Here are 100 books that The Ordinary Business of Life fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a Full Professor and Lab Director in Economics. My interest in this field began when I traveled abroad and observed the differences in prices, goods, and quality of life. In order to gain a deeper understanding, I decided to switch from my previous academic background in Engineering, Mathematics & Physics to Economics, Finance & Data Science. Today, I am dedicated to expanding my knowledge and sharing my insights through teaching, academic publications, and LinkedIn posts. According to the latest rankings, I am humbled to be among the top 3% most productive economists worldwide (IDEAS-RePec, 2023), as well as being ranked among the top 4% researchers in Financial Economics, and the top 5% in Econometrics (Researchgate, 2023).
Are you looking for a good introduction to Economics?
Then, as I did, start with a brilliant survey of the main thinkers, who have shaped our understanding of the economic system. These economists’ thoughts ranged from addressing how to improve the quality of life for all, to understanding the source of value and the functioning of the economy.
Although they were not always accurate, their influence on contemporary Economics is tremendous, and Heilbroner's writing style will captivate you. I recommend this book to all of my students and colleagues.
In fact, after reading this book during my University studies, I became inspired to study Economics in depth and engage in scholarly research. Even switched from Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics to Economics, Finance, and Data Science.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am a Full Professor and Lab Director in Economics. My interest in this field began when I traveled abroad and observed the differences in prices, goods, and quality of life. In order to gain a deeper understanding, I decided to switch from my previous academic background in Engineering, Mathematics & Physics to Economics, Finance & Data Science. Today, I am dedicated to expanding my knowledge and sharing my insights through teaching, academic publications, and LinkedIn posts. According to the latest rankings, I am humbled to be among the top 3% most productive economists worldwide (IDEAS-RePec, 2023), as well as being ranked among the top 4% researchers in Financial Economics, and the top 5% in Econometrics (Researchgate, 2023).
Since my PhD was based on Schumpeter's work, I can confidently state that it is well worth exploring the fascinating world of Economics through one of history's greatest economists.
This masterpiece takes the reader on a journey through every corner of the subject, paying particular attention to even the smallest details. A unique and thought-provoking view of Economics is offered by Schumpeter in his over 1000 pages of brilliant insights.
This book distinguishes itself from others through its deep and unconventional interpretation of Economics. It is a must-read for anyone seeking a thorough understanding of Economics as Schumpeter provides fresh insights on various topics.
However, it would be much better if it covered more recent developments. Enjoy this tour of Economics with Schumpeter and you will never get bored!
At the time of his death in 1950, Joseph Schumpeter--one of the great economists of the first half of the 20th century--was working on his monumental History of Economic Analysis. A complete history of efforts to understand the subject of economics from ancient Greece to the present, this book is an important contribution to the history of ideas as well as to economics. Although never fully completed, it has gained recognition as a modern classic due to its broad scope and original examination of significant historical events. Complete with a new introduction by Mark Perlman, who outlines the structure of…
I am a Full Professor and Lab Director in Economics. My interest in this field began when I traveled abroad and observed the differences in prices, goods, and quality of life. In order to gain a deeper understanding, I decided to switch from my previous academic background in Engineering, Mathematics & Physics to Economics, Finance & Data Science. Today, I am dedicated to expanding my knowledge and sharing my insights through teaching, academic publications, and LinkedIn posts. According to the latest rankings, I am humbled to be among the top 3% most productive economists worldwide (IDEAS-RePec, 2023), as well as being ranked among the top 4% researchers in Financial Economics, and the top 5% in Econometrics (Researchgate, 2023).
I enjoyed reading this book as it provided a deep, and engaging overview of economic theory.
The authors manage to strike a balance between providing a high-level theoretical discussion and making the content accessible to a wider audience. One thing that stood out to me was the authors' emphasis on the diversity of the various schools of economic thought.
In their work, they avoid the common pitfall of suggesting that the history of Economics has “ended”, and instead observe the evolution of economic theory over time. Also, I appreciate the fact that they do not believe that theories in fashion today necessarily provide an adequate explanation for the functioning of the economy.
Overall, I recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining insight into Economics’ controversial development.
This book provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of the development of economic theory from its beginnings, at the end of the Middle Ages, up to contemporary contributions. Traditional theories are presented as living matter, and modern theories are presented as part of a historical process and not as established truths. In this way, the book avoids the dangerous dichotomy between pure historians of thought who dedicate themselves exclusively to studying facts, and pure theorists who are interested in the evolution of the logical structure of theories.
