From Filozofija i drustvo, Mislav Zitko (Zagreb): Models, Fictions and Explanations: A Study in Historical Epistemology of Economics; and Primoz Krasovec (Ljubljana): Neoliberal Epistemology: From the Impossibility of Knowing to Human Capital. Stavros A. Drakopoulos (Athens): Mainstream Aversion to Economic Methodology and the Scientific Ideal of Physics. Noah Smith on how economists don’t have “physics envy”. Jason Collins, Boris Baer, and Ernst Juerg Weber (Western Australia): The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics. Andrej Svorencík (Mannheim): The Experimental Turn in Economics: A History of Experimental Economics. Owen D. Jones (Vanderbilt): Why Behavioral Economics Isn't Better, and How it Could Be. More Kirk than Spock: Behavioural economics has made headway, but still has a long way to go. Alessio M. Pacces (EUR): Normative Law and Economics: Asking the Right Questions. Alessandro Roncaglia (Rome): Should the History of Economic Thought be Included in Undergraduate Curricula? Economics and history: Although their departments are in a bad state, economic historians are needed more than ever before.
From NYRB, what’s wrong with the economy — and with economics? Paul Krugman on why we would have been far better off if we had stuck to that old-time macroeconomics, which is looking better than ever. Lyric Hughes Hale reviews Hubris: Why Economists Failed to Predict the Crisis and How to Avoid the Next One by Meghnad Desai. Should economists rule? Simon Wren-Lewis wonders. Robert Litan on economists: Don’t leave home without one. James J. Heckman (Chicago): Gary Becker: Model Economic Scientist. Tyler Cowen interviews Jeffrey Sachs on the resource curse, why Russia failed and Poland succeeded, and more. Meet Ronald Fryer, the economist who grew up among crack dealers and won a “mini-Nobel” for his research on race (and more). Thomas Piketty, the author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, is appointed centennial professor at a new institute looking into global inequality at LSE. Freakonomics 10 years on: Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt on what they got right and wrong.
