Deirdre Nansen McCloskey's latest meticulous work examines how economics can become a more "human" science. Economic historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has distinguished herself through her writing on the Great Enrichment and the betterment of the poor—not just materially but spiritually. In Bettering Humanomics she continues her intellectually playful yet rigorous analysis with a focus on humans rather than the institutions. Going against the grain of contemporary neo-institutional and behavioral economics which privilege observation over understanding, she asserts her vision of “humanomics,” which draws on the work of Bart Wilson, Vernon Smith, and most prominently, Adam Smith. She argues for an economics that uses a comprehensive understanding of human action beyond behaviorism. McCloskey clearly articulates her points of contention with believers in “imperfections,” from Samuelson to Stiglitz, claiming that they have neglected scientific analysis in their haste to diagnose the ills of the system. In an engaging and erudite manner, she reaffirms the global successes of market-tested betterment and calls for empirical investigation that advances from material incentives to an awareness of the human within historical and ethical frameworks. Bettering Humanomics offers a critique of contemporary economics and a proposal for an economics as a better human science.
The last 200 years have witnessed a 100-fold leap in well-being. Deirdre McCloskey argues that most people today are stunningly better off than their forbearers were in 1800, and that the rest of humanity will soon be. A purely materialist, incentivist view of economic change does not explain this leap. We have now the third in McCloskey's three-volume opus about how bourgeois values transformed Europe. Volume 3 nails the case for that transfiguration, telling us how aristocratic virtues of hierarchy were replaced by bourgeois virtues (more precisely, by attitudes toward virtues) that made it possible for ordinary folk with novel ideas to change the way people, farmed, manufactured, traveled, ruled themselves, and fought. It is a dramatic story, and joins a dramatic debate opened up by Thomas Piketty in his best-selling Capital in the 21st Century. McCloskey insists that economists are far too preoccupied by capital and saving, arguing against the position (of Piketty and most others) that capital induces a tendency to get more, that money reproduces itself, that riches are created from riches. Not so, our intrepid McCloskey shows. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, among the biggest wealth accumulators in our era, didn't get rich through the magic of compound interest on capital. They got rich through intellectual property, creating billions of dollars from virtually nothing. Capital was no more important an ingredient to the original Apple or Microsoft than cookies or cucumbers. The debate is between those who think riches are created from riches versus those who, with McCloskey, think riches are created from rags, between those who see profits as a generous return on capital, or profits coming from innovation that ultimately benefits us all.
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey's latest meticulous work examines how economics can become a more "human" science. Economic historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has distinguished herself through her writing on the Great Enrichment and the betterment of the poor—not just materially but spiritually. In Bettering Humanomics she continues her intellectually playful yet rigorous analysis with a focus on humans rather than the institutions. Going against the grain of contemporary neo-institutional and behavioral economics which privilege observation over understanding, she asserts her vision of “humanomics,” which draws on the work of Bart Wilson, Vernon Smith, and most prominently, Adam Smith. She argues for an economics that uses a comprehensive understanding of human action beyond behaviorism. McCloskey clearly articulates her points of contention with believers in “imperfections,” from Samuelson to Stiglitz, claiming that they have neglected scientific analysis in their haste to diagnose the ills of the system. In an engaging and erudite manner, she reaffirms the global successes of market-tested betterment and calls for empirical investigation that advances from material incentives to an awareness of the human within historical and ethical frameworks. Bettering Humanomics offers a critique of contemporary economics and a proposal for an economics as a better human science.
We have read the stories of those who have "crossed" lines of race and class and culture. But few have written of crossing—completely and entirely—the gender line. Crossing is the story of Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald), once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s and 1960s privilege, and her dramatic and poignant journey to becoming a woman. McCloskey's account of her painstaking efforts to learn to "be a woman" unearth fundamental questions about gender and identity, and hatreds and anxieties, revealing surprising answers.
