Books: Inside the Economist's Mind (I.T.E.M.) and Getting It Wrong

Kindle Edition Best Seller

2012-01-26T12:23:00.003-06:00

The book, Getting It Wrong, now is available from Amazon as a Kindle Edition, and already is on the Kindle bestsellers lists for both Econometrics and for Money and Monetary Policy.

Short Review of Getting It Wrong

2012-01-10T23:36:00.003-06:00

A short one-paragraph commentary on the book, Getting It Wrong, just appeared in The Economist Intelligence Unit, which is associated with the Economist magazine.

A Rant on The Money Illusion Blog

2012-01-08T07:35:00.010-06:00

A January 6 rant on The Money Illusion blog referred to "Paul Spindt’s debit weighted money figures." But Paul Spindt's MQ index uses turnover rates (not debits) as prices (not weights). My Divisia monetary aggregates use opportunity costs (foregone interests) to measure prices of monetary assets.

I am not aware of a current source of MQ data, and they will not be computed or supplied by the CFS. But if you are interested in MQ, you can read about it on pp. 212-213 of my new book, Getting It Wrong.

Prices versus Share Weights

2012-01-04T15:49:00.003-06:00

I just posted this on The Money Illusion blog. As you may have noticed in the latest issue of the Economist Magazine, The Money Illusion blog is highly respected.

Glad to see there is interest on this eminent blog about what I’m doing at the Center for Financial Stability (CFS) in NY City. That said, I probably should mention that interpretation of Divisia money is more difficult than it may seem. In index number theory, there are quantities, prices, and weights. With Divisia, the growth rate weights are the expenditure shares, which depend upon all quantities and prices, not just one price. The prices and the weights are not the same thing. With the Divisia monetary aggregates, the prices are foregone interest (opportunity costs). Those prices are not the same as the weights, but often are misinterpreted as weights.

Consider, for example, the case of a Cobb-Douglas aggregator function. The expenditure shares are constants for Cobb-Douglas. Regardless of what happens to the prices, the shares will not change. Hence the Divisia weights will not change.

What about other aggregator functions, not Cobb-Douglas? Suppose the price of a good goes up. Will its share (and thereby its Divisia weight) go up? That’s unpredictable, since it depends upon whether the own price elasticity of demand of the good is greater than or less than 1.0.

The CFS Reports section, which is not yet online, will try to help with accurate interpretation. My new book also does that in Appendix E. Once you get the hang of it, it all becomes clear. It’s all about the microeconomic aggregation theory that we all know from the CPI, the National Accounts, etc.

My Reply

2012-01-04T08:29:00.002-06:00

Regarding the insightful commentaries that just appeared on the three blogs, The Money Illusion, The Market Monetarist, and Monetary Freedom, I just posted the following reply on the Monetary Freedom blog.

All very interesting. The relevant theory is in the appendixes to my new book, Getting It Wrong. The source of the new Divisia data is the program I now direct at the Center for Financial Stability in NY City. The program is called Advances in Monetary and Financial Measurement (AMFM).

AMFM will include a Reports section discussing monetary conditions. Although not yet online, that section will address many of the concerns rightfully appearing in the excellent blogs, The Money Illusion, The Market Monetarist, and Monetary Freedom. The distinction between the AMFM Reports section and the AMFM Library, which is already online, is that the AMFM Library only relates to articles published in peer-reviewed journals and books, while the AMFM Reports section will relate to the public media and online blogs.

There will be a press release when the full AMFM site is ready to go online.

Blog Posts About Getting It Wrong

2012-01-04T07:42:00.004-06:00

Blog posts and discussion of my new book, Getting It Wrong, just appeared in three widely read economics blogs: The Money Illusion, The Market Monetarist, and Monetary Freedom.

Marginal Revolution Recommendation

2011-12-24T11:49:00.004-06:00

My book, Getting It Wrong, is on the Marginal Revolution blog's list of recommended books.

Endorsements for Getting It Wrong

2011-11-26T15:47:00.001-06:00

Endorsement quotations for the new book, Getting It Wrong, are online at the Center for Financial Stability.

Globe Asia Review, December 2011

2011-11-22T20:30:00.002-06:00

A very interesting article by Steve Hanke appeared in the December issue of Globe Asia and highlighted recent behavior of Divisia M4.

Complete Front and Back Cover of New Book, Getting It Wrong

2011-11-08T22:47:00.003-06:00

Here is the full front and back covers of the new book, Getting It Wrong, from MIT Press. Click on it to expand the view.

Front Cover, Getting It Wrong

2011-11-08T22:40:00.002-06:00

Here is the front cover of the new book, Getting It Wrong, from MIT Press. Click on it to expand the view.

Book Can Be Ordered Now

2011-11-05T09:14:00.007-05:00

My new book, Getting It Wrong, is available for advance orders at Amazon. Although not expected to be in bookstores until late December, both the paperback and hardcover editions can be preordered now from Amazon.

The book also is available for preorder directly from MIT Press. The MIT listings for the paperback and hardcover say that they are to appear in February 2012, but that is wrong. The book is to appear in December, but may not be widely available on bookstore shelves until February.

Review of Getting It Wrong

2011-10-31T09:43:00.009-05:00

An article about Getting It Wrong just appeared in the Energy Tribune. The review is by Steve Hanke at Johns Hopkins University. The same article also is online at the Cato Institute and appeared in the November 2011 issue of Globe Asia.

Getting It Wrong

2011-09-13T21:28:00.004-05:00

My book, Getting It Wrong, will be published by MIT Press in December. The book's promotional material from MIT Press is online at the Center for Financial Stability.

Center for Financial Stability

2011-09-13T21:20:00.002-05:00

The program I direct at the Center for Financial Stability (CFS) has just gone online. The full program will be live by the end of this year. The CFS is located on the Avenue of the Americas in New York City about three blocks from Rockefeller Center.

