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Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality
From the Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling coauthor of Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism , candid reflections on the economist’s craft
When economist Angus Deaton immigrated to the United States from Britain in the early 1980s, he was awed by America’s strengths and shocked by the extraordinary gaps he witnessed between people. Economics in America explains in clear terms how the field of economics addresses the most pressing issues of our time—from poverty, retirement, and the minimum wage to the ravages of the nation’s uniquely disastrous health care system—and narrates Deaton’s account of his experiences as a naturalized US citizen and academic economist.
Deaton is witty and pulls no punches. In this incisive, candid, and funny book, he describes the everyday lives of working economists, recounting the triumphs as well as the disasters, and tells the inside story of the Nobel Prize in economics and the journey that led him to Stockholm to receive one. He discusses the ongoing tensions between economics and politics—and the extent to which economics has any content beyond the political prejudices of economists—and reflects on whether economists bear at least some responsibility for the growing despair and rising populism in America.
Blending rare personal insights with illuminating perspectives on the social challenges that confront us today, Deaton offers a disarmingly frank critique of his own profession while shining a light on his adopted country’s policy accomplishments and failures.
When economist Angus Deaton immigrated to the United States from Britain in the early 1980s, he was awed by America’s strengths and shocked by the extraordinary gaps he witnessed between people. Economics in America explains in clear terms how the field of economics addresses the most pressing issues of our time—from poverty, retirement, and the minimum wage to the ravages of the nation’s uniquely disastrous health care system—and narrates Deaton’s account of his experiences as a naturalized US citizen and academic economist.
Deaton is witty and pulls no punches. In this incisive, candid, and funny book, he describes the everyday lives of working economists, recounting the triumphs as well as the disasters, and tells the inside story of the Nobel Prize in economics and the journey that led him to Stockholm to receive one. He discusses the ongoing tensions between economics and politics—and the extent to which economics has any content beyond the political prejudices of economists—and reflects on whether economists bear at least some responsibility for the growing despair and rising populism in America.
Blending rare personal insights with illuminating perspectives on the social challenges that confront us today, Deaton offers a disarmingly frank critique of his own profession while shining a light on his adopted country’s policy accomplishments and failures.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2023
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About the author
Angus Deaton
58 books175 followersAngus Stewart Deaton is a British and American economist. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews
January 30, 2024
This book can be considered as a collection of essays on policy issues and debates within the economics profession in the U.S.,from the minimum wage and inequality to health care and education. Deaton lays down the arguments and gives his insights as both an in- and outsider to the American welfare system (he was born, raised and educated in Britain, but spent most of his career in the U.S.). It’s a great overview for those interested in a broad range of policy topics without getting into all the nitty-gritty, which makes it a very readable journey.
In the final chapters of the book Deaton gives some valuable criticism on the current stand of mainstream economics. Two of the main limitations that he observes are the U.S. domination of the economic research agenda (“Economics, like a species, needs diversity to provide the material for change in times of crisis, and diversity is limited when so many go through almost identical training programs in a small number of universities.”) and the fixation on money as a measure of human wellbeing.
In the final chapters of the book Deaton gives some valuable criticism on the current stand of mainstream economics. Two of the main limitations that he observes are the U.S. domination of the economic research agenda (“Economics, like a species, needs diversity to provide the material for change in times of crisis, and diversity is limited when so many go through almost identical training programs in a small number of universities.”) and the fixation on money as a measure of human wellbeing.
November 25, 2025
Economics in America, is a collection of essays over a long period (published in the RES newsletter) with the author Nobel Laurate Angus Deaton's revisions where originals were written in "Letters from America" so it reads in part like memoir and in part like op-eds on economic policies. Deaton's views mostly fall on the left side of the aisle although he does surprisingly deviate from progressives on immigration, foreign aid and some other topics. Deaton also pulls no punches on "efficiency" and market fundamentalism. He also goes at length how -wrong- measurements of minimum wage, inflation, poverty,... result in policies with unintended consequences, how measurement of "well-being" with only money led so many to astray. His healthcare chapter with anecdotes of last-minute consent forms for so-called informed decisions and surprise fees (as if anesthesiology for hip replacement is optional), the discussions on retirement plans with the anxiety caused by the delusional "freedoms of choice" will well resonate with the average reader. Deaton, and his economics, is large, contains multitudes (stealing from late Walt Whitman). He will make you rethink many macroeconomic problems. Recommended.
"Economics has achieved much; there are large bodies of often nonobvious theoretical understandings and of careful and sometimes compelling empirical evidence. The profession knows and understands many things. Yet today we are in some disarray. We did not collectively predict the financial crisis and, worse still, we may have contributed to it through an overenthusiastic belief in the efficacy of markets, especially financial markets whose structure and implications we understood less well than we thought. Recent macroeconomic events, admittedly unusual, have seen quarrelling experts whose main point of agreement is the incorrectness of others."
https://www.imf.org/en/publications/f...
"Economics has achieved much; there are large bodies of often nonobvious theoretical understandings and of careful and sometimes compelling empirical evidence. The profession knows and understands many things. Yet today we are in some disarray. We did not collectively predict the financial crisis and, worse still, we may have contributed to it through an overenthusiastic belief in the efficacy of markets, especially financial markets whose structure and implications we understood less well than we thought. Recent macroeconomic events, admittedly unusual, have seen quarrelling experts whose main point of agreement is the incorrectness of others."
https://www.imf.org/en/publications/f...
March 8, 2024
Angus Deaton is one of the most distinguished economists of his generation. Born in Scotland, he started his academic career as a Ph.D. candidate in Cambridge (England) studying how consumers allocate their spending depending on their preferences, their income and the relative prices of the goods available to them.
This work fed into his seminal 1980s paper in which, together with Muellbauer, he developed the so-called “Almost Ideal Demand System” (AIDS). The paper has been hailed by his fellow economists as one of the most influential articles ever publised in “The American Economic Review”. Colleagues who know much more about these things than I do, tell me that the model developed by Deaton, Muellbauer and those who followed in their footsteps is still used by competition authorities today to assess to what extent the products sold by companies about to merge directly compete with one another.
In the early 1980s, Deaton moved to Princeton in the US where he taught and continued his research until his retirement in 2016. His professional interests span a broad range of topics including development economics, inequality, and the economics of health and healthcare. In 2015, Deaton was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. In addition to the AIDS-model referred to above, the Nobel Academy praised two main achievements in its laudatio for Deaton: the studies of the link between consumption and income that he conducted around 1990 and the work he carried out in later decades on measuring living standards and poverty in developing countries with the help of household surveys.
