I’m preparing my new course on Economics for Public Policy that I start teaching at the University of Manchester in a few weeks, and one of the things preoccupying me as I look over the specific material is the evaluation question. Of course impact assessments are a big deal now, and randomised control trials (disguised as ‘pilots’ in the developed world context) very fashionable. Looking at whether policy interventions actually achieve what they were meant to is of course important; and the answer is usually ‘no’ as a host of recent books ([amazon_link id=”1780744056″ target=”_blank” ]The Blunders of Our Governments[/amazon_link] by Anthony King and Ivor Crew, [amazon_link id=”0691161623″ target=”_blank” ]Why Government Fails So Often[/amazon_link] by Peter Schuck, [amazon_link id=”0815793898″ target=”_blank” ]Government Failure vs Market Failure[/amazon_link] by Clifford Winston, [amazon_link id=”0199322198″ target=”_blank” ]Wrong[/amazon_link] by Richard Grossman) amply testify. But I’ve been thinking more about what the policies are meant to achieve in the first place, the underlying social welfare justification. I started mulling this over when writing last year’s Pro Bono Economics Lecture, The Economist as Outsider, and the philosophical basis of the standard approach in economic policy – identify the market failure and the corresponding Pigouvian intervention – seems profoundly flawed the more you think about it. The recent excellent Interfluidity blog posts on welfare economics spell out some of the issues.

[amazon_image id=”1780744056″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Blunders of Our Governments[/amazon_image]

That’s a subject for another day, possibly another book. Meanwhile, I just read [amazon_link id=”0231153287″ target=”_blank” ]The Arrow Impossibility Theorem[/amazon_link], lectures by Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen. It’s not an easy read, but it does make the Impossibility Theorem as simple as can be – pretty much equation-free, and clearly explained by two of the biggest brains in the business. Maskin’s lecture looks at the implications for voting systems, Sen’s at the informational basis on which one can make social welfare assessments. The book is an excellent one stop shop on the Impossibility Theorem. Useful for teaching it, and also an important reminder to economists who talk about or operate in the policy world that this question of social welfare is difficult and important.

[amazon_image id=”0231153287″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Arrow Impossibility Theorem (Kenneth J. Arrow Lectures Series)[/amazon_image]

At the moment I’m alternating between intense reading of books and papers for my new course, and fun stuff, while saving the really light reading for a few days’ holiday later this month. So the advance copy of [amazon_link id=”0691163138″ target=”_blank” ]The Mystery of the Invisible Hand[/amazon_link] by Marshall Jevons arrived at the perfect moment, and it’s a very enjoyable romp – campus novel meets detective novel meets economics primer. Nobel Prize winning economist Henry Spearman uses economic logic alone to solve a murder, the power of the little grey cells amplified by the muscular rigour of economics.

[amazon_image id=”B00KAJJBV0″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Mystery of the Invisible Hand: A Henry Spearman Mystery[/amazon_image]

Marshall Jevons is, needless to say, a pseudonym, and this is the third in the series, following on from [amazon_link id=”0691059691″ target=”_blank” ]A Deadly Indifference[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0691164010″ target=”_blank” ]Murder at the Margin[/amazon_link].

There are many nice touches. I liked the fact that the classroom building is called Hamermesh Hall. I *loved* this quotation from Carl Christ at the head of one chapter: “I have heard an unkind critic say that an economist is someone who would sell his grandmother. This is quite wrong. An economist, or at least a good economist, would not sell his grandmother to the highest bidder unless the highest bid was enough to compensate him for the loss of his grandmother.”

As a way to bring some basic economic concepts to life for students, this is an excellent series, although of course not Great Literature. Russ Roberts’ novels, [amazon_link id=”0691143358″ target=”_blank” ]The Price of Everything[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0262681358″ target=”_blank” ]The Invisible Heart[/amazon_link], are similarly both enjoyable and educational. (He, by the way, has a terrific new book out, [amazon_link id=”1591846846″ target=”_blank” ]How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life[/amazon_link].)

[amazon_image id=”1591846846″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness[/amazon_image]

As I’ve long argued, economists are particularly amenable to two strands of genre fiction, detective and sci-fi novels. The ur-models of rational homo economicus are Hercule Poirot (or perhaps Sherlock Holmes) and Mr Spock, logical, calculating, and totally brilliant naturally. Paul Krugman was famously inspired to become an economist by reading Isaac Asimov’s [amazon_link id=”184159332X” target=”_blank” ]Foundation Trilogy[/amazon_link].

I’m a detective fiction person myself – economists have that same impulse as the writers of these books, I think, namely to bring some order to a disordered world.

[amazon_image id=”184159332X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Foundation Trilogy (Everyman’s Library (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.))[/amazon_image]