Valor Economico

2011-05-28T08:44:00.002-05:00

I did not get to the Rio conference. Flight canceled at DFW airport, because of tornado. But I got written up anyway by Valor Economico, which is the Wall Street Journal of Brazil. I've put online the pdf of the newspaper's article from both the online edition and in-print edition.

New Book

2010-10-17T10:53:00.004-05:00

A related newer book has just been published. It is:

William A. Barnett and Marcelle Chauvet (eds.), Financial Aggregation and Index Number Theory, World Scientific, Singapore, ISBN 9814293091, 2011.

Golden Book

2010-01-19T09:43:00.007-06:00

An excellent book review of ITEM appeared in the Journal of Economic Literature in the June 2008, vol 46, no 2, issue on pp. 418-421. It starts as follows:

"We economists have long been inured to the fact that anything touched by Paul Samuelson at once turns to gold. And, unlike the ancient legend, this bit of alchemy is a benefit to us all. As far as I am aware, this book is a new line of enterprise for him, since I do not know of any other collection of interviews that he has overseen. In any event, this book makes for reading that is both interesting and illuminating. In short, it is literally a volume of edited interviews with a well chosen set of leaders in our field, conducted from the mid 1990s onward, and a number of which have previously appeared in the journal Macroeconomic Dynamics."

The review ends as follows:

"I must end as I began—this is a book well worth reading. It has considerable information of substance, valuable insights and just enough gossip to ensure that it is rewarding and enjoyable to the reader."

Between the first and last paragraphs are many insightful comments on the interviews in the book.

Very High Ranked Blog & Bloggers

2010-01-08T09:33:00.013-06:00

In their recent article, "Blogometrics," in the Eastern Economic Journal (vol 28, 2010, pp. 1 - 10), Franklin Mixon, Jr. and Kamal Upadhyaya rank economics blogs, bloggers, and academic institutions that host blogs. Instead of going to the complete article, you can go directly to Table 1 and Table 2. The results of that study also have been summarized in the TaxProf blog.

According to the "Blogometrics" rankings, this ITEM blog ranks fourth among all economics blogs (table 2). The study also found that Paul Samuelson ranks fifth for his own scholarly impact and William Barnett fourteenth for his own scholarly impact (table 1). The ranking of the bloggers "was done through the Harzing database of citations to scholarly articles, books, and popular press essays authored by economist bloggers. For this study, economics bloggers are ranked based on citations per year."

In Table 3, the study ranks institutions, based on the impact of blogs that they host. The University of Kansas and MIT ranked as tied for sixth.

Wiley Preview of ITEM

2009-12-19T07:27:00.001-06:00

Wiley now has a preview of the book online.

Sad News

2009-12-13T15:38:00.002-06:00

The following sad news just appeared on economicprincipals.com:

"Paul A. Samuelson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died peacefully this morning of congestive heart failure. He was 94. John Maynard Keynes may have had more influence on policy makers, Milton Friedman on citizens, Kenneth Arrow on economic theory, but Samuelson had more influence on the way economics is done today, and the purposes to which it is put, than any other economist of the twentieth century."

German Edition of ITEM

2009-12-13T09:44:00.009-06:00

The German edition of Inside the Economist's Mind has just been published by Wiley-VCH. Here is the information from its online catalog:

Samuelson, Paul A. / Barnett, William A. (Hrsg.)
Große Ökonomen im persönlichen Gespräch
Wie Volkswirtschaftslehre Geschichte schreibt

1. Auflage - Dezember 2009
29,90 Euro
2009. 310 Seiten, Hardcover
- Fachbuch -
ISBN-10: 3-527-50444-3
ISBN-13: 978-3-527-50444-2 - Wiley-VCH, Weinheim

Preis inkl. Mehrwertsteuer zzgl. Versandkosten.

Australian Bookstore

2009-12-12T16:03:00.004-06:00

If you are in Australia and are interested in ITEM, I recommend Boomerang books.

Pirated Book

2009-10-25T21:52:00.005-05:00

I see that the book, ITEM, is online at scribd. I understand that this is a violation of Wiley's copyright. I assume scribd will be removing it soon, as is now being required by Wiley's attorney.

German Edition

2009-07-20T08:20:00.002-05:00

The German edition of ITEM now is available to be advance ordered from Wiley, but Wiley will not begin delivering the German copies until December 2009.

Adam Smith Blog

2009-03-18T09:56:00.003-05:00

The following comment just appeared in the blog, Adam Smith's Lost Legacy:

The reputation of Paul Samuelson, from the start of his illustrious academic career, and the publication of his Phd dissertation, Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947), is enormous. His popular textbook, Economics, was used to teach, literally, tens of thousands of post-war students, and even his latest writings on his profession (e.g., Inside the economist's mind: conversations with eminent economists‎, 2007) show why his reputation is so high.

Foreword to Russian Translation of ITEM

2009-01-28T20:51:00.002-06:00

A foreword was added to the Russian translation of ITEM. That foreword was written by the Rector of the SKOLKOVO School of Management in Moscow. I've had it translated into English and put online.

ITEM Translated into Russian

2009-01-12T08:27:00.002-06:00

The book, Inside the Economist's Mind, now has been translated into Russian. The ISBN of the Russian translation is 978-5-9614-0793-8. The Editor of the translated edition is O. Nizhelskaya. The translators are E. Pestereva and E. Kalugin. The book is within the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO series, published by Alpina Business Books, Moscow, in December 2008. The SKOLKOVO series' ISBN number is 978-5-9614-0633-7.

A Blog Post in Nepal

2009-01-09T08:28:00.002-06:00

An interesting post about ITEM appeared yesterday (January 8, 2009) on a blog in Nepal.

A Principles Course Syllabus

2008-12-27T09:30:00.003-06:00

I have found an interesting course syllabus online for a principles of macroeconomics course being taught at a community college in Los Angeles. The course uses ITEM as supplementary reading for a required essay. The regular text for the course is Greg Mankiw's principles book.