Around the time he was awarded the Nobel prize, Deaton started working on what probably became his biggest claim to fame outside the small world of academic economics: his research on the so-called “deaths of despair”. His first paper on the topic, co-authored with his wife Anne Case in 2015, documented the sudden reversal of a decade-long trend towards higher life expectancy at birth that was unique to the United States and mostly caused by a sizeable increase in the mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women between 1999 and 2013 due to alcoholism, drug overdose and suicide. Deaton and Case continued their research on the topic in their 2020 book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”. As one might expect from the title, the book prompted an intense and intensely polarised scientific and political debate about the possible causes of the issue, which continues until this day. Recently “The Economist” featured an article arguing that Deaton and Case’s thesis, focusing specifically on the worsening economic fate of the white working-class and the deficiencies of the American health-care system, was “out of date” and the surge in mortality was better explained (at least since 2010) by supply-side factors, such as the availability of synthetic opioids.
It is a safe bet that Deaton’s latest book “Economics in America” is not likely to stir the same intense debate as the 2020 best-seller, despite its somewhat provocative subtitle “An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality”. The book mostly consists of existing material (some of it updated and reworked); short essays and bulletins Deaton published as “Letters from America” in the newsletter of the British Royal Economic Society since the middle of the 1990s (freely available online in their original, non-reworked version). Reflecting the author’s broad interests and keen sense of observation, they deal with a wide variety of topics. In “Economics in America” Deaton reorganised them into eleven chapters on, among other things, the minimum wage, the American health care system, development aid, the consumer price index and the measurement of the cost-of-living, inequality in all its forms (monetary and non-monetary), and the pension system. The last three chapters bundle reflections about the economics profession in the form of portraits of famous and less famous economists Deaton knew personally (including several fellow Nobel laureates), some observations about how economic journals and economic societies work and a final essay about the relationship between economics as a scientific discipline and its (sometimes considerable, sometimes disappointing) impact on public policy.
What Deaton has to say about these various topics made a lot of sense to me. Throughout the book, he appears as an impassionate man of science, open to various influences, moderate and cautious in his views but not afraid to call out nonsense when needed. Thus, for example, he has good and less good things to say about both supposedly “liberal” and “conservative” economists and economic theories alike, but he has little patience for the “insane” arguments against fiscal stimulus put forward by the likes of Robert Barro and Ed Prescott at the time of economic and financial crisis of 2008. Likewise, while he acknowledges the great achievements of Obamacare, he does not shy away from criticising the former President for falsely claiming that no one would have to give up their existing insurance. Deaton is also conscious about the limitations of his own discipline, he has an in my view healthy attitude towards the interaction between theory and empirical research and is ready to admit that he has changed his views about certain topics in the course of his career (most notably about development aid).
The book was a fun and light read. Deaton is a gifted storyteller. His anecdotes are well-chosen and the portraits of his fellow economists and the public policy makers he has worked with are lively and, as far as I can judge, balanced and fair. I found the chapter about what it is like to win a Nobel Prize even quite moving, especially the part where Deaton finds out that President Obama not only knows his wife (“Professor Case needs no introduction”) but also has read their first joint paper about the “deaths of despair” which had appeared only a few days earlier.
That said, I cannot say I gained a lot of new insights reading the book. The arguments are usually well explained and illustrated in a pedagogical manner. However, given that most of the book is based on short vignettes and opinion pieces for immediate consumption, the analysis does not run very deep.
Still, if you are looking for a both entertaining and wise book about the state of the present day debate on economics and public policy, this may be it.
This work fed into his seminal 1980s paper in which, together with Muellbauer, he developed the so-called “Almost Ideal Demand System” (AIDS). The paper has been hailed by his fellow economists as one of the most influential articles ever publised in “The American Economic Review”. Colleagues who know much more about these things than I do, tell me that the model developed by Deaton, Muellbauer and those who followed in their footsteps is still used by competition authorities today to assess to what extent the products sold by companies about to merge directly compete with one another.
In the early 1980s, Deaton moved to Princeton in the US where he taught and continued his research until his retirement in 2016. His professional interests span a broad range of topics including development economics, inequality, and the economics of health and healthcare. In 2015, Deaton was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. In addition to the AIDS-model referred to above, the Nobel Academy praised two main achievements in its laudatio for Deaton: the studies of the link between consumption and income that he conducted around 1990 and the work he carried out in later decades on measuring living standards and poverty in developing countries with the help of household surveys.
Around the time he was awarded the Nobel prize, Deaton started working on what probably became his biggest claim to fame outside the small world of academic economics: his research on the so-called “deaths of despair”. His first paper on the topic, co-authored with his wife Anne Case in 2015, documented the sudden reversal of a decade-long trend towards higher life expectancy at birth that was unique to the United States and mostly caused by a sizeable increase in the mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women between 1999 and 2013 due to alcoholism, drug overdose and suicide. Deaton and Case continued their research on the topic in their 2020 book “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism”. As one might expect from the title, the book prompted an intense and intensely polarised scientific and political debate about the possible causes of the issue, which continues until this day. Recently “The Economist” featured an article arguing that Deaton and Case’s thesis, focusing specifically on the worsening economic fate of the white working-class and the deficiencies of the American health-care system, was “out of date” and the surge in mortality was better explained (at least since 2010) by supply-side factors, such as the availability of synthetic opioids.
It is a safe bet that Deaton’s latest book “Economics in America” is not likely to stir the same intense debate as the 2020 best-seller, despite its somewhat provocative subtitle “An Immigrant Economist Explores the Land of Inequality”. The book mostly consists of existing material (some of it updated and reworked); short essays and bulletins Deaton published as “Letters from America” in the newsletter of the British Royal Economic Society since the middle of the 1990s (freely available online in their original, non-reworked version). Reflecting the author’s broad interests and keen sense of observation, they deal with a wide variety of topics. In “Economics in America” Deaton reorganised them into eleven chapters on, among other things, the minimum wage, the American health care system, development aid, the consumer price index and the measurement of the cost-of-living, inequality in all its forms (monetary and non-monetary), and the pension system. The last three chapters bundle reflections about the economics profession in the form of portraits of famous and less famous economists Deaton knew personally (including several fellow Nobel laureates), some observations about how economic journals and economic societies work and a final essay about the relationship between economics as a scientific discipline and its (sometimes considerable, sometimes disappointing) impact on public policy.
What Deaton has to say about these various topics made a lot of sense to me. Throughout the book, he appears as an impassionate man of science, open to various influences, moderate and cautious in his views but not afraid to call out nonsense when needed. Thus, for example, he has good and less good things to say about both supposedly “liberal” and “conservative” economists and economic theories alike, but he has little patience for the “insane” arguments against fiscal stimulus put forward by the likes of Robert Barro and Ed Prescott at the time of economic and financial crisis of 2008. Likewise, while he acknowledges the great achievements of Obamacare, he does not shy away from criticising the former President for falsely claiming that no one would have to give up their existing insurance. Deaton is also conscious about the limitations of his own discipline, he has an in my view healthy attitude towards the interaction between theory and empirical research and is ready to admit that he has changed his views about certain topics in the course of his career (most notably about development aid).