Introduction The Argument in Brief -- Economics Is in Scientific Trouble -- An Antique, Unethical, and Badly Measured Behaviorism Doesn't Yield Good Economic Science or Good Politics -- Economics Needs to Get Serious about Measuring the Economy -- The Number of Unmeasured "Imperfections" Is Embarrassingly Long -- Historical Economics Can Measure Them, Showing Them to Be Small -- The Worst of Orthodox Positivism Lacks Ethics and Measurement -- Neoinstitutionalism Shares in the Troubles -- Even the Best of Neoinstitutionalism Lacks Measurement -- And "Culture," or Mistaken History, Will Not Repair It -- That Is, Neoinstitutionalism, Like the Rest of Behavioral Positivism, Fails as History and as Economics -- As It Fails in Logic and in Philosophy -- Neoinstitutionalism, in Short, Is Not a Scientific Success -- Humanomics Can Save the Science -- But It's Been Hard for Positivists to Understand Humanomics -- Yet We Can Get a Humanomics -- And Although We Can't Save Private Max U -- We Can Save an Ethical Humanomics.
Introduction The Argument in Brief -- Economics Is in Scientific Trouble -- An Antique, Unethical, and Badly Measured Behaviorism Doesn't Yield Good Economic Science or Good Politics -- Economics Needs to Get Serious about Measuring the Economy -- The Number of Unmeasured "Imperfections" Is Embarrassingly Long -- Historical Economics Can Measure Them, Showing Them to Be Small -- The Worst of Orthodox Positivism Lacks Ethics and Measurement -- Neoinstitutionalism Shares in the Troubles -- Even the Best of Neoinstitutionalism Lacks Measurement -- And "Culture," or Mistaken History, Will Not Repair It -- That Is, Neoinstitutionalism, Like the Rest of Behavioral Positivism, Fails as History and as Economics -- As It Fails in Logic and in Philosophy -- Neoinstitutionalism, in Short, Is Not a Scientific Success -- Humanomics Can Save the Science -- But It's Been Hard for Positivists to Understand Humanomics -- Yet We Can Get a Humanomics -- And Although We Can't Save Private Max U -- We Can Save an Ethical Humanomics.
This new, thoroughly updated 5th edition of Bradt's Armenia remains the only standalone guide available to this mountainous post-Soviet republic at the crossroads of Europe. Packed with detailed background information and invaluable practical advice, Bradt's Armenia remains the essential choice for anyone travelling to this beautiful country. New for this edition is coverage of the gastronomic revival in Yerevan, increased coverage of local music and nightlife, and expanded sections on protected areas, particularly the National Parks, including overview maps of their trail networks. Also new is information on the Transcaucasian Trail, hitch-hiking as a mode of transport, volunteering opportunities for longer-term travellers, and Yerevan as a popular base for 'digital nomads' and young diaspora Armenians. In addition, there is a wealth of new details for adventure travellers, including guidance on hiking and trekking, camping, mountain biking, cycle touring, rock climbing, off-road driving, and winter sports including ski touring. New long-distance trails are covered, too. Bradt's Armenia provides all of the information needed for a successful trip and covers all the most popular sights as well as those off-the-beaten track, including Dilijan National Park and the stunning forested mountains of Tavush, a region which is undergoing a renaissance as a place to explore and reconnect with nature; Areni village, one of the birthplaces of wine 6,000 years ago; and Vayots Dzor, the 'valley of woes', whose side valleys are abundant with wildlife-spotting opportunities. Tatev village and proposed National Park are included, as are the Orbelian caravanserai and other remnants of the ancient Silk Road trading route network that once criss-crossed the Caucasus region. Rich in both history and spectacular scenery, Armenia is a truly captivating country. Whether seeking out ancient monasteries dotted within dramatic landscapes, wandering through one of Yerevan's impressive museums or admiring the intricate stone carvings at Noratus, you'll find opportunities to delve into this nation's past at every turn. Add to this the welcoming locals, superb hiking possibilities and abundant bird life, and you'll soon discover why Armenia is worth more than just a fleeting visit.
