Two New Books on Economic Growth
13 October 2010 at 2:47 pm Dick Langlois 1 comment
| Dick Langlois |
In addition to the review of Doug Puffert’s book that Peter discusses in his most recent post, EH.net has also just issued reviews of two books on economic growth that should be of interest to O&M readers. One is of Michael Heller’s Capitalism, Institutions, and Economic Development. I hope this one gets wide circulation despite being an expensive Routledge title. The other is of Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. That one should get a lot of attention.
Entry filed under: - Langlois -, Business/Economic History, Evolutionary Economics, Innovation, Institutions.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
paul e. | 13 October 2010 at 10:05 pm
William Easterly was less effusive in his New York Times review of Ridley’s work back in June.
(The book also reminds me a bit of Robert Wright’s book Nonzero from about a decade ago.)
But I applaud the approach. I think the way to teach economics is from a world history/ cultural evolution perspective. Obviously economic theory is itself part of that cultural evolution and students should be taught that. The book that does all this that satisfactorily is yet to be written. But a combination of the work of Boyd and Richerson and Gintis and Bowles, Jared Diamond, Ridley, Eric Bockheimer as well as Paul Seabright would get you a long way.