I wonder if you might consider having an item that asks your readers what books they think would be excellent for economics students to read. Perhaps each reader with a good recommendation could offer a paragraph or so about the book and why they think it's an excellent read for students.Over at Greg Mankiw's Blog you can review an excellent list of book recommendations.
Click here to see Greg Mankiw's 2005 Summer Reading List.
In addition to the recommendations you find there, I might suggest:
North, Douglass. Understanding the Process of Economic Change. His 1993 Nobel lecture is also worth reading.
O’ Rourke, PJ. On the Wealth of Nations.
A must read. O'Rourke summarizes the 900 page Wealth of Nations in fewer than 200 pages of readable a provocative analysis. He recognizes that the importance of Smith’s work today is for economic growth, development and poverty reduction. “Even intellectuals should have no trouble understanding Smith’s ideas. Economic progress depends upon a trinity of individual perogatives: pursuit of self interest, division of labor and freedom of trade” (1-2). In order to fully understand the first element of the Smithian thesis one can read The Theory of Moral Sentiments of chapter 3 in O”Rourke.
2 comments:
From a posting over at Cafe Hayek and my reply -
April 05, 2007
Buying Local
Russell Roberts
In the latest EconTalk podcast, Mike Munger and I discuss the division of labor. On April 16th (with John Bogle on the 9th), Don (co-host here at the Cafe) and I discuss the virtues of "buying local," a topic closely related to the division of labor. But in the meanwhile, here is a magnificent illustration (HT: Tim and someone else, please forgive me) of how the division of labor and buying local intersect. It's the story of a class project to produce a man's suit using pieces produced within a 100-mile radius of home. Not quite local, but local enough. Wired reports on the result:
The suit took a team of 20 artisans several months to produce -- 500 man-hours of work in total -- and the finished product wears its rustic origins on its sleeve.
Self-sufficiency is the road to poverty.
Posted by: Ray | Apr 6, 2007 8:08:31 AM
"Last year, Cobb asked her students at Drexel University to trace the provenance of their clothes. When the task proved impossible, she realized how far removed we are from what we wear."
I forget the title, but there's a book that tracks a t-shirt from the cotton farmer all the way to the used clothing markets in Africa. Cobb and her students should have just gone to the library.
I believe you are thinking about The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade
by Pietra Rivoli
Posted by: Greg | Apr 8, 2007 10:15:58 AM
Good blog greg, very interesting.
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