In the past I've written on this blog about Open Book Publishers, a recently founded academic press publishing on the open access model – the books are published in the Creative Commons framework. They are non-profit and use print on demand technology so prices for physical copies are around £14 (or £25 for a hardback), which is about the same as the lowest prices charged by other academic publishers. Electronic versions are of course much cheaper – around £5.

Their list has grown since then and includes some forthcoming economics titles that look promising: one is David Levine's Is Behavioural Economics Doomed and another is a volume edited by Amartya Sen, Peace and Democratic Society. There's also a recent volume of essays on the history of copyright (£4.95 as a pdf, £14.95 for a physical copy). The essence of the model can be found on the information for authors page.

The website says: “We are excited that, during
our first two years of operation, our free online editions have been
accessed by people in over 120 countries, and that each of our books is
being viewed by about as many people per
month as
many traditional print-only titles will reach in their entire published
life.”

Founder Rupert Gatti recently published an article (pdf here)  in the Cambridge alumni magazine making the case that all academic work should be published under a Creative Commons licence. The purpose of academic research, he argues persuasively, is to share knowledge whereas the aim of publishers is to restrict access to varying degrees. Copyright on academic works benefits the publishers, who no longer, however, serve the purposes for academics they used to for the researchers. Publishers are no longer essential to reach readers, very few scrutinise and edit manuscripts as they used to, and publishers' selection of what is worthy may well differ from an academic assessment, for publishers more clearly want what will sell. His article is well worth a read.

My experience via this blog and previously as a reader is that academic publishers vary quite widely in their policies and attitudes. Some would share fully Open Book Publishers' commitment to scholarship and public value – I'd certainly include my own in that category. Others are clearly more commercial and price for a small number of library sales. I think the commitment is more important than the choice of business model, because – as in any other area of business – it's values that ultimately determine behaviour.

I've started reading The Economist's Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics by George DeMartino (a review will follow in the next day or two). So far, it's not clear to me what the criteria are for a profession needing ethics. The author makes it clear, by the way, that he's not talking about a code of conduct – a set of 'how to' rules for behaviour in specific circumstances – but rather a set of “intellectual and pedagogical practices and traditions.” In other words, economic ethics should be parallel to medical ethics, not like the 'customer service' promises from your bank.

This set me wondering – why economists? DeMartino goes on to talk about government economists and IMF economists making decisions that affect many people's lives. The government hires lots of policy experts of different kinds. Do they all have/need professional ethics too? And while doctors have professional ethics, medicine has both more direct and better understood effects on specific people. Economics is not (yet) an experimental science, and much of medical ethics pertains to conducting experiments. Economics is more like geology, evolutionary biology or astronomy in relying on 'historical' evidence and inductive reasoning. Do geologists have or need professional ethics?

Surely the author isn't arguing that economists need professional ethics because they were wrong about the economy before the financial crisis? We're wrong about all sorts of things. Being ethical and being right are clearly distinct. Besides, if we're assigning blame for the crisis, I think the bankers should be centre stage, not the economists.

More to follow when I've finished the book.

The new issue of the Boston Review has a very interesting essay by Rachel Glennester and Michael Kremer about the implications of behavioural economics for the study of development. It explores the potential of including behavioural assumptions in addition to using experimental methods for assessing development projects. The forum on the subject kicks off with a comment by me, and others will follow.

The day after posting the review by Philip Thorton of What You Need to Know About Economics, by George Buckley and Sumeet Desai, another introductory guide to economics turned up in the post. It's The Economist's Economics: Making Sense of the Modern Economy, edited by Saugato Datta with articles written by Economist journalists.

This is a third and 'radically revised' edition. It starts out with basic economic ideas, turns next to aspects of the global economy and the financial crisis and recession, and finally puts the spotlight on economics itself. This section looks at the post-crisis critique of the subject and then dips into some of the ways economics has been changing, such as behavioural economics and experimental methods. The third section is less comprehensive a survey of the most recent trends in economics than my own book The Soulful Science, but makes the same underlying point about modern economics being in reality rather different from the stereotype that is so often criticised.