This new, thoroughly updated sixth edition of Bradt’s Armenia remains the only standalone, English-language guide to this mountainous post-Soviet republic at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Packed with detailed background information and invaluable practical advice, Bradt’s Armenia remains the essential choice for anyone travelling to this beautiful country, which is now easily and cheaply accessed by air. Following recent political changes, the story of this new republic is rapidly being rewritten, with transformations extending far beyond the vibrant capital of Yerevan. Road infrastructure has greatly improved, while rural tourism is coming to life in even far-flung provinces, thereby catering for visitors exploring well off the beaten path. New elements in this edition include: expanded treatment of new budget accommodation in Yerevan and provincial capitals; enhanced information on Yerevan designed to inspire the city-break visitor, encompassing arts, culture and nightlife; a wealth of new information for adventurous travellers, including about more than 300km of new hiking trails established since 2018; and an enhanced language section designed to facilitate communication with Armenians. Bradt’s Armenia provides the information needed for a successful trip, covering all the most popular sights as well as those off-the-beaten track, including Dilijan National Park and the stunning forested mountains of Tavush, a region undergoing a renaissance as a place to reconnect with nature; Areni village, one of the birthplaces of wine; and Vayots Dzor, the ‘valley of woes’, whose side valleys are abundant with wildlife-spotting opportunities. Tatev village and the Vorotan Canyon are included, as are the Orbelian’s Ccaravanserai and other remnants of the ancient Silk Road trading route network that once criss-crossed the Caucasus region. Rich in both history and spectacular scenery, Armenia is a truly captivating country. Whether seeking out ancient monasteries dotted within dramatic landscapes, wandering through one of Yerevan’s impressive museums or admiring the intricate stone carvings at Noratus, you’ll find opportunities to delve into this nation’s past at every turn. Add to this the welcoming local people, superb hiking possibilities and abundant bird life, and you’ll soon discover why Armenia is worth more than just a fleeting visit.
“McCloskey and Ziliak have been pushing this very elementary, very correct, very important argument through several articles over several years and for reasons I cannot fathom it is still resisted. If it takes a book to get it across, I hope this book will do it. It ought to.” —Thomas Schelling, Distinguished University Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics “With humor, insight, piercing logic and a nod to history, Ziliak and McCloskey show how economists—and other scientists—suffer from a mass delusion about statistical analysis. The quest for statistical significance that pervades science today is a deeply flawed substitute for thoughtful analysis. . . . Yet few participants in the scientific bureaucracy have been willing to admit what Ziliak and McCloskey make clear: the emperor has no clothes.” —Kenneth Rothman, Professor of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Health The Cult of Statistical Significance shows, field by field, how “statistical significance,” a technique that dominates many sciences, has been a huge mistake. The authors find that researchers in a broad spectrum of fields, from agronomy to zoology, employ “testing” that doesn’t test and “estimating” that doesn’t estimate. The facts will startle the outside reader: how could a group of brilliant scientists wander so far from scientific magnitudes? This study will encourage scientists who want to know how to get the statistical sciences back on track and fulfill their quantitative promise. The book shows for the first time how wide the disaster is, and how bad for science, and it traces the problem to its historical, sociological, and philosophical roots. Stephen T. Ziliak is the author or editor of many articles and two books. He currently lives in Chicago, where he is Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University. Deirdre N. McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of twenty books and three hundred scholarly articles. She has held Guggenheim and National Humanities Fellowships. She is best known for How to Be Human* Though an Economist (University of Michigan Press, 2000) and her most recent book, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (2006).
