Book Notes from New Ideas from Dead Economists: The Introduction to Modern Economic Thought

 Some key notes from the book New Ideas from Dead Economists by Todd G. Buchholz, American economist. 

- Economics as the dismal science 

- Economists must be mathematicians, historians, philosophers and statesmen. - John Keynes  

-Attitude not latitude counts for a country

- Attitude may be defined as the collective wisdom it gleans from great economists over the history 

- No one can be an informed voter or understand newspaper without knowledge of economics

-In the Wealth of Nations Adam Smith warns society not to naively succumb to bourgeois blandishment - "Self-interest motivates more powerfully and consistently than kindness, altruism or martyrdom"

- "Over time, markets drive producers to deliver better products and better prices".

-"The forces that fight free international trade look formidable to the government". 

-" Countries that shun trade tend to stagnate or sink".

-  From 1776 to 1976 just five books reigned over economics:

1. Smith's Wealth of Nations

2. Ricardo's Principles 

3. Marshall's Principles 

4. Mill's Principle of Political Economy 

5. Samuelson's Economics

- "He who does not go with the flow of historical materialism drowns in it". 

- "Marx ignores imagination, innovation and entrepreneurship".

- Marx does not tell us how socialism will make trash collecting exciting or more incentivising. 

- "Marginalism declares that the past is behind you". 

-"Alfred Marshall's marginalism is evolution applied to economics."

-Increasing returns to scale = Internal economics (a division of labor, buying in bulk, specialization and large machinery) and External economics (locational advantage/ cluster economy and business environment)

- Elasticity = responsiveness to price changes 

-" As interest rates increase so do crime rates."

"During prosperity, people pay more money in taxes and budget surpluses. But during recessions government should allow deficits."

- Milton Friedman = monetarism, money supply to drive the economy

- Keynesians = higher government spending or lower taxes, lower government spending or higher taxes 

- Criticism of Keynes more money does not mean more buying power or a higher standard of living

- "Freidman started as a Keynesian and matured as a monetarist".

- "Keynes started as a monetarist and matured into a Keynesian". 

- "Central bankers need to have Keynes's head on Milton's body". 










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