”, they write in The Econocracy. “We were memorising and regurgitating abstract economic models for multiple-choice exams.”
Take your time with this one -- it's worth it.
Via Nick's Place.
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