Wiley Takes Over

2008-12-23T08:59:00.003-06:00

Although the book, ITEM, originally was published by Blackwell, the takeover of Blackwell by Wiley has resulted in the move of the publisher's site for the book to Wiley's site. Wiley now has pages both for the paperback and for the hardcover editions.

Russian Translation

2008-11-24T08:13:00.003-06:00

The Russian translation of the book, ITEM, is now at the printers and will be published and available for sale from its Russian publisher, Alpina, in mid-December.

Chinese Translation

2008-11-24T07:20:00.007-06:00

I have just been informed that the book, ITEM, has been translated into Simplified Chinese and has been available from Peking University Press in Beijing, China since October 1, 2008. The translator is Cao Heping.

The book title in Chinese is "经济学家之经济学家" with an ISBN no. of 978-7-301-14225-7 and can be ordered through Amazon's Chinese site (www.amazon.com.cn) or a Chinese online bookseller called 当当网(www.dangdang.com) or www.zhuoyue.com. The book also is in many bookstores in China, including Xidan Bookmall and Peking University Bookstore in Beijing.

Why Did the Bubble Burst?

2008-11-12T12:16:00.003-06:00

My own Guest Commentary on the current financial crisis appeared in the November 11, 2008 edition of the Kansas City Star Business Weekly. The unedited original, including the Federal Reserve charts that support it, are online as a working paper.

James Hamilton's Review

2008-09-06T08:50:00.002-05:00

James Hamilton's review of ITEM is online in EconPapers. The review was published in the Cambridge U. Press journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics.

IMF Review

2008-08-05T10:07:00.001-05:00

A review of ITEM just appeared on the IMF (International Monetary Fund) web site.

German Translation

2008-07-26T12:45:00.002-05:00

I have been informed that a German translation of ITEM is to be published by Wiley VCH.

Economic and Political Weekly Review

2008-07-23T12:47:00.006-05:00

A book review of ITEM has appeared in the July 19 - 25, 2008 issue of the highly regarded Indian journal, Economic and Political Weekly. The review begins with:

"This book can make you fall in love with economics all over again. A collection of interviews with 16 eminent economists, it presents the attractive face of the field – one rediscovers an economics concerned with improving the human condition by putting to good use tools borrowed from disciplines as diverse as mathematics and psychology. The book is a labour of love for William Barnett, the editor of the journal Macroeconomic Dynamics in which these interviews originally appeared between 1997 and 2005. Though the interviews were aimed at professional macroeconomists, much of the book is of broader interest. That is because these eminent economists, interviewed by their peers, are often able to describe their complicated work in simple terms, with modesty and humour, and enriched with anecdotes from their lives."

The author of the four page review was Prakash Loungani, Advisor, Research Department, International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC.

Russian Translation

2008-07-11T07:29:00.005-05:00

Evidently ITEM's translation into Russian is soon to be available. See Russian School of Management SKOLKOV.

If you look at that site, you will find the following statement:

" The SKOLKOVO publishing series is opened by books of world-renowned authors:

- 'Essential Writings on Management' Peter Drucker;
- 'The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do' Clotaire Rapaille;
- 'Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance' George Kohlrieser;
- 'The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World' Alan Greenspan;
- 'Inside the Economist's Mind', edited by Paul Samuelson and William Barnett)."

You can also find the following there:

"Being realized in partnership with the government of the Russian Federation, SKOLKOVO is a part of the national priority projects programme, funded exclusively by private business. Dmitry Medvedev, the President of the Russian Federation, is the Chairman of the SKOLKOVO International Advisory Board."

The Housing Bubble

2008-06-30T08:42:00.004-05:00

An excerpt from Vockler's interview in ITEM appeared in Dirk Ehnts' blog, econ101.de. Dirk relates the excerpt to the failure of Central Bank regulation of lending practices associated with the housing bubble. Indeed Volcker was clear in his interview about the risks of inadequate supervision and regulation by central banks.

Korean Translation of ITEM

2008-04-25T09:15:00.010-05:00

The book has been translated into Korean and published on March 27, 2008. The publisher is JISIK-SANUP Publishing Co.Ltd. in Seoul. The translators are Jeong Ho Hahm and Tae Hong Jinn. Many book reviews have appeared in the Korean press. I understand that 10 such reviews have already appeared, including reviews in the Maekyung Business Newspaper, Munhwa Ilbo Daily Newspaper, Financial News in Korea, and the "big three" Korean newspapers, Chosun Ilbo Daily Newspaper in the April 12, 2008 Saturday culture section, Donga on April 1, 2008, and JoongAng Daily Newspaper on April 12, 2008. None of those reviews have been translated into English, but the Chosun Ilbo review also is online (in Korean) in the newspaper's own web site.

Economic History Review

2008-03-23T10:22:00.004-05:00

A book review of ITEM appeared in the journal, Economic History Review, vol 60, no 4, 2007, pp. 869-871. It was written by Roger Middleton himself. He is the Book Review Editor of that journal. Among the statements in the review is: "All of the interviews first appeared in the journal Macroeconomic Dynamics, of which Barnett is the editor, and, uniquely for a leading peer-reviewed academic economics journal, all were given significant space and free licence to say what they wanted about economists and economics to their peers. The end result is a most welcome addition to the genre in which leading economists outline their life philosophies and reflect candidly on the evolution of modern economics. Moreover, whilst not all of the interviewees took advantage of the licence to offend, those that did will not disappoint, and the reader is directed to pp. 44–5 on how to respond when your head of department tells you that you are a luxury good."

Google Books Preview

2008-01-25T09:37:00.000-06:00

The Google Books preview of ITEM has improved dramatically since it first appeared in January of 2007. I don't know how they manage to do this, but Google Books has gotten together a lot of relevant information about the book.