The book was a fun and light read. Deaton is a gifted storyteller. His anecdotes are well-chosen and the portraits of his fellow economists and the public policy makers he has worked with are lively and, as far as I can judge, balanced and fair. I found the chapter about what it is like to win a Nobel Prize even quite moving, especially the part where Deaton finds out that President Obama not only knows his wife (“Professor Case needs no introduction”) but also has read their first joint paper about the “deaths of despair” which had appeared only a few days earlier.
That said, I cannot say I gained a lot of new insights reading the book. The arguments are usually well explained and illustrated in a pedagogical manner. However, given that most of the book is based on short vignettes and opinion pieces for immediate consumption, the analysis does not run very deep.
Still, if you are looking for a both entertaining and wise book about the state of the present day debate on economics and public policy, this may be it.
March 14, 2024
A Scottish immigrant professor, who won a Nobel prize during a long career at Princeton, tells reasonable truths about his profession, American inequality, and the idiot libertarian tools (like Robert Barro of Harvard and Heritage) who ruin policy, democracy and our way of life. The technical yet fully understandable discussions of inflation/CPI, discount rates, tax policy, etc, are illuminating. Deaton's inside look at his own profession and its institutions is rare and honest.
Deaton, with his wife Anne Case, has become known for his analysis of increasing deaths of despair among non-graduates in the US, publication of happened concurrently with his Nobel Prize in 2015. This book is a call for a more socially beneficial economics. Despite his elite status, he can't quite find his voice in calling out other economists for having profoundly ulterior motives.. he could ask, his voice aghast, why cannot everyone agree that this is what economics should be? But he tries resigned disdain, sprinkled with his own bits of satisfied personal happiness.
Deaton would love to write a lot about this real problem:
“less well educated Americans have seen little or no improvement in their material circumstances for more than 50 years. For men without a four year college degree, median real wages have trended downward since 1970.” (P51) Yet I do not see any solution within these pages, and he has spent a lifetime thinking about it.
“Economics should be about understanding the reasons for and doing away with sordidness and joyousness that comes from poverty and deprivation. Keynes had a good summary too: “the political problem of mankind: how to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice, and individual liberty”. (p234)
The book ends very strongly, and I only regret that the rest of the book didn’t really talk about this last paragraph. Gee, if economists did this, economics would be a very different discipline, and government would be influenced very differently. Speaking plainly, this is not what rich people who bribe government and economic departments want.
“ perhaps we need to think more about predistribution – the mechanisms that determine the distribution of income in the market itself, before taxes and transfers – and less about a redistribution that is not going to happen, and is not what people want in any case. We need rules and policies that prevent the distress in the first place, all of which takes economist into uncomfortable territory: promoting unions, place based policies, immigration, control, tariffs, job, preservation, industrial policy, and the like, we need to promote a more realistic understanding of how governments and markets work. We need to abandon our soul fixation on money as a measure of human well-being.” (p237)
On the economics of the minimum wage, where, raising it has become clearly the right policy, this paragraph closing chapter 1 shows both that Dion understands politics, and that his writing style is excessively verbose. “most of the name-calling came from the side of the employers, either their own trade group or politicians and economist, behold into them. Their outrage comes… Because economists.. were supposed to be on their side and had long been so.… There have always been economist on the side of labor as well as on the side of capital.… So much with conventional wisdom, and it’s textbook material, is weighted towards capital and against labor, they takes efficiency, much more seriously than it takes. Equity, the power differentials are ignored, and economics widespread acceptance, bears responsibility for diminishing fortunes of workers. “ (p17)
Deaton, with his wife Anne Case, has become known for his analysis of increasing deaths of despair among non-graduates in the US, publication of happened concurrently with his Nobel Prize in 2015. This book is a call for a more socially beneficial economics. Despite his elite status, he can't quite find his voice in calling out other economists for having profoundly ulterior motives.. he could ask, his voice aghast, why cannot everyone agree that this is what economics should be? But he tries resigned disdain, sprinkled with his own bits of satisfied personal happiness.
Deaton would love to write a lot about this real problem:
“less well educated Americans have seen little or no improvement in their material circumstances for more than 50 years. For men without a four year college degree, median real wages have trended downward since 1970.” (P51) Yet I do not see any solution within these pages, and he has spent a lifetime thinking about it.
“Economics should be about understanding the reasons for and doing away with sordidness and joyousness that comes from poverty and deprivation. Keynes had a good summary too: “the political problem of mankind: how to combine three things: economic efficiency, social justice, and individual liberty”. (p234)
The book ends very strongly, and I only regret that the rest of the book didn’t really talk about this last paragraph. Gee, if economists did this, economics would be a very different discipline, and government would be influenced very differently. Speaking plainly, this is not what rich people who bribe government and economic departments want.
“ perhaps we need to think more about predistribution – the mechanisms that determine the distribution of income in the market itself, before taxes and transfers – and less about a redistribution that is not going to happen, and is not what people want in any case. We need rules and policies that prevent the distress in the first place, all of which takes economist into uncomfortable territory: promoting unions, place based policies, immigration, control, tariffs, job, preservation, industrial policy, and the like, we need to promote a more realistic understanding of how governments and markets work. We need to abandon our soul fixation on money as a measure of human well-being.” (p237)
On the economics of the minimum wage, where, raising it has become clearly the right policy, this paragraph closing chapter 1 shows both that Dion understands politics, and that his writing style is excessively verbose. “most of the name-calling came from the side of the employers, either their own trade group or politicians and economist, behold into them. Their outrage comes… Because economists.. were supposed to be on their side and had long been so.… There have always been economist on the side of labor as well as on the side of capital.… So much with conventional wisdom, and it’s textbook material, is weighted towards capital and against labor, they takes efficiency, much more seriously than it takes. Equity, the power differentials are ignored, and economics widespread acceptance, bears responsibility for diminishing fortunes of workers. “ (p17)
May 27, 2024
This was a good, fairly politically impartial account of economics in the United States. It’s a few weeks since I finished it, and what I remember best is the author’s own encounter with health insurance. Most people in the States, even with insurance, are little more than a serious illness away from bankruptcy. The system is inefficient and expensive in addition. However, it keeps a lot of people busy, so the lobbyists defend it rigorously. I will probably read it again.
January 19, 2025
The book doesn’t have a very cohesive message besides “inequality is bad” and “economics profession is bad”. Deaton is an insightful economist and this collection of essays made me ponder about a number of issues, and how economists should think about them. However, he offers few solutions and flip flops on which ideas could provide a remedy. For instance, he bashes “paternalism” and government control for issues he does not approve of, yet points to government regulation, safety nets, and unions as the path for the causes he advocates for. Overall worth reading, but I was left wanting more.
