"The dismal science?" You won’t be surprised to hear
that that’s about the last way I’d describe the art
and discipline of economics, and a new
book, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations, reviewed by Paul Krugman
in yesterday’s Sunday Times Book Review sounds like a wonderfully
exciting intellectual exploration of why I believe economics retains
its ability to fascinate as it attempts to explain how people, ideas,
and things interact to try to produce value.
The author, David Warsh, a former economics correspondent at the
Boston Globe, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal,
writes the online weekly, "Economic
Principals." The book tells the story of how academic
understanding of increasing returns to scale, and indeed of growth itself,
was revolutionized in the past few decades by introducing the concept
of knowledge itself as a factor of production, at long last
joining the classical triumvirate of land (a/k/a tangible resources),
capital, and labor.
When a book gets advance
praise like this, the reason I continue to
adore economics should be clear:
“Romer’s understated but earth shattering work deserves
our attention and a Nobel prize in economics.”
— John Doerr, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
