Ultimate INCOMPLETE Economics Document

Introductory Texts

CORE economics textbook. A first and second-year undergraduate textbook that grounds
economics in history and empirics, one of the best out there even if it isn’t quite pluralist. Also
freely available online.

Yanis Varoufakis, Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: A Brief History of Capitalism. A
concise, fun, broadly leftist introduction to key issues in economics.

John Lanchester, How to Speak Money. Lanchester is a great writer and he introduces you to a
wide range of econ concepts with good humour.

Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist. A great introduction to some key ideas in economics
which leans mainstream.

Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Difficult to beat for its readability, a good
place to go for the basics and some fun ideas - even if the findings should be taken with a pinch
of salt.

Economics: A User’s Guide, Ha-Joon Chang. A comprehensive and accessible summary of

must-know ideas in economics from a pragmatic and pluralist perspective. Somewhere between
a textbook and a popular book.

Rod Hill & Tony Myatt, The Economics Anti-Textbook: A Critical Thinker's Guide to
Microeconomics. A critical companion to standard textbook economics.

Sam de Muijnck & Joris Tieleman, Economy Studies. Less a textbook than a guide to
economics education, this book helps to move economics education towards a more pluralist
and critical perspective.

Building Socialism

Pérotin, V., 2013. Worker cooperatives: Good, sustainable jobs in the community. Journal of
Entrepreneurial and Organizational Diversity. Favourable summary of the evidence of the
benefits of worker cooperatives.

Pencavel, J., 2013. Worker cooperatives and democratic governance. In Handbook of Economic
Organization. Edward Elgar Publishing. A mixed but generally positive review of the evidence
on worker cooperatives.

Ostrom, E., 2010. Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic
Systems. The American Economic Review. A wonderful and comprehensive review of
non-market, non-state modes of organisation across the world and the human tendencies
underpinning them.

Wall, D., 2018. Elinor Ostrom's Rules for Radicals. University of Chicago Press Economics
Books. A really handy introduction to how to use Ostrom’s ideas to build communitarian
institutions that best serve people and planet.

Jones, F. and Leibowitz, J., 2019. How we built community wealth in Preston. A case study of
the famous ‘Preston Model’ which was enacted in Preston, UK during a period of austerity to
safeguard the people, with many successes.

https://community-wealth.org/ is an excellent resource for the various approaches to community

wealth building, including practical tips on how to get started.

Mr Medlock and the Classics. Trevor Chow compiled this extremely helpful summary of the
views of well-known social democrat/market socialist James Medlock, worth a read.

Bjorklund, A. and Freeman, R.B., 1994. Generating equality and eliminating poverty, the
Swedish way. National Bureau of Economic Research. A little dated, this nonetheless remains a
helpful summary of what well-designed welfare policies can do for inequality, poverty, and
general welfare.

The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Gosta Esping-Andersen. Using a healthy mix of
economics, sociology, and history, supported by data covering decades, Esping-Anderson
develops a welfare typology that goes far beyond simply looking at spending. If you want to
know why social democrats converged on a certain kind of welfare state, and what impacts that
had on society, this is the book for you.

Behavioural Economics

Tversky A, Kahneman D, 1974. Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Science.
One of the famous duo’s first papers together, this summarises a series of heuristics and biases
in human decision-making.

Camerer, C. F., 1998. Prospect theory in the wild: Evidence from the field. Camerer summarises
10 real-world applications of arguably the central theory of behavioural economics, prospect
theory.

Barberis, N. C., 2013. Thirty years of prospect theory in economics: A review and assessment .
Journal of Economic Perspectives. Barberis reviews the central elements of prospect theory and
some of its successes and failures over the years.

Thaler, R. H., 1999. Mental accounting matters, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Thaler
outlines the theory of mental accounting and how it explains behaviour.
Neil Stewart, Nick Chater, Gordon D.A. Brown, 2006. Decision by sampling, Cognitive
Psychology. A model which treats decisions as a relative rankings within groups, this has a
number of predictive successes.

Brandstätter, E., Gigerenzer, G., & Hertwig, R., 2011. The Priority Heuristic: Making Choices
Without Trade-offs, In Heuristics: The Foundations of Adaptive Behavior. An alternative not only
to rational models but any model that uses a utility function, this models choice under risk as a
series of iterative binary comparisons and, as the abstract shows, has impressive predictive
power.