January 22, 2024
This book is not so much a presentation of economics and the economics profession to the lay person as it is Deaton's personal political views wrapped up in economics language. He treats all his friends' mistakes with grace and all his opponents mistakes as if they were conspiracies of evil. He blames clearly and heavily regulated markets for horrors in the world and as evidence of failed capitalism while excusing the burdens of bureaucracy and central planners while advocating for more government control in the name of equality (everyone's equal when they're dead). As hard as I tried to give the book a chance, his constant reliance on conspiracy theories to explain results he doesn't like combined with his desire to impose his value system on everyone - as in his defense of the military draft as a social leveler - illustrated to me that this was not a book about economics but rather the conflict Deaton has with the economics profession. I wanted to learn something about his research, but the references are few and far between, and there are is more of anecdote than scholarly citation in this book. If you can't find one person you disagree with who makes a valid point, it's hard to take your ability to review evidence very seriously.
October 12, 2023
Un gran libro donde se discuten temas diversos de la economía con el punto de vista del autor sobre si la discusión que estamos teniendo los economistas es correcta. El autor es Premio Nobel de Economía, y nos narra sus encuentros con economistas de diversas filiaciones políticas. Encuentra que muchas veces la teoría económica es ajustada para creer lo que queremos creer, esto se potencia cuando hay dinero de lobbyists afectando la parcialidad de la investigación. Me encantaron varios pasajes que son muy reveladores: 1) Crítica que recibió Card & Krueger con su estudio de MW, yo no sabía que el estudio de Neumark & Wascher había recibido dinero y datos de los lobbysts; 2) Crítica hacia el trabajo de Robert Barro, y que la equivalencia ricardiana (palabras más palabras menos) es más para escribir en un blog que la atención académica que ha recibido; 3) Su creencia en la meritocracia y cómo hemos cambiado todos los argumentos: ¿desigualdad en "talento" debe ser considerada de la misma forma que desigualdad en riqueza? El libro da para muchas reflexiones muy interesantes.
January 29, 2024
Angus Deaton is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, and typically economics is the most boring subject on Earth, but he wrote another amazing book. I originally learned of Angus Deaton when reading his previous book Deaths of Despair, which discusses how the widening wealth gap and disappearing middle class is the leading cause of overdose deaths, suicides, and deaths from alcoholism.
In this book Angus discusses more topics around how our current system of capitalism is failing millions of Americans, but he puts a lot of blame on himself and fellow economists. You learn about why people become economists, but how it turns into something else that ends up leading to ruining public policy. Deatin provides a ton of great commentary on our healthcare system, education system, and many other policies that are keeping people from fulfilling the American Dream.
In this book Angus discusses more topics around how our current system of capitalism is failing millions of Americans, but he puts a lot of blame on himself and fellow economists. You learn about why people become economists, but how it turns into something else that ends up leading to ruining public policy. Deatin provides a ton of great commentary on our healthcare system, education system, and many other policies that are keeping people from fulfilling the American Dream.
November 2, 2025
The book feels more like a memoir than a traditional economics text. It’s not something you pick up to learn new theories. I didn’t come away with many new insights, and at times the administrative details were too dense, so I skimmed parts of those sections.
I did appreciate his perspective on inequality, especially the argument that we need to look beyond monetary indicators. He highlights the role of U.S. institutions in continually improving the quality of life for citizens, which I found compelling.
I also found the discussion on CPI and the politics behind determining inflation particularly interesting. It shed light on the institutional and political factors shaping what we often see as neutral, statistical measures, something I’d only ever encountered in passing through news headlines but never thought about deeply before.
I did appreciate his perspective on inequality, especially the argument that we need to look beyond monetary indicators. He highlights the role of U.S. institutions in continually improving the quality of life for citizens, which I found compelling.
I also found the discussion on CPI and the politics behind determining inflation particularly interesting. It shed light on the institutional and political factors shaping what we often see as neutral, statistical measures, something I’d only ever encountered in passing through news headlines but never thought about deeply before.
March 7, 2024
I would not typically read in the area of economics, but issues of inequality are of interest to me. Dr. Deaton is a Nobel Prize winning economist and this book is based of several of his previous articles on various topics within his profession, from health care to minimum wage to education in economics. I enjoyed this book and learned a great deal. As a former university instructor, I especially enjoyed the sections on the University system in the US. This is a great book to introduce topics of economics to the newbie.
June 30, 2024
The books was a worthy read, esp since (us) economists aren’t typically the best in telling of narratives. This book challenged long-held economic principles, made good points urging economists to think outside of their theoretical straitjackets, all written in a way very accessible to those unfamiliar with economics. My only critique is that he didn’t expand too much from the lens of his own experience and could have been a bit more interdisciplinary (but he does better than many economists)
May 25, 2024
I liked the author’s viewpoint best as he grew up in Scotland and has an outsiders view of economics in America. The health care chapter was very interesting. After living overseas in 3 different countries, our health care is mind-boggling expensive and inequitable. Deaton puts into words what I’ve been unable to articulate. One chapter had too many acronyms that economists can keep track of but my brain tangled trying to keep ‘em straight.
March 12, 2024
Bunch of anecdotes and common rumors put together
October 31, 2023
Phew. Important book even though after reading I am more informed on many issues and also more confused. Author examines all sides of issues such as immigration but does not have the answers either so cannot give them to the reader.
October 16, 2023
This is a book of collected prior short pieces by Nobel prize winning economist Angus Deaton. These are not academic pieces but regular substantive pieces - akin perhaps to columns. They are not published as is, like a collection of prior newspaper columns but have updated to reflect the authors current thinking on a topic. Deaton is an incredibly insightful scholar. For example, his work with his partner Anne Case on the economics of poverty and changes in society is both clever and important and has lots of implications for understanding the oddness of American politics over the past two decades. An attraction of the book is that his comments on virtually any topic - for example health case are likely to be valuable.
Most key work in economics is done in a limited number of top scholarly journals. I don’t have nearly enough time to do the reading I need to in these journals, so a book like this really helpful.
Most key work in economics is done in a limited number of top scholarly journals. I don’t have nearly enough time to do the reading I need to in these journals, so a book like this really helpful.
March 19, 2024
I just finished reading Economics in America by Angus Deaton and thoroughly enjoyed it. He writes in a manner that is engaging to the checkbook-level economist in all of us, and hits on issues that I’ve mentioned frequently in this newsletter. He is an immigrant, so he also had a European model of economics and the role of government, and he has questioned many of the conclusions that have given us the opioid epidemic, mass poverty, and a dysfunctional plus expensive healthcare system. He spends time on the history of two thoughts of government when it comes to economists and he does a good service by mentioning individuals who toiled mostly in obscurity when their work was of significant benefit to the greater good. I'll be mentioning Dr. Deaton again in a future issue of the Porcupine, which you can sign up for here: https://daniels-newsletter-4bc328.bee...
