The Ethics of Efficient Markets and Commons Tragedies: A Review of John Broome's Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World

By William Nordhaus

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2014

What are the ethical implications of our contributions to global warming on an individual level? In his extended essay, John Broome analyzes the moral implications of our imposing damages on future generations through our greenhouse-gas emissions. He argu...

What's the Future of Public Higher Education? A Review Essay on Gary C. Fethke and Andrew J. Policano's Public No More: A New Path to Excellence for America's Public Universities

By Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2014

Gary Fethke and Andrew Policano's book "Public No More: A New Path to Excellence for America's Public Universities" paints a picture of a future for public research universities that is very different than what many people will want to see. Their message ...

A Review of Peter Temin's The Roman Market Economy

By François Velde

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2014

Herein, I review Peter Temin's book, "The Roman Market Economy", and take the occasion to alert economists to the exciting work that is being done and could be done in the economic history of the ancient world. (JEL C80, N01, N13, N73)

Review Essay on Charles F. Manski's Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions

By John Geweke

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2014

Public policy setting often involves quantitative choices with quantitative outcomes. Yet unqualified statements about the precise consequences of alternative choices characterize much of the policy analysis bearing on these decisions. Public Policy i...

The New Science of Cities by Michael Batty: The Opinion of an Economist

By Jacques-Francois Thisse

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2014

Cities are the cradle of a wide range of cultural, social, and technological innovations that are at the heart of modern economic growth and development. Half of humanity today lives in cities but, until the last two decades, economists have paid much les...

The Return of "Patrimonial Capitalism": A Review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century

By Branko Milanovic

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2014

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty provides a unified theory of the functioning of the capitalist economy by linking theories of economic growth and functional and personal income distributions. It argues, based on the long-run h...

A Flourishing Economist: A Review Essay on Edmund Phelps's Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change

By Joel Mokyr

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2014

In his recent Mass Flourishings, Edmund Phelps makes a strong and eloquent plea for a more dynamic economy, which he sees not only as a key for economic performance, but also as necessary for what he calls "the good life." This review essay evalu...

Rethinking the Principles of Bank Regulation: A Review of Admati and Hellwig's The Bankers' New Clothes

By Roger B. Myerson

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2014

In an important new book, Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig raise broad critical questions about bank regulation. These questions are reviewed and discussed here, with a focus on how the problems of maintaining a stable financial system depend on fundamental...

A Review Essay about Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis by Paul Glimcher

By Colin F. Camerer

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2013

Neuroeconomics aims to discover mechanisms of economic decision, and express them mathematically, to predict observed choice. While the contents of neuroeconomic models and evidence are obviously different than in traditional economics, (some of the) go...

European Integration at the Crossroads: A Review Essay on the 50th Anniversary of Bela Balassa's Theory of Economic Integration

By André Sapir

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2011

Bela Balassa's Theory of Economic Integration, published fifty years ago, is a remarkable, yet little known book. This essay reviews developments in the economic literature and in the process of European integration since the book's publication, ...

A World without Intellectual Property? A Review of Michele Boldrin and David Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly

By Richard Gilbert

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2011

In their recent book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, Michele Boldrin and David Levine conclude that patents and copyrights are not necessary to provide protection for either innovation or creative expression and should be eliminated. The authors ...

Thinking about the Firm: A Review of Daniel Spulber's The Theory of the Firm

By Oliver Hart

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2011

In this review, I describe how economists have moved beyond the firm as a black box to incorporate incentives, internal organization, and firm boundaries. I then turn to the way that the theory of the firm is treated in Daniel Spulber's book The Theo...

A Review of Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast's Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History

By Robert Bates

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2010

In Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R. Weingast probe the organizational foundations of development. Outlining the properties of the "natu...

A Review of Scott E. Page's The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies

By Yannis M. Ioannides

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2010

This assessment of Scott Page's The Difference (Princeton University Press, 2007) emphasizes the depth and breadth of the book's coverage and arguments and checks them against existing empirical evidence, when available. It argues that the book...

Learning from Schelling's Strategy of Conflict

By Roger B. Myerson

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2009

Thomas Schelling's Strategy of Conflict is a masterpiece that should be recognized as one of the most important and influential books in social theory. This paper reviews some of the important ideas in Strategy of Conflict and consider...

A Review of Edward Luce's In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India

By Lant Pritchett

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2009

India poses a development puzzle on a grand scale. Sixty years of electoral democracy, thirty years of rapid growth, and a number of world class institutions (such as the Institutes of Technology or Election Commission) have led to talk of India as a s...

Finance and Politics: A Review Essay Based on Kenneth Dam's Analysis of Legal Traditions in The Law-Growth Nexus

By Mark J. Roe and Jordan I. Siegel

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2009

Strong financial markets are widely thought to propel economic development, with many in finance seeing legal tradition as fundamental to protecting investors sufficiently for finance to flourish. Kenneth Dam finds that the legal tradition view inaccura...

Schumpeter Redux: A Review of Raghuram G. Rajan and Luigi Zingales's Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists

By Richard Sylla

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2006

Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists is an ambitious probe into capitalism's past, present, and future. Whereas Joseph A. Schumpeter viewed capitalism as doomed because it was losing its political and social supports, Rajan and Zingales see i...

A Review of Steven Shavell's Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law

By Richard A. Posner

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2006

Steven Shavell's Foundations of Economic Analysis of Law (Harvard University Press, 2004) is a major theoretical contribution to "law and economics," the applied field of economics that studies the economic properties and consequences of legal ...

A Review of Peter Isard's Globalization and the International Financial System: What's Wrong and What Can be Done?

By Barry Eichengreen

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2006

Peter Isard's recent book (Globalization and the International Financial System: What's Wrong and What Can be Done?, Cambridge University Press, 2005) provides a thoughtful and balanced review of the scholarly literature on the past operation a...