A “thought-provoking” one-volume distillation of the author’s powerful trilogy in praise of the middle class’s role in creating a better, and richer, world (Library Journal). The economist and historian Deirdre Nansen McCloskey has been best known recently for her Bourgeois Era trilogy, a vigorous defense, unrivaled in scope, of commercially tested betterment. Its massive volumes, The Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity, and Bourgeois Equality, solve Adam Smith’s puzzle of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, and of the moral sentiments of modernity. The world got rich, she argues, not chiefly by material causes but by an idea and a sentiment, a new admiration for the middle class and its egalitarian liberalism. For readers looking for a distillation of McCloskey’s magisterial work, Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich is what you’ve been waiting for. In this lively volume, McCloskey and the economist and journalist Art Carden bring together the trilogy’s key ideas and its most provocative arguments. The rise of the west, and now the rest, is the story of the rise of ordinary people to a dignity and liberty inspiring them to have a go. The outcome was an explosion of innovation after 1800, and a rise of real income by an astounding 3,000 percent. The Great Enrichment, well beyond the conventional Industrial Revolution, did not, McCloskey and Carden show, come from the usual suspects, capital accumulation or class struggle. It came from the idea of economic liberty in Holland and the Anglosphere, then Sweden and Japan, then Italy and Israel and China and India, an idea that bids fair in the next few generations to raise up the wretched of the earth. The original shift to liberalism arose from 1517 to 1789 from theological and political revolutions in northwest Europe, upending ancient hierarchies. McCloskey and Carden contend further that liberalism and “innovism” made us better humans as well as richer ones. Not matter but ideas. Not corruption but improvement. Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich draws in entertaining fashion on history, economics, literature, philosophy, and popular culture, from growth theory to the Simpsons. It is the perfect introduction for a broad audience to McCloskey’s influential explanation of how we got rich. At a time when confidence in the economic system is under challenge, this book mounts an optimistic and persuasive defense of liberal innovism, and of the modern world it has wrought. Praise for the Bourgeois Era Trilogy “A contender for the great book of our age.” —The Times, Book of the Week “Persuasive . . . richly detailed and erudite.” —Financial Times
An insightful and passionately written book explaining why a return to Enlightenment ideals is good for the world The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by eighteenth-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone. With her trademark wit and deep understanding, McCloskey shows how the adoption of Enlightenment ideals of liberalism has propelled the freedom and prosperity that define the quality of a full life. In her view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism. Liberalism is an optimistic philosophy that depends on the power of rhetoric rather than coercion, and on ethics, free speech, and facts in order to thrive.
Write clearly about any subject: “Writers should check out Economical Writing, and editors should recommend it. Your future readers will be thankful.” —Journal of Scholarly Publishing Economics is not a field known for good writing. Charts, yes. Sparkling prose, no. Except, that is, when it comes to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. Her conversational and witty yet always clear style is a hallmark of her classic works of economic history, enlivening the dismal science and engaging readers well beyond the discipline. And now she’s here to share the secrets of how it’s done, no matter what your field. Economical Writing is itself economical: a collection of thirty-five pithy rules for making your writing clear, concise, and effective. Proceeding from big-picture ideas to concrete strategies for improvement at the level of the paragraph, sentence, or word, McCloskey shows us that good writing, after all, is not just a matter of taste—it’s a product of adept intuition and a rigorous revision process. Debunking stale rules, warning us that “footnotes are nests for pedants,” and offering an arsenal of readily applicable tools and methods, she shows writers of all levels of experience how to rethink the way they approach their work, and gives them the knowledge to turn mediocre prose into magic. At once efficient and digestible, hilarious and provocative, Economical Writing lives up to its promise. With McCloskey as our guide, we discover how any piece of writing—on economics or any other subject—can be a pleasure to read.
The big economic story of our times is not the Great Recession. It is how China and India began to embrace neoliberal ideas of economics and attributed a sense of dignity and liberty to the bourgeoisie they had denied for so long. The result was an explosion in economic growth and proof that economic change depends less on foreign trade, investment, or material causes, and a whole lot more on ideas and what people believe. Or so says Deirdre N. McCloskey in Bourgeois Dignity, a fiercely contrarian history that wages a similar argument about economics in the West. Here she turns her attention to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe to reconsider the birth of the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism. According to McCloskey, our modern world was not the product of new markets and innovations, but rather the result of shifting opinions about them. During this time, talk of private property, commerce, and even the bourgeoisie itself radically altered, becoming far more approving and flying in the face of prejudices several millennia old. The wealth of nations, then, didn’t grow so dramatically because of economic factors: it grew because rhetoric about markets and free enterprise finally became enthusiastic and encouraging of their inherent dignity. An utterly fascinating sequel to her critically acclaimed book The Bourgeois Virtues, Bourgeois Dignity is a feast of intellectual riches from one of our most spirited and ambitious historians—a work that will forever change our understanding of how the power of persuasion shapes our economic lives.