July 22, 2025
Businesses often invite external consultants to critique their operations and make suggestions for how things could be improved. The author of this book takes on a similar role for the American economy as a whole, looking at American economic problems with fresh eyes and pointing out where we're not doing well and should improve things.
In 2015 Angus Deaton won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, more commonly known as the Nobel Prize in economics, “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”. Having grown up in Scotland and attended Cambridge University, in 1983 he moved to the United States to take a position as a professor at Princeton University at about age 37. While he found much to admire in his new country, he was also sometimes shocked and appalled, especially by the extreme inequality that could be found in America.
Deaton is now probably best known for research on deaths of despair, which he published jointly with his wife, Anne Case, in 2015 shortly after the Nobel Prize announcement. “Deaths of despair” refers to the substantial increase in mortality among middle-age working class Americans that began in about 2010 and was mostly attributable to drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicide.
Most of this book is based on a series of essays that he wrote over a 25-year period for the Royal Economic Society Newsletter called “Letters from America”, in which he tried to explain to British and other non-American economists the somewhat baffling debates on economic policy that were occurring on this side of the pond. In preparing this book, he reorganized, edited, and substantially updated the essays to remove out-of-date material and reflect the economic situation of 2023 when the book was published. The word “letters” well reflects the style of this book—quite informal, including personal stories and experiences (some of which are quite funny), and freely sharing his opinions, both positive and negative.
The content of the books focuses on two overarching concerns. The first seven chapters focus on inequality, broadly defined, including chapters on topics such as the minimum wage, healthcare, retirement, poverty, economic measurement, and non-monetary inequality. The last four chapters focus on the work of economists and include critical reflections on how economists work in their journals, conferences, and universities, how economics is used (or abused) by politicians, and whether economics should be judged a failure in its aspiration to solve important economic problems.
Deaton's politics are clearly progressive, but his arguments are not always the stereotypical left-wing ones. He recognizes, for example, that money spent on economic development has sometimes been misspent and that meritocratic programs don't always reduce inequality. He also recognizes that economics doesn't always have the answers about which policies are best suited to solve certain economic problems. He clearly has given a lot of thought to all of the issues he discusses and provides his best judgment, regardless of whether it fits conventional expectations.
I realize that this informal style of book is not everyone's cup of tea. My first introduction to Deaton was his book with John Muellbauer, Economics and Consumer Behavior, which was a much more technical work, really a path-breaking textbook for its time. Since then, I've also followed his technical work, especially on topics related to the economic measurement of consumer prices, poverty, household expenditure surveys, and international comparisons of well-being (purchasing power parities). But in addition to reading technical research, I also appreciate when brilliant economists take a more informal tone, such as they might during a dinner conversation, and let you see how they think about economic policy and the problems of the economics profession. While I don't agree with everything Deaton says here, I really appreciated him sharing his opinions and the thinking that underlies them.
(Disclosure: In chapter 4, Deaton briefly mentions some of my own research work. I've had brief conversations with him a handful of times over the last 30 years, though I don't really know him well.)
In 2015 Angus Deaton won the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, more commonly known as the Nobel Prize in economics, “for his analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare”. Having grown up in Scotland and attended Cambridge University, in 1983 he moved to the United States to take a position as a professor at Princeton University at about age 37. While he found much to admire in his new country, he was also sometimes shocked and appalled, especially by the extreme inequality that could be found in America.
Deaton is now probably best known for research on deaths of despair, which he published jointly with his wife, Anne Case, in 2015 shortly after the Nobel Prize announcement. “Deaths of despair” refers to the substantial increase in mortality among middle-age working class Americans that began in about 2010 and was mostly attributable to drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicide.
Most of this book is based on a series of essays that he wrote over a 25-year period for the Royal Economic Society Newsletter called “Letters from America”, in which he tried to explain to British and other non-American economists the somewhat baffling debates on economic policy that were occurring on this side of the pond. In preparing this book, he reorganized, edited, and substantially updated the essays to remove out-of-date material and reflect the economic situation of 2023 when the book was published. The word “letters” well reflects the style of this book—quite informal, including personal stories and experiences (some of which are quite funny), and freely sharing his opinions, both positive and negative.
The content of the books focuses on two overarching concerns. The first seven chapters focus on inequality, broadly defined, including chapters on topics such as the minimum wage, healthcare, retirement, poverty, economic measurement, and non-monetary inequality. The last four chapters focus on the work of economists and include critical reflections on how economists work in their journals, conferences, and universities, how economics is used (or abused) by politicians, and whether economics should be judged a failure in its aspiration to solve important economic problems.
Deaton's politics are clearly progressive, but his arguments are not always the stereotypical left-wing ones. He recognizes, for example, that money spent on economic development has sometimes been misspent and that meritocratic programs don't always reduce inequality. He also recognizes that economics doesn't always have the answers about which policies are best suited to solve certain economic problems. He clearly has given a lot of thought to all of the issues he discusses and provides his best judgment, regardless of whether it fits conventional expectations.
I realize that this informal style of book is not everyone's cup of tea. My first introduction to Deaton was his book with John Muellbauer, Economics and Consumer Behavior, which was a much more technical work, really a path-breaking textbook for its time. Since then, I've also followed his technical work, especially on topics related to the economic measurement of consumer prices, poverty, household expenditure surveys, and international comparisons of well-being (purchasing power parities). But in addition to reading technical research, I also appreciate when brilliant economists take a more informal tone, such as they might during a dinner conversation, and let you see how they think about economic policy and the problems of the economics profession. While I don't agree with everything Deaton says here, I really appreciated him sharing his opinions and the thinking that underlies them.
(Disclosure: In chapter 4, Deaton briefly mentions some of my own research work. I've had brief conversations with him a handful of times over the last 30 years, though I don't really know him well.)
December 3, 2025
3/5
Reading Economics in America felt a bit like sitting in on a very smart dinner guest who keeps changing topics just when things are getting good. There are sharp observations, some great stories, and Angus Deaton is obviously the real deal. Nobel Prize, deep experience, long career in the field. I respect that and I respect the outsider perspective on the United States. It is valuable to have someone who did not grow up in America walk through our institutions and ask hard questions.
But the book is also a little all over the place. It drifts between memoir, policy commentary, academic gossip, and big civilizational worries without really settling into a clear center. You can feel the decades of material packed in, but not always shaped into something cohesive. At times it reads more like a greatest hits tour of his thoughts than a focused argument about economics in America right now.
What really wore on me, though, is the vibe. There is a heavy boomer doomer tone running through the whole thing. The sense that everything is in decline, institutions are broken beyond repair, and the younger crowd just does not get it. That might land differently if it were handled with a bit more humility, but too often it slides into that familiar posture where a very credentialed person uses their status to remind the reader how much they understand and how little everyone else supposedly does.