From the essays I've read so far, this is a thoroughly clear and accessible book, as one would expect from The Economist stable. I think it serves a useful purpose, too, in discussing economics in the context of the global crisis for the general audience. It consists of a series of articles so on the one hand (as we economists say) it can seem disjointed but on the other hand is therefore ideal for picking up at odd moments to read an essay or two. It would be particularly useful for A level and beginning undergraduate students, although equally handy for the general newspaper reader who needs greater enlightenment in the face of the cacophony of daily reporting.

I'd been looking forward to reading Ed Glaeser's book Triumph of the City, and haven't been disappointed. One of the most creative and rigorous of urban economists has long been publishing fascinating academic papers on cities and related issues such as the role of social norms in affecting economic outcomes. Those years-worth of research inform a book which is a real page turner.

The individual chapters cover different themes – such as the importance of skilled people for a city's economic success, the role of transport systems in shaping cities, slums and urban ghettos, the environmental footprint of urban life. Understanding what makes cities function – or not – is important because, he argues, cities are our future. More than half the world's population lives in cities, including the rapidly growing mega-cities in developing countries. “The enduring strength of cities reflects the profoundly social nature of humanity,” he writes. (p269) A Manhattanite born and bred, he clearly loves cities, despite having become a suburbanite in recent years. “What terrible bout of insanity induced me to choose deer ticks as neighbours instead of people?” (p166) However, thinking about the reasons for his own choice helped inform his suggestions about improving city life. After all, while cities have the people, variety, cultural activities, restaurants, choice, liveliness and other amenities, they also have congestion, pollution, expensive housing and other disamenities.

Some possibly surprising conclusions emerge from the analysis. Here are some of them:

1. People matter, not places – a thriving city needs skilled workers, who seek each other out and make each other more productive by example and by sharing ideas. Buildings don't make a city, as so many examples of failed construction programmes demonstrate. A classic mistake of urban planning is to think the buildings come before the people when in fact it's the other way round.

2. The better the municipal authorities make a city for poor people – with housing, transport, social programmes – the more poor people there will be. After all, nothing is worse than being poor in the countryside where there's nothing to do. People on low incomes move to the city for opportunity, and the more help a city offers, the more poor people will stay or arrive.

3. Preservation ultimately destroys a city. Forbidding changes puts the brakes on normal urban dynamism and will eventually turn a city into a playground for rich residents and tourists rather than a functioning economy. Some preservation is desirable – surely Jane Jacobs was right to campaign against a highway going through Washington Square – but too much disney-fies a place. Paris seems to have suffered this fate, beautiful as it is.

4. If cities can't grow up, they grow out. A successful city attracts more and more people who need somewhere to live. The density at which they live depends on how many new tall buildings are constructed. If planning restrictions mean high rise homes can't be built, housing prices will rise, while people on lower incomes will live far away and commute. Either that or move to Houston, or some suburb or smaller city where buildings sprawl.

5. Cities are better for the environment than the countryside. Collecting people together with shorter commutes reduces the amount of driving and increases walking and the use of public transport.

Ed Glaeser is an advocate of this type of densely-populated, walking (or public transportation based) city, with new buildings and a variety of uses. He argues against some of Jane Jacobs' specific conclusions in her classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities (especially about high rises) but is entirely in sympathy with her passion for the wealth and potential of urban life. He concludes that in time living in suburbs will prove ephemeral, not least because of the need to avoid long commutes by car. “Our culture, our prosperity and our freedom are all ultimately gifts of people living, working and thinking together – the ultimate triumph of the city.”

I agree. What's more, as an economist I very much enjoyed the rigour with which assertions made in the book are supported by evidence. Some bits of evidence are particularly delicious. For example, New Yorkers aged 25 to 34 are 75% less likely to die in a car accident than their equivalents nationwide – because when they're drunk they take the subway home instead of driving. The New York suicide rate for young people is 56% of the national average. I thought this might be because they're less bored, but this being the US it's because they are far less likely to have access to a gun with which to shoot themselves. But older New Yorkers are also much healthier than the national average. In contrast to the pre-industrial era, cities are places where people are more productive, happier and healthier.

There's all this and much more in Triumph of the City for any municipal policy maker, economist or urban flaneur.