Wiley Takeover of Blackwell

2007-12-25T07:01:00.000-06:00

Since Wiley has taken over and absorbed Blackwell, ITEM now is published by Wiley. Although the Blackwell site still exists, it is gradually being fazed out. ITEM now is in the Wiley site for both the paperback and the hardcover.

Amazon Reviews

2007-11-04T07:01:00.000-06:00

Amazon.com has a new site for reviews. ITEM is reviewed as 5 stars out of a possible 5.

Economics Roundtable Book Picks

2007-09-26T23:13:00.000-05:00

The highly regarded Economics Roundtable blog, hosted by William Park at the University of North Carolina, has posted its six recommended book picks. ITEM is among the six. This puts ITEM in very good company indeed, including two classics. The other five are:

1. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, Monetary History of the United States.
2. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
3. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics.
4. Gregory Mankew, Principles of Economics.
5. David Warsh, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations.

Economists who Love to Fish

2007-08-26T16:14:00.000-05:00

Interesting photos from ITEM in the August 25, 2007 "The Bayesian Heresy" blog.

London Times Supplement

2007-06-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

Choice Picks

2007-05-29T07:32:00.000-05:00

Each month, the editors of Choice magazine publish online the reviews they decide to highlight as "Editors' Picks." ITEM was a "highly recommended" Editors' Pick for June 2007.

Choice Magazine Review

2007-05-21T10:22:00.000-05:00

The following review appears in the June 2007 issue of Choice Magazine:

Social & Behavioral Sciences \ Economics

Inside the economist's mind: conversations with eminent economists

, ed. by Paul A. Samuelson and William A. Barnett. Blackwell Publishing, 2007. 419p afp ISBN 1405159170 pbk, $29.95; ISBN 9781405159173 pbk, $29.95. Reviewed in 2007jun CHOICE.

Inside the Economist's Mind offers 16 stand-alone, candid personal interviews with some of the world's best economists, conducted by other leading economists. A far cry from Matt Lauer talking with Tom Cruise on The Today Show, these 25-page conversations quickly hone in on what makes these leading economists from the academic world and public policy corridors tick, and how they--and the profession itself--evolved in research and thinking. These chapters originally appeared in an academic journal (Macroeconomic Dynamics, various issues, 1998-2005), and the exchanges are pitched at a fairly sophisticated level and tilt toward macroeconomic theory and policy matters. Some knowledge about and appreciation for higher economic analysis should be expected from readers; such readers have the most to gain from the book. But the people and the personalities show through in this superb collection of "economists' economists," or more specifically, the "old guard"--all are over 60; a companion volume on the "young and the restless" would make a nice complement. Bibliographic materials--references, appendixes, index--are not necessary or included in the volume. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Informed general readers; students, lower-division undergraduate and up; researchers and practitioners. -- A. R. Sanderson, University of Chicago

Bottom Line/Personal

2007-05-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

ITEM was just listed as one of the four "Best Personal Finance Books" by Bottom Line/Personal.

Economic History Review

2007-05-02T15:38:00.000-05:00

The earliest reviews to appear have been in newspapers and magazines in the popular press. Book reviews published by the economics profession take longer to appear. A professional review relative to history of economic thought just appeared in EH.NET (EH stands for economic history). The review is by Professors Michael Szenberg at Pace University and Lall Ramrattan at the U. of California at Berkeley.

EH.Net is supported by the Economic History Association along with the following affiliated organizations: the Business History Conference, the Cliometric Society, the Economic History Society, and the History of Economics Society.

Among the more interesting comments in the long review of ITEM are the following:

"They [Samuelson and Barnett] raise mirrors reflecting the ideas of eminent economists presented in the volume, and these mirrors, like those of the Hubble Space Telescope, focus them in sizable bits for the digestion of the readers . . . The interviews are meticulously balanced . . . Reflecting on the scope of the book, we find rays of spontaneous thought from minds that breathe and dream of economics . . . our review implies that the ideas covered in this volume have some ability to predict and have been validated thus far in their confrontation with reality. . . If one is looking for answers to how economists discover great thoughts, this book is a place to start looking . . . The readers will find this a source book for comprehensive thought on the deep matter of economics. No one interested in the modern economy should fail to read it."

Milken Institute Review

2007-04-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

The 2007 second issue of the Milken Institute Review has a chapter on ITEM. The introduction to the chapter is by Peter Passell, who is the Editor of the magazine and formerly was an economics columnist and member of the editorial board of the New York Times. The magazine article appears on pages 65 - 85. The MIR excerpted the book's entire chapter 6, which was the interview of Milton Friedman by John Taylor. The magazine added some photographs that were not in the book, thereby adding to the interest of the interview.

Events Blog

2007-04-16T18:19:00.000-05:00

A private Events Blog now exists for the purpose of keeping track of slide shows and other information relevant to ITEM event planning. Access to that blog is limited to the authors of ITEM, the publisher, event organizers, and those with a "need to know." If you are an event organizer or otherwise need access to that information, please inform me to acquire permission to access the private Event Blog.

Kansas City Simulcast

2007-04-09T14:27:00.000-05:00

There will be a Lawrence event about the book in Alderson auditorium at the Kansas Union at 7:30 pm on April 24. Unlike the more informal Dole Institute event that was held on March 27, the auditorium event will include 1 1/2 hours of presentation and discussion, moderated by Kay McIntyre of Kansas Public Radio. The event will be simulcast at the Edwards campus in Kansas City.

Dole Institute of Politics

2007-03-16T19:26:00.000-05:00

There will be a reception and book signing for the book, Samuelson and Barnett, Inside the Economist's Mind, at the Dole Institute of Politics on March 27, 2007. If you wish to attend and have not received an invitation, you can make the arrangements to attend easily.

