Zombie Economics [antikvár]

PREFACE The idea for this book began when I read this striking passage in Animal Spirits by George Akerlof and Robert Shiller: The economics of the textbooks seeks to minimize as much as possible departures from pure economic motivation and from rationality. There is a good reason for doing so—and each of us has spent a good portion of his life writing in this tradition. The economics of Adam Smith is well understood. Explanations in terms of small deviations from Smith's ideal system are thus clear, because they are posed within a framework that is already very well understood. But that does not mean that these small deviations from Smith's system describe how the economy actually works. Our book marks a break with this tradition. In our view, economic theory should be derived not from the minimal deviations from the system of Adam Smith but rather from the deviations that actually do occur and can be observed. (Akerlof and Shiller 2009, 4-5) This passage motivated me to write about its implications for macroeconomics in the Crooked Timber blog. In comments, economist Max Sawicky, posting under the pseudonym MiracleMax, suggested that this, combined with some earlier posts on ideas refuted by the financial crisis, would make a good book. Brad DeLong of the University of California at Berkeley picked up the idea, and the next day Seth Ditchik of Princeton University Press e-mailed me to say he thought it was a great idea. The result is before you. More than most books, this one has been improved by comments from others, not all of whom I can name. As I wrote draft chapters, I posted them on crookedtimber.org, and on my personal blog johnquiggin.com, then combined them in a draft on wikidot.com. I asked for comments