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Title: CRS84798Lpage46
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Title: CRS84798Lpage48
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Title: CRS84798Lpage51
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Text: rmnc MONKEY Orley Ashenfelter Dangerous Currents: The State of Eco- nomics, by Lester C. T h-urow 6 ffandom House, 24 7 pp., $14.95 IKE THE economy, economic science 1 has its ups and downs. Dangerous Currents charts the course of economic science over the last three decades and concludes that the economics profession is in treacherous waters. The major in- dictment is that the conventional sup

Title: CRS84798Lpage43
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Text: turns out to have been badly misplaced. They put 1984 GNP at $3,352 billion in 1982 dollars; in fact, it will come in 1.4% higher than that even if we have zero growth for the rest of the year. The authors simply missed the recovery’ s strength. Real disposable family income will be at least 4.9% (3.5% + 1.4%) highenthis 2§i”N’.FORTUNE NOVEMBER 12, 1984 year than it wasin 1980. So by the authors’ own

Title: CRS84798Lpage45
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Text: of 1972, the Federal Reserve began to increase the rate of growth of the money supply. . . . The Fed was encouraged in economic adviser Herbert Stein’s new book tasty but not nourishing. by Michael K. Evans Presidential Economlc The _l~m1nv.-.-tlazurtuau oi the Pnaﬂslit _ lu_<mumtt' _ .._.... this move by the administration.” Even- tually, of course, Ml rose 9.2 percent" during 1972, which

Title: CRS84798Lpage47
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Text: l y ,roduced with the permission of International Social Science Review, @1984, v. 59, winter i..a4: 59-60. Lester C. Thurow. Dangerous Currents: The State of Economics, New York: Random House. 1983. pp. xix + 247. $16.95. ‘ Fifty years ago the United States was in the throes of the Great Depression. The unemployment rate was 25 percent and the price level was falling. Searching

Title: CRS84798Lpage44
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Title: CRS84798Lpage49
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Text: What needs to be done. Thurow tells us in the last chapter. is a reexamination and a restructuring of the foundations of economics. in so doing economists must modify. if not relinquish. the concept of homo economicus-—the economic man who is always a utility maximizer. “To reconstruct a theory of economic behavior. a more complex vision of the interaction between society and its citizens is paramount" (p. 222). Economists. Thurow is saying. must deal with (not his terms) homo socio/ogicus and homo ps_vchologz'cu.s rather than exclusively with homo econmnicus. Toward this end. they would do well to cross over into the ﬁelds of sociology and psychology and come up with economic theories which describe economic behavior of John and Sally Doe rather than some unreal homo economi~ ms. is Dangerous Cim-ems worth reading? The answer is yes. if you do not mind a bit of carping and warmed over criticism of the way economists theorize. profess. and practice whatever it is they do. The answer is no. ifyou are searching for more challenging criticism of classical economic theory and its recent outcroppings. If you read the book and have a feeling of doja vu. try to remember which of Veblen's books youhave read. Veblen's The Flare of Science in Modern Cii'ili:an'on- ( l9l9) put under scrutiny some of the same assumptions of classical economics that so bother Thurow. In this reviewer's judgment. Veblen did it with more finesse. Dtmgcrous CllI‘I'C’HIS. on the other hand. is more readable. and belongs in the “light reading" section of your economics library. Edward R. Sopiarz

Title: CRS84798Lpage50
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Title: CRS84798Lpage33
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Text: with the permission of Fortune, ©1984, v. 109, May 14, 3!" r _ 3' . ‘)9 ‘ ‘ ‘ v’ g. “ i 0,. a , _ v - .} ,' .. to \ , I . ‘ .4 , ~ . Economist Paul Craig R0 1984: 221, 222. I berts HVIS JDV lH““(lIlVM CHIN

Title: CRS84798Lpage29
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Text: rvvwuav ornu mm ouo S By Milton and Rose Friedman Harcoun Brace Jovanovich - 1829p - $10.95 THE FRIEDMAN REMEDY ms FRIEDMANS: A conssnvrnvn nsvournon BY ooNs1'rn.moN.u. AMENDMENT FORWASIIIIIGTOIPS PARALYSIS strong streak of populism has al- Aways run through Milton Fried- man's brand of conservatism, just as it has in the conservatism of President Ronald Reagan. In this popu- list

Title: CRS84798Lpage28
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Title: CRS84798Lpage25
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Text: (Nobel Frize in Economics, 1976) and David Meiselman (Professor of Economics) think that restoring incentives takes time and should be part of a long-term program. Fur- thermore, Friedman disagrees =-that Reproduced with the permission of Business Horizons, ©1984, Nov.-Dec- 1983: 81'82-

Title: CRS84798Lpage32
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Title: CRS84798Lpage27
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Text: /November-December 1983 even to large tax cuts. —i These issues about the timing morﬂarisxs’ and supply-Sidtfﬁ and tactics of supply—side eco- think ‘hm the), would bc wise to I nomics are only part of the general spend somc time with this debates. Of great concern to those book. [:3 atthe conference was the conduct of monetary policy. Frank Morris (President of the Atlanta Fed) and Alan Reynolds (Chief Economist

Title: CRS84798Lpage26
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Title: CRS84798Lpage31
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Text: to those who are horriﬁed by the inﬂexibil- ity of government by constitutional amendment. But to them, their book pre- sents an obvious and useful challenge: If you don’t buy its ideas, come up with a better way of putting economic policy back on the right track. To this reviewer, the Friedmans’ most persuasive case is for a constitutional amendment to reform the tax system. The 16th Amendment, ratiﬁed