Challenge Magazine

2007-03-08T17:14:00.000-06:00

A full length book review of ITEM is forthcoming in the May-June 2007 issue of Challenge: the Magazine of Economic Affairs. The author of the review is Dr. Stephen Kinsella on the faculty at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland. The following interesting statements are contained within the review:

"Inside the Economist’s Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists (ITEM) will prove an invaluable resource for those wishing to understand the greats and their work. . . Readers find eccentric and irascible characters behind some of the major innovations in economic science, and that is the draw to the book."

Of particular interest is the conclusion to the book review:

"Inside the Economist’s Mind is a very rare thing—an economic page-turner, like Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers, Foley’s Adam’s Fallacy, and Levitt and Dubner’s Freakonomics. The personalities behind the frontiers of economic research make for compelling reading. I can’t recommend it enough."

Bloomberg Markets Magazine

2007-03-07T17:02:00.000-06:00

The April 2007 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine highlighted the book, ITEM, in its "Bookmarks" section on p. 24. In addition to providing three of the most interesting of the quotations from the book, the magazine included the following statement: "In this collection of interviews, 16 eminent economists speak candidly on everything from the IQ of U.S. presidents to the herd-like behavior in their profession."

With over 260,000 Bloomberg Professional service subscribers, Bloomberg Markets is now the largest financial monthly magazine in the world. The magazine is carried by the Barnes & Noble and the Borders bookstore chains in the US.

"Book Scores Big"

2007-02-27T17:54:00.000-06:00

The Lawrence newspaper is the Lawrence Journal World. On today's LJWorld.com blog, there is a short story with title, "KU Economist's Book Scores Big." It contains some useful links to two of the published reviews of the book, along with some rather odd comments by some undergraduate and graduate students.

Tax Guru's Amazon Store

2007-02-21T07:58:00.000-06:00

The book has appeared as a "Must Read" on the "Tax Guru's Amazon Store." The list seems to be the same as Tom Keene's list, but it is packaged differently, since the links to the books on this list go to different places from the link's in Tom's list.

Valor Review Translated

2007-02-20T17:27:00.000-06:00

In the February 9th post below, I mentioned a major review of ITEM in the Brazilian newspaper, Valor Economico. I have now acquired a complete English translation. It is fascinating. In addition to the comments on the book by the editor and five commentators, the article contains South American perspectives on many important matters, such as the recent shifts to the left in South American politics, the reasons for Brazilian disillusionment about flexible exchange rates, discussion of the effects on debtor countries of Volcker's high interest rates, among many other observations and views that are not often heard within the United States. There also are some surprising personal insights into the private family lives of some of MIT's most famous economists.

The translator was Professor Marcelle Chauvet at the University of California at Riverside. She is Brazilian, so this translation can be viewed to be accurate. I am impressed by the investment of Valor in this article. Too bad that there is no English edition of Valor. If there were, and if this review is representative of coverage in Valor, I'd subscribe myself.

Kansas City Star

2007-02-20T10:18:00.000-06:00

The Kansas City Star newspaper has a weekly business section on Tuesdays. That section contains a "Noteworthy" subsection. Today's (February 20, 2007) Noteworthy section contains three short articles. One was about ITEM and contained the following sentence: "Even casual students of economics should find much to like in this collection of conversations with several eminent economists of our time."

Monetarism as an Oral Tradition

2007-02-13T11:24:00.000-06:00

There is an interesting thread that began yesterday (February 12, 2007) about monetarism in the Economist's View blog, maintained by Mark Thoma at the University of Oregon. The motivation for the posts is the statements about monetarism in my interview of Paul Samuelson. That interview is reprinted in the book, ITEM.

Paul Volcker

2007-02-12T18:41:00.000-06:00

Econbrowser is a very popular economics blog maintained by James Hamilton at the U. of California at San Diego and Menzie Chinn at the U. of Wisconsin. On February 11, 2007, they posted a long discussion of revelations contained in the interview of Paul Volcker in ITEM.

Best Review Yet

2007-02-09T12:07:00.000-06:00

The leading financial newspaper in Brazil is Valor Economico (which means "Economic Value"). A major cover story about the book just appeared today (February 9, 2007) in that newspaper. It includes original artwork produced by the newspaper and photographs acquired by the newspaper. The article includes a cover story by the newspaper's editor and commentaries by five Brazilian economists. I shall try to acquire an English translation of all six parts to put online, but at present I only have a translation of the editor's cover story. The color photographs alone are worth seeing, even without availability of the full translation. Here is an excerpt from the newspaper editor's cover story:

"In frank conversations, unburdened by the formalizations found in academic papers, 16 eminent American and European economists posit their philosophies, explain theories and methodologies, and offer their personal experiences. The end result is a picture of the profession that is in constant flux ... ITEM, which was recently launched in Europe and the U.S., is already a best seller on the Financial Times list and offers great help ... The book which is edited by William A. Barnett, macroeconomics professor at the University of Kansas, and Paul Samuelson, 1970 Nobel Laureate, is really a map into the minds of 16 American and European important economists, who are well-known for their major contributions to economic study. The book regales us with personal anecdotes of these economists, their memories, choices made, and landmark moments in their careers ... This book is about unfiltered ideas, not in the tradition found in the usual academic avenues of censored personal views in lieu of purely technical models, theories, or insights. Both interviewers and interviewees successfully rally around the book's central focus on the importance of intellectual exchange ... it is useful to learn about the experiences of these economists and what drives them to their pursuit. This book provides a coherent vision of modern economics and its connection with the lifetime experiences of famous economists, whose work was seminal for the discipline ... It's important to know (or remember) that Janos Kornai's defense in Budapest on the eve of the revolution of 1956 attracted an audience of hundreds. When he published it in book form with a title that spoke of the "excess of centralization", he lost his job, and a close friend was executed ... ITEM is a valuable work, and it succeeds in the need to contextualize the advances of the field's theories with a sense of its implicit history."

