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THE ECONOMICS OF BOOKS ON ECONOMICS.
Like many folks in Washington, I've been making my way through Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism
. The authors are both eminent economists -- George Akerlof won the Nobel in 2001 and Robert Shiller has been the among the best and most prescient analysts of bubbles -- and word is that their book has gained a number of adherents inside the administration. But that's not the fault of Akerlof and Shiller's publisher.
It is perhaps not surprising that a book about the economics of irrationality is somewhat irrationally presented. But it's still puzzling. Take the blurbs on the back cover. The first comes from Robert Solow. That's all for the good. Getting a Nobel laureate on your book jacket does wonders for credibility. The second, however, comes from Dennis Snower, an economist at the University of Kiel, in Germany. The third comes from Diane Coyle, author of The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters, which is currently #621,324 in the Amazon rankings. And the last comes from George Perry, an economist at the Brookings Institution.
You could imagine a page of blurbs meant to establish the credibility of the authors. Or you could imagine blurbs meant to supercharge sales ("this book was like opening a window at the top of a tall mountain that's already broken through the glass ceiling. It's nothing but net." -- Thomas Friedman). But this particular collection seems designed to do neither.
Similarly puzzling is the writing: It's rough. That's to be expected. Shiller and Akerlof are economists of of immense repute. Their core competency is not crafting elegant prose. But Freakonomics -- which paired an economist with a writer -- demonstrated the existence of a pretty significant market for accessibly written texts on economics. This book, however, will deter all but the most committed reader. The question, again, is why Akerlof and Shiller didn't pair their comparative advantage in economics with someone else's comparative advantage in writing good books. Seems like it would have been an economist-like thing to do. Specialization is well understood in the discipline! But aside from the wildly successful pairing of Steven Leavitt and Stephen Dubner -- you've not seen the model replicated.
COMMENTS (7)
"I'm doing the trendy thing everyone else is doing... and it turns out the Emperor is not wearing clothes!"
Perhaps, Ezra, the lesson here is about following a herd.
Posted by: weboy | April 20, 2009 10:23 AM
I love the fake Friedman quote!
Posted by: tom veil | April 20, 2009 10:56 AM
I thought it was just me. Even though it's a short book it took me weeks to get through it. But it finishes really strong and I ended up liking it a lot.
The problem with the Dubner approach is that Freakonomics is a really awful book. Half of that book is Dubner gushing about Levitt, and the other half seems to be in love with its own dodginess. It's embarrassing. I'm guessing that Shiller and Akerlof each have a sense of shame and decided to write a good book instead.
Herb Gintis's review is worth a look. Gintis points out that you can get booms and busts even with complete rationality. That's the kind of result that's typical from complexity / agent-based economics.
Posted by: chrismealy | April 20, 2009 11:44 AM
Perhaps, Ezra, the lesson here is about following a herd.
Yeah, it really doesn't pay for prominent political bloggers to keep up with ideas that are influencing policy makers. Say, no one is reading middle english monastic texts! Maybe Ezra should look into it.
Posted by: DMonteith | April 20, 2009 11:49 AM
While they aren't a writer-economist team, Cass Sunstein and Robert Thaler did a pretty good writing job in Nudge. But then again you would hope a Harvard law professor would be able to write
Posted by: njbunk | April 20, 2009 11:52 AM
If the writing is rough and the blurbs aren't sexy, the most likely explanations are that PUP (1) didn't realize it had a best-seller on its hands or (2) rushed it into print. Given their phenomenal success with Irrational Exuberance, (1) is unlikely, so I'm going to go with (2). To hire a first-rate development editor to whip academic prose into shape takes money (usually the problem, although not so much with a trade book) but also time.
Posted by: molly | April 20, 2009 12:30 PM
I think its likely that Akerloff and Schiller think the book IS well-written. Writing is a lot like driving. Everyone thinks they're good enough to get a manageable job done.
Posted by: Nate W. | April 20, 2009 1:17 PM