This is not just a Deaton thing either. It feels like part of a growing genre. Public intellectuals with big prizes and big reputations writing books that double as subtle victory laps. The message is often less “here is how we can do better together” and more “if only people had listened to people like me earlier.” After a while, it starts to feel less like warning and more like ego. I am honestly tired of that energy.
To be fair, there are real insights here. When he talks about health, inequality, and the limits of markets, he can be clear and sharp. His perspective on how data and measurement can blind economists to real human suffering is important. Those sections justify some of the time you spend with the book.
Overall, though, I would call this a mixed experience. Respect to his prize, respect to his outsider view of America, respect to the work behind it. But the scattered structure and the relentless gloom, layered with a self satisfied tone, kept me from fully buying in. Worth reading if you are curious about how a very prominent economist sees the country, but not the definitive book on economics in America and not as deep or generous as it could have been.
-
P S I wrote most of this review before finishing the last two chapters, and I actually enjoyed those a lot more than what came before. The second to last chapter, where he goes straight at the value and cost of a four year degree, was one of the strongest parts of the book. He is very blunt about how monumental the tradeoff has become, and he ties it into concrete realities in a way that finally feels grounded instead of abstract. The discussion of opioids and the broader social fallout adds another layer, and I think that section clicked for me partly because I can relate more to the college angle than to some of the other topics he covers.
In the final chapter his tone shifts in a way I want to give him credit for. He sounds more humble and more reflective about what economists can and cannot do. He acknowledges that economics is not a neat black and white machine and that at some point it shades into philosophy. When he talks about people wanting dignity and respect from working and living in a system of democracy and capitalism, that feels like a more human and honest register. It pulled me in more than the earlier lectures about decline.
Those last chapters did not totally erase my frustrations with the rest of the book, and I still think the overall structure is scattered, but they did make me quiet down a bit and listen. I saw more of the person behind the Nobel and less of the distant expert talking at everyone else. As someone who does not even have a degree yet, I appreciated that.
4/5
Reading Economics in America felt a bit like sitting in on a very smart dinner guest who keeps changing topics just when things are getting good. There are sharp observations, some great stories, and Angus Deaton is obviously the real deal. Nobel Prize, deep experience, long career in the field. I respect that and I respect the outsider perspective on the United States. It is valuable to have someone who did not grow up in America walk through our institutions and ask hard questions.
But the book is also a little all over the place. It drifts between memoir, policy commentary, academic gossip, and big civilizational worries without really settling into a clear center. You can feel the decades of material packed in, but not always shaped into something cohesive. At times it reads more like a greatest hits tour of his thoughts than a focused argument about economics in America right now.
What really wore on me, though, is the vibe. There is a heavy boomer doomer tone running through the whole thing. The sense that everything is in decline, institutions are broken beyond repair, and the younger crowd just does not get it. That might land differently if it were handled with a bit more humility, but too often it slides into that familiar posture where a very credentialed person uses their status to remind the reader how much they understand and how little everyone else supposedly does.
This is not just a Deaton thing either. It feels like part of a growing genre. Public intellectuals with big prizes and big reputations writing books that double as subtle victory laps. The message is often less “here is how we can do better together” and more “if only people had listened to people like me earlier.” After a while, it starts to feel less like warning and more like ego. I am honestly tired of that energy.
To be fair, there are real insights here. When he talks about health, inequality, and the limits of markets, he can be clear and sharp. His perspective on how data and measurement can blind economists to real human suffering is important. Those sections justify some of the time you spend with the book.
Overall, though, I would call this a mixed experience. Respect to his prize, respect to his outsider view of America, respect to the work behind it. But the scattered structure and the relentless gloom, layered with a self satisfied tone, kept me from fully buying in. Worth reading if you are curious about how a very prominent economist sees the country, but not the definitive book on economics in America and not as deep or generous as it could have been.
-
P S I wrote most of this review before finishing the last two chapters, and I actually enjoyed those a lot more than what came before. The second to last chapter, where he goes straight at the value and cost of a four year degree, was one of the strongest parts of the book. He is very blunt about how monumental the tradeoff has become, and he ties it into concrete realities in a way that finally feels grounded instead of abstract. The discussion of opioids and the broader social fallout adds another layer, and I think that section clicked for me partly because I can relate more to the college angle than to some of the other topics he covers.
In the final chapter his tone shifts in a way I want to give him credit for. He sounds more humble and more reflective about what economists can and cannot do. He acknowledges that economics is not a neat black and white machine and that at some point it shades into philosophy. When he talks about people wanting dignity and respect from working and living in a system of democracy and capitalism, that feels like a more human and honest register. It pulled me in more than the earlier lectures about decline.
Those last chapters did not totally erase my frustrations with the rest of the book, and I still think the overall structure is scattered, but they did make me quiet down a bit and listen. I saw more of the person behind the Nobel and less of the distant expert talking at everyone else. As someone who does not even have a degree yet, I appreciated that.
4/5
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 4, 2024
I am really surprised at myself for picking a book with the word “economics” in the title. To me the whole enterprise seems boring and soulless on the one hand and hopelessly unscientific on the other. But I decided to read this because, like everyone else, I’ve heard a lot in the last few years about the rise in “deaths of despair,” a term (and an idea) created by a duo of economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton. Their original book is still on my to-read list, but I thought I’d start with a brief book like this. After finishing, economics is still not an interest of mine, but there were some interesting and original thoughts within.
He discusses a lot here, including the minimum wage, healthcare, income inequality, and retirement. He also describes aspects of economics as a profession, such as how Nobel Prizes are awarded, and how political divides between economists cause schisms in economic theory.
These were some of the most interesting insights:
In Chapter 2, he compares Big Tobacco’s large settlements over its deceptive practices to those proposed for the opioid epidemic. He surprised me by suggesting that perhaps the settlement for tobacco should have had a portion go to smokers who were injured by cigarettes, just as most of us believe the settlements over opioids should go to healing victims of addiction. Full disclosure, I am a smoker and have had addiction issues before, and I don’t think I totally agree with him- those of us who pick up cigarettes have a warning literally right there on the packet telling us they’ll kill us, and many people who are addicted to opioids were told by medical professionals that they were perfectly safe. But it’s still an interesting idea that I have not heard before.
In Chapter 3, Deaton posits that it may be ethically preferable to give to domestic charities over foreign ones, despite greater poverty existing abroad. This is because governments in developing nations are often so incapable of effectively distributing aid- whether due to corruption or lack of infrastructure- that money sent overseas never reaches its intended recipients, or is spent ineffectively. Additionally, Deaton points out, some countries receive over half their yearly expenditures in the form of foreign aid, which breaks the bond that should exist between the state (which provides services) and citizens (who pay taxes that fund those services). When a government has no accountability to its people, it has no incentive to improve its functioning, which may doom a country to never having its own effective government.