Best Seller

2007-02-04T12:58:00.000-06:00

The online FT Bookshop, operated by Bertrand Group Limited in the UK, listed ITEM as first on their paperback best seller's list early this week. Perhaps the article last week in the Financial Times had something to do with this. But they ran out of their stock of the book (temporarily, they say).

News about Paul Samuelson

2007-01-28T11:16:00.000-06:00

Daylife maintains a site about Paul Samuelson. The Daylife Samuelson Site provides press coverage about Paul and is the place to look for what the press is saying about him and what he is saying to the press.

Google Book Search

2007-01-22T19:20:00.000-06:00

A limited preview of the book is available in Google Book Search. That preview is a good way to get a quick overview of the book, with the ability to see parts of each chapter. Oddly the Google Book Search preview links only to the hardcover edition for purchase.

Financial Times of London

2007-01-20T11:08:00.000-06:00

A review of the book has appeared in the January 20, 2007 issue of the Financial Times of London. The review is written by Ludovic Hunter-Tilney. Here is part of it:

"J.K. Galbraith joked that 'the only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable'. Just as economics is half way between science and guesswork, so too Inside the Economist's Mind blends academic analysis with biographical informality.

It comprises interviews with 16 economists, half of them Nobel Prize winners, conducted by fellow economists. The emphasis is on macroeconomic theorists such as Robert Lucas and Milton Friedman, though also numbered among the interviewees are central bankers including Paul Volcker, chairman of the Federal Reserve under the Carter and Reagan administrations, and Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel.

The aim is to see how their lives and work have intersected. . . . the book's value for the layman is to humanise a branch of thought that is abstruse yet full of practical consequence for everyday life."

This latest review has been added to the rapidly growing list of reviews, commentaries, and endorsements for the book.

Review in Ireland

2007-01-18T10:10:00.000-06:00

A long and detailed review of the book just appeared on the blog, stephenkinsella.net, maintained by Stephen Kinsella at the University of Limerick's Kemmy Business School in Ireland. Since the review contains many excerpts from the book, the review's length is prohibitive for inclusion in this blog. But the opening paragraphs, repeated below, might motivate you to go to the full review on his site:

"This is a collection of interviews commissioned for a journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics. The idea is to gauge the position of the profession by asking the people who invented large swaths of the theory their motivations for doings what they did, when they did it, and how they did it. Readers find eccentric and irascible characters behind some of the major innovations in economic science. I loved this book, and read it cover to cover in a day.

The book purports (pg. xi) to “contain unique insights into the thinking of some of the world’s most important economists, whose work contributed to the evolution of modern economic thought,” and does.
. . . So it’s great that William Barnett, the editor of Macroeconomic Dynamics, and the co-editor of this book, decided to ask these men these questions."

Bloomberg Podcasts

2007-01-17T00:54:00.000-06:00

On January 16, 2007 from 2 pm to 3 pm EST, Samuelson and Barnett were both interviewed about I.T.E.M. on Bloomberg radio. The program is called Bloomberg on the Economy with host Tom Keene. The podcasts of both segments are online, including the segment with Paul Samuelson and the segment with William Barnett.

If you don't want to take the time to listen to the two podcasts, but would just like to know about Tom Keene's commentary about I.T.E.M. during the program, here it is:

"It was the talk at the American Economic Association meetings. Folks, it has my highest, highest recommendation. It is very exciting. I heard more buzz about this book at the A.E.A. than any I've heard in years. And folks I'll be blunt: it's on my "must read list," and it's the first book ever to go on the "must read list" without being [completely] read. It's so thick, so dense, so rich. Folks I cannot emphasize enough the energy off the page, because of the uncensored nature of some 400 pages ... I am sure there will be a volume 2; and after you sell the movie rights, there will be a volume 3. There is a great energy in this book. The tension among the economists is great.... I cannot convey to you enough the accessibility of the book with a minimal amount of math and a maximum amount of emotion and candor ... Don't take my word for it. Paul Samuelson opens up his part of the book with: 'this book adds up to more than the sum of its parts.' "

Bloomberg on the Economy

2007-01-07T20:15:00.000-06:00

ITEM just appeared as one of the eighteen "Book Reviews: Must Reads" on Thomas R. Keene's Amazon list. He is the Host of Bloomberg on the Economy. Here is his review:

"Rules are meant to be broken. Samuelson & Barnett goes on the list without a complete read. Sixteen stunning interviews; the candor shocking. But then, this is Samuelson. Taylor interviews Friedman; Blanchard interviews Fischer. You get the must-read picture."

Evidently the prior rule that he has broken is not to put a book on his "must read" list before completing his reading of the book. Should be interesting to see what he writes after he has finished the book. I don't think he'll change his mind.

Bookviews Review of I.T.EM.

2007-01-03T19:15:00.000-06:00

I.T.E.M. just appeared as a January 2007 "pick of the month" in Bookviews, edited by Alan Caruba. He is a charter member of the National Critics Circle. He also is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and of the Society of Professional Journalists. Bookviews has been an authoritative source of book reviews since the 1960's. Here is his review:

"The study of economics lost one of its greatest minds, Milton Friedman, in November of last year. He was passionate about freedom and keeping government from interfering with the most basic element of choice that underlies the open marketplace of goods and services. A unique book, Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists ($74.95/$29.95, Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, hard and softcover) is edited by two other famed economists, Paul A. Samuelson and William A. Barnett. They sat down with sixteen of their colleagues, and their candid interviews make for some lively reading that even those unfamiliar with this critical field of analysis would find interesting. For those for whom economists represent the guidance needed in an ever shifting landscape of events, this book offers some excellent insights."

Off Color Quote

2007-01-02T15:19:00.000-06:00

In his blog, Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen chose to quote from the book a statement that would likely interest gossip-prone insiders within the profession. Here is his post, dated September 11, 2006 (perhaps based upon part of the manuscript, since the book had not yet been published):

"...very early on Arnie called me into his office for some reason, and I had an interview with him. He told me that I was a luxury good and that I didn't do business. I did theoretical economics and it wasn't something that business schools could really support, and he did it in a very obnoxious way that really pissed me off. And I said '---- you, Arnie.'

