The field of economics proves to be a matter of metaphor and storytelling - its mathematics is metaphoric and its policy-making is narrative. Economists have begun to realize this and to rethink how they speak. This volume is the result of a conference held at Wellesley College, involving both theoretical and applied economists, that explored the consequences of the rhetoric and the conversation of the field of economics.

Making sense of economists and their world in a persuasive and entertaining style, Arjo Klamer, the author of a number of influential books including _Conversation with Economists_ and _The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric_, shows that economics is as much about how people interact as it is about the models, the mathematics, the econometrics, the theories and the ideas that come from the enormous aggregate of economics literature. Knowing and understanding economics requires both bookwork and mingling with other economists. Viewing the (...) subject as a collection of conversations, Klamer examines fundamental disagreements over the nature and purpose of the discipline, addressing how it is that a discipline that so permeates daily life is at once ‘soft’ and scientific, powerful and ignored, noble and disdained and in a reader-friendly style – without eschewing academic methodology demonstrates economics to be a living, breathing discipline rooted in the real world. Whether you are a student, academician, journalist, practising economist or interested outsider, _Speaking of Economics_ will get you interested in a conversation about economics. (shrink)

Bryan Caplan’s bold and challenging argument is weak on evidence and uses questionable assumptions. He does not prove that politicians go along with voters’ biases, nor that these biases make voters feel good, nor that they cling to these biases tenaciously. And he assumes that the public’s disagreements with professional American economists are “biases” in the sense of being incorrect, even though economists often disagree with each other, and economists in other countries may disagree even with the consensus views of (...) American economists. (shrink)