Science fiction economics

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Gavin Kelly of the Resolution Foundation has written a very informative and balanced article in today’s Observer about technology and jobs – it’s more balanced than the headline (“The Robots Are Coming!”). He discusses the gloom about the hollowing out of good, ordinary, middle income jobs as featured in Tyler Cowen’s fascinating [amazon_link id=”0525953736″ target=”_blank” ]Average is Over[/amazon_link] and the forthcoming [amazon_link id=”0393239357″ target=”_blank” ]The Second Machine Age[/amazon_link] by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee; but also some of the reasons for not assuming we’re heading straight for the dystopia of a society divided between a minority of highly skilled, high earners and a lumpenproletariat earning minimum wage for service sector jobs the machines can’t quite do yet.

[amazon_image id=”0393239357″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies[/amazon_image]

I’m in the latter camp, although not at all sanguine about the social and institutional adjustments that will need to be made as we glide into the Age of Robots. These adjustments are everything: technology drives prosperity and progress (old fashioned idea, I know), but society determines how the benefits are shared.

In the article Alan Manning (author of a book with one of the best titles ever, [amazon_link id=”0691123284″ target=”_blank” ]Monopsony in Motion[/amazon_link]) refers to ‘science fiction economics’, a marvellous concept. [amazon_link id=”1857988124″ target=”_blank” ]Blade Runner[/amazon_link] is the obvious reference for the robots-are-coming thesis, but Bruce Sterling’s [amazon_link id=”0441374239″ target=”_blank” ]Islands in the Net[/amazon_link] leapt to my mind as the best example. Some of William Gibson’s recent novels, of course, such as [amazon_link id=”0399149864″ target=”_blank” ]Pattern Recognition[/amazon_link].

Any other suggestions for the best economic analysis through the medium of science fiction?

[amazon_image id=”0441374239″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Islands in the Net[/amazon_image]

Housing word association

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The week between Christmas and New Year is always a wonderful time for reading, both books and catching up on the wealth of articles bookmarked in the busy weeks before the holidays. So I’ve had time to read a new London Review of Books essay by James Meek about housing in the UK. Or rather, the housing crisis, as the title has it, in what has become the automatic word association.

As the chart in the article makes perfectly plain, there is a crisis of inadequate supply, on a scale that in the past was addressed by some substantial policy interventions. I am absolutely not a political expert, but it does seem to me that housing is one of the basics that voters will care about – something Margaret Thatcher as well as Aneurin Bevan understood perfectly well.

The Meek article ends with a quote from Julia Unwin of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation: ‘At the turn of the 20th century, the free market had provided squalid slums. We undoubtedly face the re-creation of slums, the enrichment of bad landlords, the risk of people being destitute. Beveridge had soup kitchens. We have food banks. We’ve got something that does take us back full circle, a deep divide in way of life between people who are reasonably well off and those who are poor. There’s always been a difference, but the distinction seems to be more stark now.’

Julia is one of my Perspectives authors, and I highly commend her new book [amazon_link id=”1907994165″ target=”_blank” ]Why Fight Poverty?[/amazon_link] It seems to me spot on in identifying the emotion of fear – fear of becoming poor, fear of poor people – as a barrier to doing anything about poverty.

As it happens, I’ve also commissioned Kate Barker to write a Perspective on the housing crisis, due out later this year. Kate was the author of two authoritative reports on planning and housing a few years ago, and her recommendations in the run up to a UK general election campaign will be essential reading.

[amazon_image id=”1907994165″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Why Fight Poverty? (Perspectives)[/amazon_image]

There are a few other books around about housing. I’ve read Neil Monnery’s Safe As Houses which gives a very useful historical and also cross-country overview. A bit old now, but excellent on the economic analysis, is David Miles’s [amazon_link id=”0471952109″ target=”_blank” ]Housing, Financial Markets and the Wider Economy[/amazon_link]. David is on the Monetary Policy Committee and no doubt paying close attention to the current house price surge and mortgage conditions.There are some excellent blogs too – Alex Marsh writes one, Jules Birch another.

[amazon_image id=”B00FOU4GLA” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Safe as Houses: A Historical Analysis of Property Prices (Paperback) – Common[/amazon_image]

Economics books in 2014 – continued

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A couple of days ago I posted a list of forthcoming titles in economics that looked intriguing.

Inevitably, I missed some things. Cardiff Garcia expanded the list and added some descriptions. Of the extra ones he spotted, [amazon_link id=”0393239357″ target=”_blank” ]The Second Machine Age[/amazon_link] by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, [amazon_link id=”0465064736″ target=”_blank” ]The Upside of Down[/amazon_link] by Charles Kenny, and [amazon_link id=”1451651201″ target=”_blank” ]The Leading Indicators: A Short History of the Numbers That Rule Our World[/amazon_link], by Zachary Karabell stand out.

[amazon_image id=”0465064736″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Upside of Down[/amazon_image]

Robert Went, among others on Twitter, flagged up Ha-Joon Chang’s forthcoming book, [amazon_link id=”0718197038″ target=”_blank” ]Economics: The User’s Guide[/amazon_link]. John Saunders in comments added [amazon_link id=”0691152098″ target=”_blank” ]Complexity and the Art of Public Policy: Solving Society’s Problems from the Bottom Up[/amazon_link] by David Colander & Roland Kupers.