The second edition contains several changes and additions. The authors give due consideration…
I am a Full Professor and Lab Director in Economics. My interest in this field began when I traveled abroad and observed the differences in prices, goods, and quality of life. In order to gain a deeper understanding, I decided to switch from my previous academic background in Engineering, Mathematics & Physics to Economics, Finance & Data Science. Today, I am dedicated to expanding my knowledge and sharing my insights through teaching, academic publications, and LinkedIn posts. According to the latest rankings, I am humbled to be among the top 3% most productive economists worldwide (IDEAS-RePec, 2023), as well as being ranked among the top 4% researchers in Financial Economics, and the top 5% in Econometrics (Researchgate, 2023).
For anyone interested in a comfortable tour through some of the greatest economists, this book is a must-read.
It is like having a personal conversation with the world's leading economic masterminds, as it explores their beliefs, backgrounds, and legacies. This book is well-written and easy to follow, making it an excellent choice for anyone.
Economics is not only concerned with fiscal policies and national economies. And this book does a good job of illustrating the fact that Economics plays a role in almost every aspect of human life.
Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge the inclusion of Daniel Kahneman in the book, an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel Prize winner whose empirical findings challenged the assumption of human rationality, i.e. the foundation of modern Economics.
The Great Economists succinctly and accurately describes the thinking of the world's leading economic thinkers. It captures their key beliefs, explores their backgrounds, assesses their thinking and evaluates their legacy. It explains the schools of thought named after them and clearly shows how they influence our everyday lives.
Two self-interested people will try to outperform each other. One will win, the other will lose. If they instead cooperate, both will win a bit, and lose a bit. Is this preferable? I say yes, because in the long term, winning a bit many times, is better than winning a lot, once. Choosing short-term gain at the expense of long-term benefit is a waste of potential for societies and individuals. Traditional morality works, sometimes, in some cases. Rational morality can fill the gaps, and expand the circle of morality so that when higher ideals fail or become too difficult to follow, rationality can be about more than just short-term self-interest.
The Community of Advantage is an excellent exposition of how moral philosophy informs and is informed by economics.
The title itself is taken from a political philosopher: John Stuart Mill. There is one caveat: Sugden speaks of behavioral economics, and as such, takes a different approach to rational agency than neoclassical economics.
Individual agency is not moral, but it is not assumed to be rational either. The book, and Sugden’s work as a whole, is of special relevance for two reasons: 1) It links morality with self-interest. 2) It uses society to argue for morality in self-interest.
The Community of Advantage asks how economists should do normative analysis. Normative analysis in economics has usually aimed at satisfying individuals' preferences. Its conclusions have supported a long- standing liberal tradition of economics that values economic freedom and views markets favourably. However, behavioural research shows that individuals' preferences, as revealed in choices, are often unstable, and vary according to contextual factors that seem irrelevant for welfare. Robert Sugden proposes a reformulation of normative economics that is compatible with what is now known about the psychology of choice.
The growing consensus in favour of paternalism and 'nudging' is based on a…
As a Professor of Economic History at the Oxford University, I taught the history of economic thought and wrote articles and a book in the field (The Nobel Factor).I love the limpid style and encompassing view of the classical economists (the first century after Smith). Their literary and academic styles have been abandoned, but they still have a great deal to teach. The role of land and natural resources as a factor of production in their theory has become relevant again as the environment comes under pressure. I also published in several other fields. My latest book is Understanding the Private-Public Divide: Markets, Governments and Time Horizons (2022).
Read anything by Mirowski. By far the best writer in the field today.
Highly original, massively intelligent, stimulating, witty, deeply informed, a trenchant writer. His life’s work is to probe the validity and scientific pretensions of the discipline.
The critiques are biting, all the more so for the real-world authority wielded by economists. That he is sometimes a provocative maverick adds to the appeal.
Machine Dreamsargued implausibly (for its time) that economics had embraced robotic simulation. The emergence of AI shows how far ahead of its time it was.
This was the first cross-over book into the history of science written by an historian of economics. It shows how 'history of technology' can be integrated with the history of economic ideas. The analysis combines Cold War history with the history of postwar economics in America and later elsewhere, revealing that the Pax Americana had much to do with abstruse and formal doctrines such as linear programming and game theory. It links the literature on 'cyborg' to economics, an element missing in literature to date. The treatment further calls into question the idea that economics has been immune to postmodern…
An Heir of Realms tells the tale of two young heroines—a dragon rider and a portal jumper—who fight dragon-like parasites to save their realms from extinction.
Rhoswen is training as a Realm Rider to work with dragons and burn away the Narxon swarming into her realm. Rhoswen’s dream is to…
Microeconomics is a turnoff to most readers. Not without reason. Many books in this field are dull rewrites of other books and opaque. In particular, it is not clear how the behavior of individual consumers and producers adds to the performance—good or bad—of an economy. The books listed here helped me to sharpen my own mind and to make my writing lucid.
