I just finished Tyler Cowen’s enlightening new book, Discover Your Inner Economist. It’s a good antidote to the “isn’t economics weirdly counter-intuitive” genre, which, although often fun, doesn’t do as much to advance economic literacy as some seem to think. Discover Your Inner Economist is full of interesting ideas about such issues as self-deception, why some incentives work in certain settings, but not in others, and why wonderful restaurants may be hard to find in wealthy countries. It’s also full of lots of Tyler’s unique personality, which I happen to find interesting. (But…not everyone will be as enchanted by his informed discussions of his passions, such as tasty food, so for a few sections it may be worth taking his advice about reading books [pp. 61-66].)
yes, the commentary on self-deception is particularly interesting, don’t you think so tom?
Meh. Do we *really* need another “package” (perfect word, really) of self-consciously quirky yet quotidian economics-is-all-around-us-ness (albeit by Tyler Cowen)? I’d rather he wrote an update for the YouTube age of “In Praise of Commercial Culture,” wouldn’t you?
I’m not sure what ‘ben amori’ has in mind with his comment, but I do know that it was made from the same computer (with an IP address in the San Francisco Bay Area) that generated a comment under the name “cdevore” that responded to my criticism of an anti-Semitici nut job with the classic “go fuck yourself palmer.” ( http://www.tomgpalmer.com/archives/042204.php ) Really, surely you must have better things to do with your time. Or not.
I found “Discover Your Inner Economist” an interesting book that pointed me to some new ways to think of issues and problems. I’m not sure we “need” it, but then, so what? Tyler chose to write it and I chose to buy it, after which I read it and I enjoyed it. Tyler doesn’t belong to other people, so he can write whatever he damn well pleases. If someone wants to write another book, he or she is free to do so.
I’m not proposing that Congress pass a law requiring him to write a different book or prohibiting you from reading this one, Tom. But for me, between this and “Freakonomics” and “The Undercover Economist” and “Naked Economics” and “More Sex is Safer Sex” and “Sex, Drugs and Economics” and “The Armchair Economist” and “Freedomnomics” (which did have more of a substantive thesis), and the sociology equivalent of all these, “The Social Atom” (“Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught, and Your Neighbor Usually Looks like You”)…. Doesn’t reading this sentence, from the PW review of Cowen’s latest, make you a little sad?
“Perhaps mindful that the procession of Freakonomics-inspired pop-economics books is becoming a blur, blogger Cowen aims to not hit the reader over the head with economic principles.”
I’m sure you weren’t proposing a law. Even so, writers can write to please themselves, as well as us, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I don’t think that the sentence quite captures the difference between Tyler’s approach and those others. It’s different in a number of ways, not assuming that the same incentives (money, for example) work in all circumstances, because one thing people seek is a sense of control over their own lives. I found that quite insightful and an advance over the usual approach of economics. Some might see that as “non-economic,” but it strikes me as more deeply economic than the economists who assume that offering more money will always be more likely to get positive results (positively sloping supply curve and all that). I think you might like the book.
Thanks for the post and also for displaying the book’s cover so prominently. I would add two things: first, I do view the book as mostly economics, albeit an economics of relatively recent vintage. Standard economics often starts with the concept of incentives. In my view how incentives “bite” depends on how incentives are perceived; the first two chapters of the book argue this. But that will mean that the concepts of beliefs and perceptions have to be an integral part of a theory of incentives. Much of the book is about beliefs and perceptions; it doesn’t all sound econspeak but it is fundamental to economics nontheless.
The other key strand in the book is the “Liberty Fund idea” of a society of free and responsible individuals (this comes up, most of all, in the last two chapters). I’m trying to show that such individuals can in principle solve key problems in life. I don’t expect everyone to take the particular paths I outline, but I hope at least a look at my paths will help other people think through or intuit their own paths toward realizing this vision. I thus think of the book as very “micro-libertarian,” though it doesn’t much discuss economic policy.
Meh. Do we *really* need another “package” (perfect word, really) of self-consciously quirky yet quotidian economics-is-all-around-us-ness (albeit by Tyler Cowen)? I’d rather he wrote an update for the YouTube age of “In Praise of Commercial Culture,” wouldn’t you?
No, but Tyler is really smart. So it’s got to be better that James Surowiecki or Malcolm Gladwell or Steve Leavitt.