Economics
Book Review: Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius by Sylvia Nasar
Economic theorists as heroes for our time? Sylvia Nasar makes the case
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Grand Pursuit:
The Story of Economic Genius
By Sylvia Nasar
Simon & Schuster; 576 pp; $35.00
It’s a dubious hour to proclaim the triumph (much less the genius) of the “dismal science.” Western economies are a wreck, the U.S. is suffering 9.1 percent unemployment, and Europe is teetering on the abyss of default. The economics profession bears no small measure of blame—first for inventing or adopting modern risk management, which failed so spectacularly during the financial crisis, and second for believing that central bankers had unlocked the key to managing growth. In the U.S., politicians have been reenacting a tired budget deficit debate from the 1930s. Whatever economics we may have learned, we seem determined to forget.