They do exchange ideas as it is. I think, though, an understanding of neoclassical econ will benefit you, and allow you to be better able to make sense of Austrian attitudes towards it, so good luck with it.
-Jon
I’m going to reiterate.
Good economics is good economics; bad economics is bad economics.
Yeah, I agree… still, I stand by what I said.
-Jon
I’m almost through Solid Choke’s reading list – btw thx for the fine compilation – and thought about giving this one a try.
Glancing the book, I paid especially attention to its chapter on evolutionary processes, made me wonder if this really is a book you’d be assigned in college, and whether it is worthy of scarce time. It seems like its games contain fundamental flaws: eg the example for spontaneously provided public goods is health care. The reason why it works? Because only if you participate, you’ll get it when you need it. But if it was excludable all along, how can it be considered an example of a public good?
I appreciate the philosophical content, and I don’t hold against the authors the statist stance, but a lot of language seems downright undecipherable. And I mean sociology book undecipherable. For a critical text, I find it funny how they poke Dawkins’ Selfish Gene for talking as if genes are conscious actors with intentions, when Dawkins makes it very clear, from the 1st chapter and many times on, that it is only meant as a metaphorical device – but on the other hand they uncritically describe how some Schumpeter’s disciple argued that the tendency to monopoly in capitalism is the cause of the economic hoes. Or how it finishes the evolution chapter with Marxist thoughts like how the capitalist allocation process requires war to adjust, and how we need a newborn Spartacus to show us our condition of slavery and the path to rebellion. I guess the point of the authors is to show how people’s blind endorsement of present day institutions can distort the outcome of their interactions, and there are underlying lessons to all the other summaries, but I’d hope the examples would enjoy more economic literacy, and substance from psychological experiments.
If you guys could hint me to another book, I’d appreaciate it. I’m no stranger to math; in fact, I’m looking for neo-classical works as is the topic of this thread. I understand behavioral economics has gained important inroads into neoclassical territory, and for good reason, if you read some of their fascinating lab and field work, butright now I especially want to delve into pure rationality.
Also, what is a good primer in econometrics?
For neo-classical economics I would recommend “Economics” by Samuelson and Nordhaus, excellent textbook.
Vedder & Gallaway’s Out of Work. They talk about Austrian school of thought, but they have a Neoclassical perspective generally. They just share Austrian views on labor, and their opinion on econometrics.
Jeff Woolridge’s Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach is brilliantly. Personally I’m a big fan of econometrics.