That is David Cass, from William Barnett and Paul Samuelson's new book, 'Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists.' Their version of the quotation adds an f, but not the three further letters."

Global Warming

2007-01-02T14:59:00.000-06:00

In the TCS Daily (Nov. 20, 2006), Arnold Kling quoted Friedman's statement in I.T.E.M. about global warming. I don't agree with what Friedman said on that topic, but of course all references to I.T.E.M. are more than welcome.

Here is the quotation:

"Finally, on the ultimate excuse for draconian technocratic controls, the threat of global warming, Friedman was skeptical of climate models. In an interview published in Inside the Economist's Mind, by Paul A. Samuelson and William A. Barnett, Friedman drew a comparison between climate models and the sorts of large macroeconomic models that were discredited three decades ago.
The one place where you seem to be having that kind of modeling now is in the debate about global warming. And those models seem to be very unreliable and inaccurate. But if you think of physics, they usually have models with only a few equations. In any event, if you have a lot of equations, you ought to be able to draw implications from them that are capable of being understood. You should not present the model and say, now it's up to you to test. I think the person who produces the model has some obligation to state what evidence would contradict it."

Brad DeLong's Blog

2007-01-02T13:04:00.000-06:00

The following interesting post appeared (December 31, 2006) in Brad DeLong's influential Semi-Daily Journal blog and in Econbrowser by James Hamilton and Menzie Chin (posted by James Hamilton on December 29, 2006). The quotation from the ITEM was subsequently repeated and characterized as a "smoking gun" in Kling and Caplan's EconLog on January 9, 2007:

"When Nixon himself became president in 1968 and had the opportunity to appoint a new Chair for the Federal Reserve in 1970, the man he turned to was the same Arthur Burns who had advised him to ease up on monetary policy prior to the 1960 election. Milton Friedman offered these impressions in a 2000 interview that is included in the book Inside the Economist's Mind:

From the moment Burns got into the Fed, I think politics played a great role in what happened. So far as Nixon was concerned, there is no doubt, as I know from personal experience. I had a session with Nixon sometime in 1970-- I think it was 1970, might have been 1971-- in which he wanted me to urge Arthur to increase the money supply more rapidly [laughter] and I said to the President, 'Do you really want to do that? The only effect of that will be to leave you with a larger inflation if you do get reelected.' And he said, 'Well, we'll worry about that after we get reelected.' [page 116]."

Best Seller Already?

2006-12-19T12:08:00.000-06:00

A large shipment of copies of the book has arrived in the US from Oxford and is being distributed to bookstores. But the book has been available in the UK for over a month. In Scotland, Brown Books, which discounts books and provides all profits to charity, is already listing the book as one of its 10 best sellers in economics. I wonder whether some of the copies purchased in the UK have been finding their way to the Texas firm, Metro Books, which has been reselling the $29.95 paperback in the US for $173.34. But I see that they have just dropped their price to $163.71. What a bargain.

Excess Demand for I.T.E.M.

2006-12-16T11:51:00.000-06:00

Believe it or not, the current worldwide scarcity of copies of Inside the Economist's Mind has driven the resale market price of the book up to between $129.05 (from a UK supplier) and $173.34 (from a Texas supplier) for the paperback, which lists at $29.95. See Alibris for that resale market. Hopefully this strangely unanticipated market disequilibrium will soon be resolved. On the other hand, I've notice that in the UK where the book has been available for a couple of months, Amazon.co.uk seems to sell out their supply within a couple of weeks of receipt, and then has to reorder. So it seems that Blackwell is having difficulty keeping up with the demand, even in the UK.

San Diego Union-Tribune

2006-12-11T21:33:00.000-06:00

Lynn O'Shaughnessy at the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper has just chosen I.T.E.M. as one of her five book picks to buy for the holidays. She also is a columnist for Townhall.com, and the Florida Courier, where she has published the same five best picks. She wrote in the three columns:

"This is an insightful book for anyone who would like to know what the nation's leading economists are thinking, without plodding through peer-reviewed journals or textbooks. In nugget-sized servings, the book contains interviews with 16 economists, including eight Nobel laureates, who reflect a panoply of views. Freed from the constrained environs of professional journals, these prominent economists were able to talk freely and let their hair down. At least those who still have any left."

New York Review of Books

2006-12-11T15:00:00.000-06:00

The Blackwell annual advertisement in the influential holiday issue of the New York Review of Books (December 21, 2006, p. 34) was focused solely on this one book. Here is that advertisement.

Overpriced Used Copies

2006-12-02T10:16:00.000-06:00

The book currently is in scarce supply. I have observed that some people who have copies are selling used copies in the US at double the list price on Amazon.com.

There is no reason to buy from such "scalpers." They are selling regular paperback copies that are not signed by Samuelson or Barnett. Rest assured that copies of the book will become more widely available, hopefully soon.

European Press Release

2006-11-24T10:09:00.000-06:00

Blackwell's publicity has begun in earnest with an advertisement in the New York Review of Books (vol 53, no 20, December 21, 2006, p. 34) and a press release for the European market. The prices on the release are in British pounds sterling. You can view the press release clearly as a full size gif or even more clearly as a high resolution pdf.

David Warsh's Commentary on ITEM

2006-11-20T07:01:00.000-06:00

David Warsh's economicprincipals.com contains a commentary on the book today. His long article contains the following particularly interesting observations:

"This is as close as anyone in economics has come to the interviews with influential writers for which Paris Review was famous ...Thus Janos Kornai’s thesis defense in Budapest, on the eve of the Revolution in 1956, attracted an audience of several hundred people. But its appearance as a book, Overcentralization, got him fired (while, for other activities, a close friend was executed). Robert Lucas turned down George Shultz’s offer of a job in Washington and Arthur Laffer was hired instead. Jacques Drèze, the Belgian polymath who founded CORE (the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics) at the Catholic University of Louvain and turned it into a world-class incubator of new ideas, started adult life in London representing his father’s small-town bank in 1949. Before long he was representing most of the other businesses in his little Belgian hometown: selling sterling forward on behalf of wool washers, bartering pig iron to Finns in return for textile machinery, raising equity capital and mediating labor agreements. The book is full of illuminating personal stories like these."