In Chapter 6, he describes the idea of “inequality between generations” with respect to global warming. The idea is that the changes we need to make to address global warming, assuming future generations will also be unable to reverse or at least better address it, will necessarily cause a reduction in first worlders’ standard of living. If doing this is what is necessary for future generations to survive, it’s morally required for us to do so. But if we are underestimating what technology will be able to do in a few generations, we would be making sacrifices that are unnecessary.
I admit I skipped some sections of the book, like some of the details about particular economists’ biographies, and most of the chapter on the Nobel prize. That’s a personal taste thing, I just don’t care enough to get through it.
This book was a quick, pretty interesting read given how dry I ordinarily find the subject material. However, it wasn’t particularly memorable. I’m still excited to read his earlier book with Anne Case.
3 / 5 stars.
He discusses a lot here, including the minimum wage, healthcare, income inequality, and retirement. He also describes aspects of economics as a profession, such as how Nobel Prizes are awarded, and how political divides between economists cause schisms in economic theory.
These were some of the most interesting insights:
In Chapter 2, he compares Big Tobacco’s large settlements over its deceptive practices to those proposed for the opioid epidemic. He surprised me by suggesting that perhaps the settlement for tobacco should have had a portion go to smokers who were injured by cigarettes, just as most of us believe the settlements over opioids should go to healing victims of addiction. Full disclosure, I am a smoker and have had addiction issues before, and I don’t think I totally agree with him- those of us who pick up cigarettes have a warning literally right there on the packet telling us they’ll kill us, and many people who are addicted to opioids were told by medical professionals that they were perfectly safe. But it’s still an interesting idea that I have not heard before.
In Chapter 3, Deaton posits that it may be ethically preferable to give to domestic charities over foreign ones, despite greater poverty existing abroad. This is because governments in developing nations are often so incapable of effectively distributing aid- whether due to corruption or lack of infrastructure- that money sent overseas never reaches its intended recipients, or is spent ineffectively. Additionally, Deaton points out, some countries receive over half their yearly expenditures in the form of foreign aid, which breaks the bond that should exist between the state (which provides services) and citizens (who pay taxes that fund those services). When a government has no accountability to its people, it has no incentive to improve its functioning, which may doom a country to never having its own effective government.
In Chapter 6, he describes the idea of “inequality between generations” with respect to global warming. The idea is that the changes we need to make to address global warming, assuming future generations will also be unable to reverse or at least better address it, will necessarily cause a reduction in first worlders’ standard of living. If doing this is what is necessary for future generations to survive, it’s morally required for us to do so. But if we are underestimating what technology will be able to do in a few generations, we would be making sacrifices that are unnecessary.
I admit I skipped some sections of the book, like some of the details about particular economists’ biographies, and most of the chapter on the Nobel prize. That’s a personal taste thing, I just don’t care enough to get through it.
This book was a quick, pretty interesting read given how dry I ordinarily find the subject material. However, it wasn’t particularly memorable. I’m still excited to read his earlier book with Anne Case.
3 / 5 stars.
November 9, 2023
This is a collection of earlier essays written over several decades, updated and integrated into a book. For this reason the topics and interest vary widely, though with persistent themes, focusing especially on a personalistic take on the economics profession and Deaton's own work on measurement of inequality. Deaton is forthright about the highly political nature of the work and is not shy of expounding his own views and excoriating others. An informed reader will in passing also come away with knowledge about price indices or the economics of pensions or the minimum wage, though the content is not expository or pedagogical, as most of the columns were written as light fare for readers of an economics journal who would be presumed to be familiar enough not to need it. Deaton has a reputation lately as something of a populist gadfly, and certainly he expresses sympathies in that direction, evoking a particular concern for Americans qua Americans and some well-publicized controversial takes on specific issues such as foreign aid. In the context of a larger set of contributions, these takes stand out mainly as differences in emphasis within an overall fairly conventional liberal perspective. I will say that the informal treatment did not provide enough on the specific issues of measurement to adjudicate some of the more specific controversial claims that have been challenged, such as on relative measures of poverty across countries.
Overall, I think this is a set of reminiscences that will be of interest primarily as light fare for economists and those who relish the gossip of the profession along with a smattering of information on measurement that might serve as a gateway into the author's more formal work.
Overall, I think this is a set of reminiscences that will be of interest primarily as light fare for economists and those who relish the gossip of the profession along with a smattering of information on measurement that might serve as a gateway into the author's more formal work.
October 17, 2023
I said I exclusively read historical romance in Goodreads bio. Well, I lied. I read a lot of nonfiction; I just never bother to write reviews for them because, well, I like to keep my Goodreads my safe haven away from the brutality of the real world. This one is the sole exception.
I received a copy of the book from the professor I'm an assistant to, not thinking much of it. Yes, I'm an Econ major in college and an immigrant. I didn't think this book will have much to pertain to my interests. I was dead wrong.
Let me just say that Deaton is one of the most hilarious authors I've read in this category. Even though I'm already familiar with the high level concepts he covered, it was refreshing to see it under his lens, where he explained things so simply that anyone could've understood it. What surprised me was his extensive relationship with David Card, a professor at my school who had become a sensation after being the recipient of the Economics Nobel Prize in 2021. I wasn't familiar with the brutal criticism he and Alan Krueger had to undergo for years. I wasn't aware that they thought his finding was the equivalent of proving gravity didn't exist, given that these days people accept Card and Krueger's study as the true North of minimum wage and labor economics.
An easy, engaging, thought-provoking, and funny read all around.
I received a copy of the book from the professor I'm an assistant to, not thinking much of it. Yes, I'm an Econ major in college and an immigrant. I didn't think this book will have much to pertain to my interests. I was dead wrong.
Let me just say that Deaton is one of the most hilarious authors I've read in this category. Even though I'm already familiar with the high level concepts he covered, it was refreshing to see it under his lens, where he explained things so simply that anyone could've understood it. What surprised me was his extensive relationship with David Card, a professor at my school who had become a sensation after being the recipient of the Economics Nobel Prize in 2021. I wasn't familiar with the brutal criticism he and Alan Krueger had to undergo for years. I wasn't aware that they thought his finding was the equivalent of proving gravity didn't exist, given that these days people accept Card and Krueger's study as the true North of minimum wage and labor economics.
An easy, engaging, thought-provoking, and funny read all around.
January 24, 2024
Like Democracy in America by Tocqueville but for the 21st century instead of 19th century America. Plus some fun insights (and drama) about the world of Nobel Prize winners.
Great research on the politics of data and data in politics! The inequality of relationships, education, healthcare (which the author devotes a lot of time toward), mortality, government stipends, medicare, salary, wage gap, etc were all considered in this book in understandable lingo. I walked away learning so much more about the economy of America, its successes and shortcomings, why “obvious” solutions were not implemented, and how much pharmaceutical companies and money have a say in policy-making (quite shocking to be frank).
