Research Catalog

Where economics went wrong : Chicago's abandonment of classical liberalism

Title
Where economics went wrong : Chicago's abandonment of classical liberalism / David Colander and Craig Freedman.
Author
Colander, David C.
Publication
  • Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2019]
  • ©2019

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TextUse in library JFE 19-8276Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Additional Authors
Freedman, Craig, 1950-
Description
xii, 267 pages; 25 cm
Summary
Milton Friedman once predicted that advances in scientific economics would resolve debates about whether raising the minimum wage is good policy. Decades later, Friedman's prediction has not come true. In Where Economics Went Wrong, David Colander and Craig Freedman argue that it never will. Why? Because economic policy, when done correctly, is an art and a craft. It is not, and cannot be, a science. The authors explain why classical liberal economists understood this essential difference, why modern economists abandoned it, and why now is the time for the profession to return to its classical liberal roots. Carefully distinguishing policy from science and theory, classical liberal economists emphasized values and context, treating economic policy analysis as a moral science where a dialogue of sensibilities and judgments allowed for the same scientific basis to arrive at a variety of policy recommendations. Using the University of Chicago--one of the last bastions of classical liberal economics--as a case study, Colander and Freedman examine how both the MIT and Chicago variants of modern economics eschewed classical liberalism in their attempt to make economic policy analysis a science. By examining the way in which the discipline managed to lose its bearings, the authors delve into such issues as the development of welfare economics in relation to economic science, alternative voices within the Chicago School, and exactly how Friedman got it wrong.
Subjects
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-254) and index.
Contents
Sweet science : engineering a new approach to economic policy -- Classical garden of liberal economics : policy versus abstraction -- Planting the seeds of a Chicago tradition -- Ashes and diamonds : the rise of the Chicago School -- What has Chicago wrought? : painting policy by the numbers -- Economic policy becomes a science : the rise of welfare economics, and the Chicago alternative -- Roads not taken : the stillborn Virginia School of Economics -- Classical liberal "argumentation for the sake of Heaven" alternative -- Art and craft of economics : the classical liberal attitude.
Call Number
JFE 19-8276
ISBN
  • 9780691179209
  • 0691179204
LCCN
2018942713
OCLC
1077248837
Author
Colander, David C., author.
Title
Where economics went wrong : Chicago's abandonment of classical liberalism / David Colander and Craig Freedman.
Publisher
Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2019]
Copyright Date
©2019
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 241-254) and index.
Added Author
Freedman, Craig, 1950- author.
Research Call Number
JFE 19-8276
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