New Economist Blog Commentary

2006-11-10T07:55:00.000-06:00

The first serious post about this book on another blog just appeared on the highly-regarded British blog, New Economist. The first sentence of that commentary is:

"Published earlier this week, Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists has all the hallmarks of an economic bestseller."

The conclusion to the long commentary is,

"So order the book, and be prepared to be astonished."

Hardcover versus Paperback

2006-11-07T06:04:00.000-06:00

While the hardcover is priced more than twice as high as the paperback, the hardcover does look significantly better. In addition to having a more attractive cover, the pages of the book are printed on higher quality paper, so that the photographs within the book look better in the hardcover edition. In short, the paperback is the best buy, but the hardcover is the "class act."

If you want the hardcover edition, you can get a very good member price at Barnes & Noble. But they are not discounting the nonmember price, except for the paperback.

Translations

2006-10-07T13:09:00.000-05:00

At present, there are proposals for translations into Chinese, Russian, Korean, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and Polish. All such arrangements for foreign editions need to be made directly with the English publisher, Blackwell. The translation rights into Russian, Korean, and simplified character Chinese are now under contract to publishers in those countries, so no longer are available to other publishers.

REVIEWS!

2006-08-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

I maintain online a cumulative collection of the views of eminent readers, as well as reviews by media reporters, reviewers, and columnists. The list is longer and more complete than conveniently can be provided in this blog.

The Lawrence Journal-World newspaper "jumped the gun" by publishing a very early advance review before the cover design was finalized, so that newspaper was the first to publish a commentary on the book. The cover design published in that article was a preliminary choice, and is not the one that has been used by Blackwell on the final book. But now many other newspapers are publishing reviews and commentaries based upon receipt of the final book.

Cover Design

2006-08-22T09:04:00.000-05:00

The full cover of the book, including front, back, and spine are below:

The front cover alone is displayed to the left. The cover has been changed, in response to the request by a large bookstore chain. The old one was based upon a painting by Assar Lindbeck. Those who have seen the original manuscript may be expecting to see the former cover design, which will not appear on the published book.

The Media

2006-08-21T11:15:00.000-05:00

Blackwell has sent out about 100 advance copies to columnists, reviewers, and reporters in the media. If you qualify and would like an advance copy, there still is time to email me with your mailing address. Among the current list of requestors are people at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times (including its Book Reviews and its Sunday Book Reviews), The Economist, Financial Times of London, Bloomberg, Newsweek, Washington Post, Time Magazine, economicprincipals.com, New York Review of Books, Philadelphia Inquirer, Kansas City Star, Milken Institute Review, RGE Monitor, Challenge Magazine, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank's The Region, CSPAN2 BookTV, Chicago Tribune, San Diego Union-Tribune, various economics blog moderators, among others. A convenient way to find recent reviews in the media is to search Google News. and NewsLibrary.com.

Publicity

2006-08-21T11:12:00.000-05:00

A signed copy of the book was the "prize" in a raffle held in October at the Financial Management Association conference in Salt Lake City and also at another such raffle held at the ASSA meetings in Chicago in January. In addition, Blackwell's annual advertisement in the New York Review of Books (December 21 holiday issue, p. 34) is for this book.

Front Matter

2006-08-18T15:30:00.000-05:00

The book's complete front matter is online at:

www.ITEM-book.org/

The conversations in the book are not themselves online, but some of the participants include:

Wassily Leontief (Nobel Laureate), David Cass, Robert Lucas (Nobel Laureate), Janos Kornai, Franco Modigliani (Nobel Laureate), Milton Friedman (Nobel Laureate), Paul Samuelson (Nobel Laureate), Paul Volcker (Former Federal Reserve Board Chair), Martin Feldstein (Former Chair of Council of Economic Advisers), Christopher Sims, Robert Shiller, Stanley Fischer (Governor of the Bank of Israel), Jacques Dreze, Tom Sargent, Robert Aumann (Nobel Laureate), James Tobin (Nobel Laureate), Robert Solow (Nobel Laureate), John Taylor, Lars Hansen, among others.

ISBN and Price

2006-08-18T10:35:00.000-05:00

Here are the ISBNs and prices. Bookstores are already ordering thousands of copies, but the books will not be delivered until late December 2006 to bookstores in the US (late November 2006 in the UK). People in the press can get advance copies, but that is another matter. The information needed to order copies is:

Hardcover (ISBN 1405157151): $74.95 in US and Canada

Paperback (ISBN 1405159170): $29.95 in US and Canada

The book now is online in Blackwell's web site. The book can be purchased directly from Blackwell, and its site is much more informative about the book than those of the other sources.
But the book can be purchased in the US, often at better prices, at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, and Borders Books. For example, Barnes & Noble is pricing the paperback at $23.96 to nonmembers and $21.56 to members and the hardcover at $63.96 to members. Amazon currently is offering the paperback for $19.77.

In the UK or continental Europe, some good choices for purchase would include Amazon.co.uk, Waterstone, Blackwell Bookshops, Jungle.ie, and The Good Book Guide in the UK; Amazon.fr in France; Marcial Pons in Spain; Chapters in Canada; Publicacoes Tecnicas Internacionais sob Demanda in Brazil, and Studia in Norway. A particularly good choice is Brown Books in Scotland, since Brown Books donates all profits to charity. A collection and comparison of sources for the hardcover and the paperback is at Bookstores.com.