DellaVigna, S., 2009. Psychology and economics: Evidence from the field. Journal of Economic
Literature. A comprehensive overview of the key differences between behavioural economics
and standard economics: nonstandard preferences, nonstandard beliefs, and nonstandard
decision-making.

Shleifer, A. 2012. Psychologists at the Gate: A Review of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and
Slow, Journal of Economic Literature. Schleifer’s review serves as a concise summary of the
various debates surrounding behavioural economics.

Ostrom, E. 1997. A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action:
Presidential Address, American Political Science Association. Ostrom outlines the limits of both
the rational and holistic views of collective action and the implications for social organisation.

Tarko, Vlad, 2020. Elinor Ostrom as Behavioral Economist, SSRN.

An understanding of Ostrom as someone who pioneered an approach to economic behaviour at
odds with both the rational view and the individualistic behavioural view.

Macroeconomics

Rethinking Macroeconomic Theory Before the Next Crisis, Marc Lavoie, 2016. Illustrates how
much can be gained, both intellectually and economically, from adopting post-Keynesian
macroeconomics.

Lavoie, M., 2015. Post-Keynesian Economics: New Foundations. Comprehensive textbook

overview of post-Keynesian economics, which is heavily macro-focused, though there is some
microeconomics in there too.

Romer, P., 2016. The trouble with macroeconomics. Romer’s critique of macroeconomics
caused quite a stir, especially his emphasis on their overuse of unobservable variables.

Christiano, L.J., Eichenbaum, M.S. and Trabandt, M., 2018. On DSGE models. Journal of
Economic Perspectives. One of the better overviews of the main types of models used in
macroeconomics, DSGE models, and their associated challenges.
Wang, J. Central Banking 101, 2020. Excellent description and explanation of the financial and
monetary systems.

Tankus, N. 2022. The New Monetary Policy: Reimagining Demand Management And Price
Stability In The 21st Century. Valuable overview of heterodox inflation management.

Econometrics/Applied Economics/Statistics

Freedman, D.A., 1991. Statistical models and shoe leather. Sociological methodology. Fantastic
case study in why close understanding of context is crucial for proper interpretation of statistics,
by one of the leading statisticians of his time.

Freedman, D.A., 1997. From Association to Causation via Regression. Advances in applied
mathematics. Another excellent critical overview of regression techniques from Freedman.

Leamer, E., 1983. Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics. The American Economic Review.
Lemur’s classic critique of econometric evidence and how it is easily affected by the biases of
the researchers.

Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. 2010. The Credibility Revolution in Empirical
Economics: How Better Research Design Is Taking the Con out of Econometrics." Journal of
Economic Perspectives. A modern response to Leamer which stresses the increased credibility
and transparency of modern techniques.

Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. Mostly harmless econometrics. Angrist and
Pischke’s famous textbook on modern empirical methods, aimed at graduate level.

Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. Mastering 'metrics: The path from cause to effect.
Their more recent textbook aimed at undergraduates.

Shalizi, C. Advanced Data Analysis from an Elementary Point of View. A textbook introducing
statistics from a critical perspective by one of the social statisticians I respect most.

Perspectives on the Discipline of Economics

Rodrik, Dani. Economics Rules: the Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science. A readable
introduction to the guiding philosophy of the discipline of economics.

Rubinstein, Ariel. Comments on Economic Models, Economics, and Economists: Remarks on

Economics Rules by Dani Rodrik. A critical review of Rodrik’s book from an established game
theorist.
Backhouse, Roger. The Puzzle of Modern Economics: Science or Ideology? A balanced
overview of the various issues with the economics discipline from a historian of economic
thought.

Friedman, Milton. The methodology of positive economics. Love it or hate it, Friedman’s guide to
methodology remains the go-to reference for economists.

Musgrave, Alan. ‘Unreal Assumptions’ in Economic Theory: The F‐twist Untwisted. Musgrave’s
article is the best-known rebuttal to Friedman.

Robinson, J. Economic Philosophy. A concise and acerbic introduction to the philosophy behind
mainstream economic theory.

Aldred, J. The Skeptical Economist: Revealing the Ethics Inside Economics. A valuable guide to
the ethical content of economics, especially the most politically relevant elements of the
discipline.

To come:
● Diversifying & Decolonising
● Labour
● Housing
● Industry
● Climate change

Always a work in progress. Any suggestions for additions are appreciated, just @ me on twitter
@unlearnecon