With its recent political and economic reforms, Argentina is swiftly becoming a popular tourist destination. Occupying slightly less than a third the area of the U.S., Argentina is home to rolling plains, rugged mountains, passionate tangos, and hardened gauchos. Now updated, this popular travel guide now features many new photographs, essays, and features.
The 'vices' are three bad habits into which economists have fallen over the past fifty years: bad statistics, bad theory, and bad applications of statistics and theory to public affairs. This book details the vices, tracing them to the influence of three giants of the 1940s and 1950s in economics, the Americans Lawrence Klein and Paul Samuelson, and the Dutchman Jan Tinbergen. McCloskey recommends a 'bourgeois', even feminine, virtue to replace the aristocratic and masculine vices of modern economics. She sees intellectual life as a bourgeois market of negotiating equals. What is good for a liberal democracy is good for intellectual life, she argues, even in the forbiddingly mathematical world of modern economics.
“McCloskey and Ziliak have been pushing this very elementary, very correct, very important argument through several articles over several years and for reasons I cannot fathom it is still resisted. If it takes a book to get it across, I hope this book will do it. It ought to.” —Thomas Schelling, Distinguished University Professor, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, and 2005 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics “With humor, insight, piercing logic and a nod to history, Ziliak and McCloskey show how economists—and other scientists—suffer from a mass delusion about statistical analysis. The quest for statistical significance that pervades science today is a deeply flawed substitute for thoughtful analysis. . . . Yet few participants in the scientific bureaucracy have been willing to admit what Ziliak and McCloskey make clear: the emperor has no clothes.” —Kenneth Rothman, Professor of Epidemiology, Boston University School of Health The Cult of Statistical Significance shows, field by field, how “statistical significance,” a technique that dominates many sciences, has been a huge mistake. The authors find that researchers in a broad spectrum of fields, from agronomy to zoology, employ “testing” that doesn’t test and “estimating” that doesn’t estimate. The facts will startle the outside reader: how could a group of brilliant scientists wander so far from scientific magnitudes? This study will encourage scientists who want to know how to get the statistical sciences back on track and fulfill their quantitative promise. The book shows for the first time how wide the disaster is, and how bad for science, and it traces the problem to its historical, sociological, and philosophical roots. Stephen T. Ziliak is the author or editor of many articles and two books. He currently lives in Chicago, where he is Professor of Economics at Roosevelt University. Deirdre N. McCloskey, Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of twenty books and three hundred scholarly articles. She has held Guggenheim and National Humanities Fellowships. She is best known for How to Be Human* Though an Economist (University of Michigan Press, 2000) and her most recent book, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce (2006).
A common narrative of the post-World War II economists was that the State is indispensable for guiding investment and fostering innovation. They claimed that the wealth of the modern world is the result of past State guidance and that what is needed for future economic growth is more State guidance. This position has recently been rejuvenated in reaction to the Great Recession of 2008. The truth is that the enriched modern economy was not a product of State coercion. It was a product of a change in political and social rhetoric in northwestern Europe from 1517 to 1789. The Great Enrichment, that is, came from human ingenuity emancipated from the bottom up, not human ingenuity directed from the top down. The true question is what on balance is the best way to organize innovation—by the “wise State” or by commercially tested betterment? The American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, was founded in 1933 as the first independent voice for sound economics in the United States. Today it publishes ongoing research, hosts educational programs, publishes books, sponsors interns and scholars, and is home to the world-renowned Bastiat Society and the highly respected Sound Money Project. The American Institute for Economic Research is a 501c3 public charity. The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world's leading think tanks, recognised as the best domestic and international economic policy think-tank in the UK and ranked 2nd in the world among Independent Think Tanks by the University of Pennsylvania. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, the Adam Smith Institute works to promote free market, neoliberal ideas through research, publishing, media outreach, and education. The Institute is today at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society in the United Kingdom. The Institute was founded in the 1970s, as post-war socialism reached its high-watermark. Then, as now, its purpose was to educate the public about free markets and economic policy, and to inject sound ideas into the public debate.
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