Mark Blaug escaped the Netherlands, just in time before the Nazis marched in, went to New York University, and eventually wrote this colossal overview of the entire body of the economics literature.
He is capable of ordering different formal approaches to the subject matter in plain English, what an achievement.
This is a history of economic thought from Adam Smith to John Maynard Keynes - but it is a history with a difference. Firstly, it is a history of economic theory, not of economic doctrines, that is, it is consistently focused on theoretical analysis, undiluted by entertaining historical digressions or biological colouring. Secondly, it includes detailed Reader's Guides to nine of the major texts of economics, namely the works of Smith, Ricardo, Mill, Marx, Marshall, Wickstead, Wicksell, Walras and Keynes, in the effort to encourage students to become acquainted at first hand with the writings of all the great economists.…
What could be cooler to a kid growing up in the 1960s and 1970s than the Civil War? TV spoon-fed us westerns—Bonanza, F-Troop, The Lone Ranger, and The Wild, Wild West. Many of the stories were set during the Civil War or had characters molded by it. And then, somewhere in the mid-1960s, my parents took me to a civil war reenactment. Guns cracked. Cannons boomed, and men fell. I was hooked. I’ve devoured every Civil War book I could get my hands on for the past fifty years and watched every movie remotely connected to the subject. So, it’s only natural I wrote a book about it.
We often think about the Civil War in terms of battles, casualties, and fatalities, which isn’t surprising as war is always considered a bloody business sprinkled with death and destruction. However, many historians overlook that it wasn’t just bullets that won the war. Technological innovations changed the battlefield. For example, Samuel M. Pook teamed up with John Eads to design a new style of armored battleship—dubbed Pook’s Turtles. Just weeks after the gunboats were commissioned, they enabled Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral Andrew Hull Foote to take Forts Henry and Donelson. Later, the fleet assisted John Pope in taking Island 10 and again in the Vicksburg campaign.
Christopher Spencer developed a repeating rifle that fired seven balls in quick succession. Abraham Lincoln’s first test determined the gun was a dud. However, the second test went off without a hitch, and the war department ordered 2,000 Spencer Rifles. Many other…
Before the Civil War, America had undergone a technological revolution that made large-scale industry possible, yet, except for the expanding reach of railroads and telegraph lines, the country remained largely rural, with only pockets of small manufacturing. Then the war came and woke the sleeping giant. The Civil War created a wave of unprecedented industrial growth and development, producing a revolution in new structures, ideas, and inventions that sustained the struggle and reshaped America.
Energized by the country's dormant potential and wealth of natural resources, individuals of vision, organizational talent, and capital took advantage of the opportunity war provided. Their…
I am passionate about the dissemination of economic ideas both inside and outside university spaces. In addition to classroom lectures at my university, I give a lot of public lectures on economics. Through these talks, I introduce the audience to the tradition of doing economics using a critical perspective. I have an MA and MPhil in Economics from the University of Hyderabad and a PhD in Economics from the University of Sydney.
This book on measurement in economics was published in 1951. Stone discusses the link between theory and empirics in this book.
I like this slim book of Stone’s because it shows the strengths and weakness of empirical exercises in economics. It also raises foundational questions regarding empirical constructs.
Books like this allow us to ask foundational questions regarding the links between theory and empirics in economics as well as theory and applications in statistics.
First published in 1951, and originally delivered as the Newmarch Lectures for 1948-9, this book examines the role of measurement in obtaining and applying economic knowledge. Esteemed economist Richard Stone, who went on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, divides his topic into four sections: questions of fact and empirical constructs; the truth or falsity of a hypothesis; the estimation of parameters; and questions of prediction. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economics and the development of the discipline.
A poisonous maiden, a Daoist sex cult, and a violent insurgency.
The polyandrous Yan family in China's rural Shaanxi Province takes in two carpenter brothers. When one brother is convicted of murder after killing their neighbor in a dispute, a constable threatens to expose the family's rumored polyandry and extorts…
We are law professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Eyal Zamir is interested in the intersections of law, economics, ethics, and psychology. In addition to theoretical studies of these issues, he engages in experimental legal studies, as well. Barak Medina studies constitutional law, human rights, and economic analysis of law. He is interested in constitutional interpretation and the interaction between common-sense morality, public opinion and adjudication.
The book provides an excellent introduction to the philosophical foundations of economic analysis as a normative theory of human behavior and as a tool for public policy making.
It lucidly explains and criticizes the building blocks of welfare economics – the normative branch of economic analysis.
This book shows through argument and numerous policy-related examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores the idea of rationality and its connections to ethics, arguing that when they defend their formal model of rationality, most economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II addresses the nature and measurement of welfare, utilitarianism and cost-benefit analysis. Part III discusses freedom, rights, equality, and justice - moral notions that are relevant to evaluating policies, but which have…