Happy New Year from me and Thomas Hobbes

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A very Happy New Year and warmest wishes for 2014 to all readers of this blog.

A thought from Thomas Hobbes to keep us all aware of our own cognitive biases as vigorous discussions about the economy continue:

“[Those] who commonly … call for right reason to decide any controversy, do mean their own.”

This is from [amazon_link id=”019283682X” target=”_blank” ]The Elements of Law, Natural and Political[/amazon_link], and is quoted in my current reading, Anthony Pagden’s [amazon_link id=”019966093X” target=”_blank” ]The Enlightenment and Why It Still Matters[/amazon_link].

Here’s to a year of thoroughly reasonable and evidence-based debate.

[amazon_image id=”019966093X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Enlightenment: And Why it Still Matters[/amazon_image]

Books to look forward to in 2014

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A New Year Resolution to read more books about economics?

It’s time for a browse through the publishers’ catalogues to see what enticing economics and business books will be out in the next few months (this is of course a non-exhaustive list – I’m happy to update this if anybody knows of others coming out in the first half of 2014).

I have to indulge myself in putting my own new book first: [amazon_link id=”0691156794″ target=”_blank” ]GDP: A Brief But Affectionate History[/amazon_link] is published on 23rd February.

[amazon_image id=”0691156794″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History[/amazon_image]

Also from my publisher Princeton University Press, I like the look of the history title [amazon_link id=”B00H5ZN2Z8″ target=”_blank” ]The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the 19th century[/amazon_link] by Jurgen Osterhammel. Greg Clark’s [amazon_link id=”0691162549″ target=”_blank” ]The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility[/amazon_link] looks like a highly distinctive take on the mobility question. Other new economics titles are [amazon_link id=”0691161127″ target=”_blank” ]The Dollar Trap[/amazon_link] by Eswar Prasad, [amazon_link id=”0691155240″ target=”_blank” ]Fragile By Design[/amazon_link] (on banking crises) by Charles Calomiris and Stephen Haber, and T[amazon_link id=”0691154708″ target=”_blank” ]he Butterfly Defect: How globalization creates systemic risks and what to do about it[/amazon_link] by Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan. The best title in the catalogue could be [amazon_link id=”0691160120″ target=”_blank” ]Count Like An Egyptian[/amazon_link] by David Reimer – a guide to ancient maths.

At Harvard University Press, there is Thomas Piketty’s [amazon_link id=”067443000X” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link], which I posted about recently. Also coming up, [amazon_link id=”0674049772″ target=”_blank” ]Immigration Economics [/amazon_link]by George Borjas

MIT Press has several I like the look of: [amazon_link id=”0262019922″ target=”_blank” ]Production in the Innovation Economy[/amazon_link], edited by Richard M. Locke and Rachel Wellhausen; [amazon_link id=”0262026910″ target=”_blank” ]In 100 Years: Leading Economists Predict the Future[/amazon_link], Edited by Ignacio Palacios-Huerta; [amazon_link id=”0262027259″ target=”_blank” ]Virtual Economies – Design and Analysis[/amazon_link] by Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova; and [amazon_link id=”0262026872″ target=”_blank” ]Making Democracy Fun[/amazon_link] by Josh Lerner (“drawing on the tools of game design to fix democracy.”)

[amazon_image id=”0262026910″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]In 100 Years: Leading Economists Predict the Future[/amazon_image]

 

Basic has Bill Easterly’s [amazon_link id=”0465031250″ target=”_blank” ]The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor [/amazon_link]out in March.

On Penguin’s forthcoming list: [amazon_link id=”B00FXH3FZC” target=”_blank” ]The Secret Club That Runs the World: Inside the Fraternity of Commodities Traders[/amazon_link] by Kate Kelly; [amazon_link id=”1846147611″ target=”_blank” ]An Uncertain Glory[/amazon_link] by Amartya Sen; [amazon_link id=”1846147158″ target=”_blank” ]All That is Solid: The Great Housing Disaster[/amazon_link] by Danny Dorling.
[amazon_image id=”1846147611″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions[/amazon_image]
From Faber in April, Gerard Lyons, now advising Boris Johnson on economics, [amazon_link id=”0571307787″ target=”_blank” ]The Consolations of Economics: How We Will All Benefit from the New World Order.[/amazon_link]

Later in the year Oxford University Press is bringing out [amazon_link id=”0198716087″ target=”_blank” ]Reconceptualizing Development in the Global Information Age[/amazon_link], Edited by Manuel Castells and Pekka Himanen; [amazon_link id=”0195373847″ target=”_blank” ]The System Worked: How the World Stopped Another Great Depression[/amazon_link] by Daniel W. Drezner; [amazon_link id=”0198702132″ target=”_blank” ]The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs[/amazon_link] by Hans-Werner Sinn;  and [amazon_link id=”0199330107″ target=”_blank” ]After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century[/amazon_link] by Tom Malleson looks quite interesting too.

[amazon_image id=”0199330107″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century[/amazon_image]

Finally, I’m also looking forward to Philosophy at 3am: Questions and Answers with 25 top philosophers by Richard Marshall, who does the Friday morning philosophy interviews in 3am Magazine – always quirky, always interesting.