The Economics Profession
Brett W. Parris

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Books
Papers
Quotes
Links

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Books

Colander, D. (Ed.) (2000) The Complexity Vision and the Teaching of Economics, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham & Northampton, MA, xv + 307  pp.

Colander, D., Holt, R.P.F. and Rosser, J.B., Jr., (2004) The Changing Face of Economics: Conversations with Cutting Edge Economists, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, x + 358 pp.

Colander, D., (2007) The Making of an Economist, Redux, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 280 pp.

Fullbrook, E. (Ed.) (2004) A Guide to What's Wrong with Economics, Anthem Press, London, vii + 323  pp.

Klamer, A. and Colander, D., (1990) The Making of an Economist, Westview Press, Boulder, San Francisco & London, xvii + 216 pp.

Medema, S.G. and Samuels, W.J. (Eds.), (1996) Foundations of Research in Economics: How Do Economists Do Economics?, Series ed. Samuels, W.J.; Advances in Economic Methodology Series; Edward Elgar, Cheltenham & Northampton, MA, xiii + 298  pp.

McCloskey, D.N., (2000) How to be Human* *Though an Economist, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 287 pp.

McCloskey, D.N., (2002) The Secret Sins of Economics, Prickly Paradigm Press, Chicago, 58 pp.

Ziliak, S.T. and McCloskey, D.N., (2007) The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error is Costing Jobs, Justice, and Lives, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 480 pp.


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Papers

Clower, R.W., (1989) "The State of Economics: Hopeless But Not Serious?" In The Spread of Economic Ideas ed. Colander, D. and Coats, A.W.; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge & New York, pp. 23-29.

Colander, D., (2005) "The Making of an Economist Redux", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter, pp. 175-198.

Colander, D., (2005) "The Future of Economics: The Appropriately Educated in Pursuit of the Knowable", Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 29, No. 6, November, pp. 927-941.

Colander, D. and Klamer, A., (1987) "The Making of an Economist", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall, pp. 95-111.

Colander, D., Holt, R.P.F. and Rosser, J.B., Jr., (2004) "The Changing Face of Mainstream Economics", Review of Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 4, October, pp. 485-499.

Frank, R.H., Gilovich, T.D. and Regan, D.T., (1993) "Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 7, No. 2, Spring, pp. 159-171.

Frank, R.H., Gilovich, T.D. and Regan, D.T., (1996) "Do Economists Make Bad Citizens?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter, pp. 187-192.

Hamermesh, D.S., (1994) "Facts and Myths about Refereeing", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 8, No. 1, Winter, pp. 153-163.

Hamermesh, D.S., (1994) "The Young Economist's Guide to Professional Etiquette", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter, pp. 169-179.

Hamermesh, D.S., (2004) "Maximizing the Substance in the Soundbite: A Media Guide for Economists", Journal of Economic Education, Vol. 35, No. 4, Fall, pp. 370-382.

Harcourt, G.C., (1992) "Reflections on the Development of Economics as a Discipline", In On Political Economists and Modern Political Economy: Selected Essays of G.C. Harcourt ed. Sardoni, C.; Routledge, London, pp. 183-208.

Klamer, A., (2001) "Making Sense of Economists: From Falsification to Rhetoric and Beyond", Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 8, No. 1, March, pp. 69-75.

Leijonhufvud, A., (1973) "Life Among the Econ", Western Economic Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, September, pp. 327-337.

Leontief, W., (1982) "Academic Economics", Science, Vol. 217, No. 4555, July 9, pp. 104 &107.

McCloskey, D.N., (1999) "Cassandra's Open Letter to Her Economist Colleagues", Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer, pp. 357-63.

McCloskey, D.N., (1999) "Economical Writing: An Executive Summary", Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 25, No. 2, Spring, pp. 239-242.

McCloskey, D.N., (2000) "How To Be a Good Graduate Student", Eastern Economic Journal, Vol. 26, No. 4, Fall, pp. 487-490.

McCloskey, D.N., (2003) "Books of Oomph", In The Crisis in Economics, the Post-Autistic Economics Movement: The First 600 Days ed. Fullbrook, E.; Routledge, London & New York, pp. 125-127.

Millmow, A., (2005) "Australian Economics in the Twentieth Century", Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 29, No. 6, November, pp. 1011-1026.

Rubinstein, A., (2006) "A Sceptic's Comment on the Study of Economics", Economic Journal, Vol. 116, No. 510, March, pp. C1-C9.

Streeten, P., (2002) "What's Wrong with Contemporary Economics?" Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 13-24.

Thomson, W., (1999) "The Young Person's Guide to Writing Economic Theory", Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 37, No. 1, March, pp. 157-183.

Yezer, A.M., Goldfarb, R.S. and Poppen, P.J., (1996) "Does Studying Economics Discourage Cooperation? Watch What We Do, Not What We Say or How We Play", Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 1, Winter, pp. 177-186.

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Quotes

On the gap between economic theory and the real world, from a Nobel Laureate
"I think the textbooks are a scandal. I think to expose young impressionable minds to this scholastic exercise as though it said something about the real world, is a scandal. The most widely used textbooks use the old long-run and short-run cost curves to illustrate the theory of the firm. I find that inexcusable. … I don’t know of any other science that purports to be talking about real world phenomena, where statements are regularly made that are blatantly contrary to fact."
Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon, H.A., (1986) "The Failure of Armchair Economics", Challenge, Vol. 29, No. 5, November - December, pp. 18-25; p. 23

On the gap between what economists know and what is taught
"[E]conomists … consistently choose textbooks that teach material that they know is false and/or completely out of date. … there’s still this incredible tension in what we teach. I am so displeased at the way undergraduate and even graduate economics is taught. Undergraduate economics is a joke – macro is okay, but micro is a joke because they teach this stuff you know is not true. They know the general equilibrium model is not true. The model has no good stability properties and it doesn’t predict anything interesting but they teach it. The production theory that is taught is also a joke. They use this old Marshallian production with long-run average cost curves and the like to determine firm size. This doesn’t determine firm size; it determines plant size. Totally different things determine firm size. So why do we teach undergraduates this?"
Herbert Gintis, emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts and author of Game Theory Evolving in: Colander, D., Holt, R.P.F. and Rosser, J.B., Jr., (2004) The Changing Face of Economics: Conversations with Cutting Edge Economists, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, x + 358 pp; pp. 92-93.

We need to study the economy as a system
"What I think is important is that economists don’t study the working of the economic system. That is to say, they don’t think they’re studying any system with all its interrelationships. It is as if a biologist studied the circulation of the blood without the body. … You wouldn’t be able to discuss the circulation of the blood in a sensible way. And that’s what happens in economics. In fact the economic system is extremely complicated. …  But how one part impinges on the other, how they are interrelated, how it actually works – that is not what people study. What is wrong is the failure to look at the system as the object of study."
Coase, R.H., (2002) "Why Economics Will Change: Remarks at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, April 4, 2002", ISNIE Newsletter, Vol. 4, No. 1, Summer, pp. 1, 4-7.

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Links

Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics

Association for Evolutionary Economics

Deirdre McCloskey

Economic Society of Australia

International Society for Ecological Economics

International Society for New Institutional Economics

Post-Autistic Economics Network

RFE - Resources for Economists


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