The author definitely has a bias against Republicans, though mild. Certain linguistic choices got me to this conclusion: the author referred to Obama as President Obama and Trump as Donald Trump even though this book was published after Trump’s presidency, women’s freedom instead of abortion, how Democrats advocate for equality vs how Republicans “prevent” equality. However, he is aware that no one is nonpartisan, even something as “ objective” as data is also bias. I also walked away questioning a lot about my own fiscal beliefs, 10/10 recommend!
Great research on the politics of data and data in politics! The inequality of relationships, education, healthcare (which the author devotes a lot of time toward), mortality, government stipends, medicare, salary, wage gap, etc were all considered in this book in understandable lingo. I walked away learning so much more about the economy of America, its successes and shortcomings, why “obvious” solutions were not implemented, and how much pharmaceutical companies and money have a say in policy-making (quite shocking to be frank).
The author definitely has a bias against Republicans, though mild. Certain linguistic choices got me to this conclusion: the author referred to Obama as President Obama and Trump as Donald Trump even though this book was published after Trump’s presidency, women’s freedom instead of abortion, how Democrats advocate for equality vs how Republicans “prevent” equality. However, he is aware that no one is nonpartisan, even something as “ objective” as data is also bias. I also walked away questioning a lot about my own fiscal beliefs, 10/10 recommend!
November 5, 2023
4 stars...
I liked the perspective and direction of this book. Instead of being an economic textbook or a political treatise, it considers the role of economics in America from the perspective of an immigrant Nobel-prize-winning economist. He considers how both America and the world think about economists and how they function in general, which is an interesting consideration.
As expected, Deaton touches on many of the things one would expect, like healthcare and income inequality and the minimum wage. Instead of making a major case for the "right" way to look at them, he considers how the conversations have historically gone with economists and how those conversations may be influenced by politics or worldview (and vice versa).
Overall, it's a very accessible book with some good basic information about how economics is done and how an expert "outsider" views the economic conversations in America. It's a good one to read to round out viewpoints on issues and to understand some of the basics of economic theory and practice.
I liked the perspective and direction of this book. Instead of being an economic textbook or a political treatise, it considers the role of economics in America from the perspective of an immigrant Nobel-prize-winning economist. He considers how both America and the world think about economists and how they function in general, which is an interesting consideration.
As expected, Deaton touches on many of the things one would expect, like healthcare and income inequality and the minimum wage. Instead of making a major case for the "right" way to look at them, he considers how the conversations have historically gone with economists and how those conversations may be influenced by politics or worldview (and vice versa).
Overall, it's a very accessible book with some good basic information about how economics is done and how an expert "outsider" views the economic conversations in America. It's a good one to read to round out viewpoints on issues and to understand some of the basics of economic theory and practice.
November 21, 2024
This would go in the category of Fun Economic Books, if I had that category. This is a collection of essays priorly written that have been edited to flow more smoothly. What is it like to be an immigrant to the United States? To be an economist working in academia? To win the Nobel Prize? These are all topics covered in these essays. The tone is a combination of smart and irreverent. I of course enjoy the irreverent. I appreciated the tribute to 4 lesser known economists who had died around the same time. We all have people we'd like to make tributes to in our lives, not because they changed the world necessarily, but because they were significant to us. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author and fellow economist Anne Case. "Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism" by Anne Case and Angus Deaton sounds like an important contribution to why we are where we are in the United States currently.
July 5, 2024
I was pretty disappointed in this book. The Nobel-winning economist has compiled a book that mostly consists of a bunch of short essays written over an extended period, and the effect is that of a quasi-memoir. There is some humor, and some musings on inequality, but also more insider stuff about economics conferences that I had zero interest in, and a lot of disjointed material that fist together poorly.
I was also disappointed that Deaton didn't have more policy suggestions that might help alleviate inequality. He argues that economics simply hasn't reached firm conclusions on any of the major issues of macroeconomics, which I found startling and disappointing.
I did enjoy Deaton's description of what winning a Nobel is like.
I was also disappointed that Deaton didn't have more policy suggestions that might help alleviate inequality. He argues that economics simply hasn't reached firm conclusions on any of the major issues of macroeconomics, which I found startling and disappointing.
I did enjoy Deaton's description of what winning a Nobel is like.
November 11, 2023
It's nice to read a book by a Nobel laureate mainstream economist that is not an apology for capitalism. Mr. Deaton has more of a heart than most of his fellow contemporary economists. He shows that you can be a top economist and still care about people. This book discusses the failures of American medicine and our problems of poverty, income and wealth disparities and lack of equality of opportunity. I didn't learn a lot that I didn't already know, but I was encouraged that a leading economist is able to see how efforts that claim to use free market economics to address these problems have been ill advised and often disingenuous.
April 18, 2024
I like this book though it is a bit difficult to read, and that is that is why I listened Audio book read by Author while reading. Author showed him disappointment about the current status of lacking of policy to care about the people who has no college degree, as his research showed people without college degrees are the people who is not well off and suffers high suicidal rates due to lost job.
This book gave me a lots of thing to think about, I appreciate Author’s candid and honest opinion.
This book gave me a lots of thing to think about, I appreciate Author’s candid and honest opinion.
December 2, 2024
Deaton’s humor, charm, and voice shine through this book. Typically, nonfiction social science books tend to be interesting in its content rather than its presentation, but Deaton manages to succeed in both.
It really feels like a stream of consciousness from one of the top economists in the world. As someone with a bachelors in economics, it was fascinating to hear these topics spoken on by such a mind. Also, hearing he authored some of the research I read about in class was a full circle moment (Deaths of despair).
It really feels like a stream of consciousness from one of the top economists in the world. As someone with a bachelors in economics, it was fascinating to hear these topics spoken on by such a mind. Also, hearing he authored some of the research I read about in class was a full circle moment (Deaths of despair).
July 6, 2025
1 Biggest problem now for US economics is neglecting equality. Even worse, chanting “market efficiency” and blaming victims under wealth disparity.
2 Monopolies de facto enriched by renting rather than innovation, since no absence of lobby from any lucrative industry.
3 Numbers or professions are never impersonal, to be clear, an institution captured by deep pockets draws no policy for public interests.
4 Root cause lays on measuring human welfare by only money, which leads to neglect meanings and dignity. That’s why even the progressives’ compensation approaches did not work.
2 Monopolies de facto enriched by renting rather than innovation, since no absence of lobby from any lucrative industry.
3 Numbers or professions are never impersonal, to be clear, an institution captured by deep pockets draws no policy for public interests.
4 Root cause lays on measuring human welfare by only money, which leads to neglect meanings and dignity. That’s why even the progressives’ compensation approaches did not work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 66 reviews