Inside the Economist's Mind: Conversations with Eminent Economists

Author: Paul A. Samuelson, William A. Barnett

Pulisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Publishing date: 2006-10-26

ISBN:1405159170

Pages; 456 pages

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Book description:
 

By focusing on the human side as well as the intellectual dimensions of how economists work and think, this collection of interviews with top economists of the 20th century becomes a startling and lively introduction to the modern world of macroeconomics. A fun read!

Acclaim for Inside the Economist's Mind

"In candid interviews, these great economists prove to be fabulous story tellers of their lives and times. Unendingly gripping for insiders, this book should also help non-specialists understand how economists think."
Professor Julio Rotemberg, Harvard University Business School, and Editor, Review of Economics and Statistics.

"Economics used to be called the 'dismal science'. It will be impossible for anybody to hold that view anymore ... This is science with flesh and blood, and a lot of fascinating stories that you will find nowhere else."
Dr. Jean-Pascal Bénassy, Paris-Jourdan Sciences Économiques, Paris, France

"This book provides a rare and intriguing view of the personal and professional lives of leading economists ... It is like A Beautiful Mind, scaled by a factor of 16 [the number of interviews in the book]."
Professor Lee Ohanian, University of California at Los Angeles

" ... if you want an insider view of how economics has been developing in the last decades, this is the (only) book for you."
Professor Giancarlo Gandolfo, University of Rome ‘La Sapienza,’ Rome

Contents
About the Editors vii
Coeditor’s Foreword: Reflections on How Biographies of
Individual Scholars Can Relate to a Science’s Biography
Paul A. Samuelson viii
Coeditor’s Preface: An Overview of the Objectives and
Contents of the Volume
William A. Barnett xi
History of Thought Introduction: Economists Talking with
Economists, An Historian’s Perspective
E. Roy Weintraub 1
The Interviews
1 An Interview with Wassily Leontief 15
Interviewed by Duncan K. Foley
2 An Interview with David Cass 32
Interviewed by Stephen E. Spear and Randall Wright
3 An Interview with Robert E. Lucas, Jr. 57
Interviewed by Bennett T. McCallum
4 An Interview with János Kornai 67
Interviewed by Olivier Blanchard
5 An Interview with Franco Modigliani 85
Interviewed by William A. Barnett and Robert Solow
6 An Interview with Milton Friedman 110
Interviewed by John B. Taylor
7 An Interview with Paul A. Samuelson 143
Interviewed by William A. Barnett
8 An Interview with Paul A. Volcker 165
Interviewed by Perry Mehrling
9 An Interview with Martin Feldstein 192
Interviewed by James M. Poterba
10 An Interview with Christopher A. Sims 209
Interviewed by Lars Peter Hansen
11 An Interview with Robert J. Shiller 228
Interviewed by John Y. Campbell
12 An Interview with Stanley Fischer 261
Interviewed by Olivier Blanchard
13 An Interview with Jacques Drèze 278
Interviewed by Pierre Dehez and Omar Licandro
14 An Interview with Thomas J. Sargent 307
Interviewed by George W. Evans and Seppo Honkapohja
15 An Interview with Robert Aumann 327
Interviewed by Sergiu Hart
16 Conversations with James Tobin and Robert J. Shiller
on the “Yale Tradition” in Macroeconomics 392
Conducted by David Colander