by Jesper Jespersen reviewing my latest book Having read Syll’s book, one cannot avoid wondering how it is that modern mathematical economics still holds such a dominant position in terms of textbooks and economic practice. This is especially so if you consider two things: First, if one peruses the shelves of economic literature of any major bookstore (in London or even Copenhagen), it is clearly books written by dissenting economists which dominate the shelves devoted to the general interested reader: Ha-Joon Chang, Yanis Varoufakis, Robert Skidelsky, Mariana Mazzucato, Stephanie Kelton, Kate Raworth etc. Many of the more popular books (besides the Freakonomics type works) focus on “what’s wrong with economics?”. Yet the textbook shelves are dominated by
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Lars Pålsson Syll considers the following as important: Economics
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Jesper Jespersen reviewing my latest book
Having read Syll’s book, one cannot avoid wondering how it is that modern mathematical economics still holds such a dominant position in terms of textbooks and economic practice.
This is especially so if you consider two things:
First, if one peruses the shelves of economic literature of any major bookstore (in London or even Copenhagen), it is clearly books written by dissenting economists which dominate the shelves devoted to the general interested reader: Ha-Joon Chang, Yanis Varoufakis, Robert Skidelsky, Mariana Mazzucato, Stephanie Kelton, Kate Raworth etc. Many of the more popular books (besides the Freakonomics type works) focus on “what’s wrong with economics?”. Yet the textbook shelves are dominated by mainstream works. Pause for thought!
Second, during all of the major 21st century crises mainstream models and predictions have typically failed and the policy prescriptions built from them have often been suspended by policymakers, forcing them to improvise. This has happened without widespread objection from mainstream economists. It is odd that the mainstream seems so unaffected by this and even odder that they continue to offer advice and analysis from the very same toolbox that failed in a number of fatal cases. Pause for thought!
Syll’s book belongs with the popular authors in the first of these two conjectures, but is an important guide to the second.