Economics is a serious and difficult subject

Abstract

This paper argues that by focusing on simple problems that can be resolved by the use of simple economic logic, usually involving the assumption that agents are rational, the economics-as-fun literature inevitably distracts from more difficult problems that are harder to solve and which may need to be tackled in different ways and may create a bias towards solutions that rely on the market.

Keywords:

• Freakonomics
• popularization
• economics

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Jean-Baptiste Fleury, Philippe Fontaine, Steven Medema, Jack Vromen and an anonymous referee for valuable comments on an early draft of this article. Whilst they may have saved me from some errors, they bear no responsibility for any that remain.

Notes

Preliminary draft. Please take this into account in any citation. Version 3, 9 April 2012.

1. In its coverage this is reminiscent of Seabright (2010).

2. However, it should be noted that Friedman and Friedman are less critical of government intervention than many present day free market economists. For example, they concede that many new deal work creation programmes served a useful function at a time of acute distress (Friedman and Friedman 1980, p. 121).

3. The remainder of this section draws on the case studies in Chapters 2–5 of Backhouse (2010).

4. For other examples, see McMillan (2002).

5. This is not true of all contributors to the genre. Ariely (2009) achieves dramatic effect by arguing that people are irrational.

6. Fleury has pointed out that Robert Frank's work in this genre is focused on teaching.

7. I owe the point about confirmation bias to Vromen.

8. This is deliberately noncommittal not to suggest that heterodox economists or other social scientists are free from bias but simply because the concern of this article is economics.