The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today

by Linda Yueh

What can the ideas of history's greatest economists tell us about the most important issues of our time?

'The best place to start to learn about the very greatest economists of all time' Professor Tyler Cowen, author of The Complacent Class and The Great Stagnation

Since the days of Adam Smith, economists have grappled with a series of familiar problems - but often their ideas are hard to digest, before we even try to apply them to today's issues. Linda Yueh is renowned for her combination of erudition, as an accomplished economist herself, and accessibility, as a leading writer and broadcaster in this field; and in The Great Economists she explains the key thoughts of history's greatest economists, how their lives and times affected their ideas, how our lives have been influenced by their work, and how they could help with the policy challenges that we face today.

In the light of current economic problems, and in particular economic growth, Yueh explores the thoughts of economists from Adam Smith and David Ricardo through Joan Robinson and Milton Friedman to Douglass North and Robert Solow. Along the way she asks, for example: what do the ideas of Karl Marx tell us about the likely future for the Chinese economy? How does the work of John Maynard Keynes, who argued for government spending to create full employment, help us think about state investment? And with globalization in trouble, what can we learn about handling Brexit and Trumpism?

In one accessible volume, this expert new voice provides an overarching guide to the biggest questions of our time.

The Great Economists includes:
Adam Smith
David Ricardo
Karl Marx
Alfred Marshall
Irving Fisher
John Maynard Keynes
Joseph Schumpeter
Friedrich Hayek
Joan Robinson
Milton Friedman
Douglass North
Robert Solow

'Economics students, like others, can learn a lot from this book' - Professor Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

'Not only a great way to learn in an easily readable manner about some of the greatest economic influences of the past, but also a good way to test your own a priori assumptions about some of the big challenges of our time.' - Lord Jim O'Neill, former Chairman at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, former UK Treasury Minister, and author of The Growth Map

'An extremely engaging survey of the lifetimes and ideas of the great thinkers of economic history.' - Professor Kenneth Rogoff, author of The Curse of Cash and co-author of This Time is Different

'This book is a very readable introduction to the lives and thinking of the greats.' - Professor Raghuram Rajan, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, and author of I Do What I Do and Fault Lines

'Read it not only to learn about the world's great economists, but also to see how consequential thought innovations can be, and have been.' - Mohamed el-Erian, Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, former CEO of PIMCO

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, History, Business, Politics, Finance, Ebooks

336 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2018

About the author

Linda Yueh is a Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University, Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School, Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, and was Visiting Professor of Economics at Peking University. The former Economics Editor at Bloomberg TV, she also hosted Talking Business with Linda Yueh as Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News. She writes for The Times, The New York Times and The Financial Times and has advised, among others, The World Bank and World Economic Forum in Davos.

Reviews

[Aurélien · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a frustrating book. You expect to discover or rediscover interesting insight into the thought of the great economists but you only end up with biographical and current affairs chitchat.

The biographical you can get from Wikipedia and the current affairs you can get from any newspaper.

The added value of this book for readers interested in thinking about economic ideas is very low; which is a shame because many would benefit from a reviewing of these great economists' ideas.

[Marcel Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a pleasant read this clearly written, very well structured book on History of Economic Thought.

Similarly to other books on the matter (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), this one covers the main ideas of the all-time greatest economists, gives context of time and place of when and where they lived, and tells some anecdotes of their lives. The difference is that this book’s main idea is to evoke those economists to explain contemporary facts and hot topics of Macroeconomics, such as the 2008 crisis, the rise of China, the current state of the international commerce, gains and losses due to globalization, effects of technology on employment, etc.

On the one side, it is interesting to assess these more recent facts in light of the great thinkers’ lessons, trying to get what in their intellectual production transcends their times and could be applied today. On the other, sometimes it feels a bit awkward someone affirming without caveats, as Linda Yueh does, that economists X and Y would conclude this and that about facts occurred many years or centuries after their deaths, since the way they think was evidently product of their times and contexts. It is an interesting intellectual exercise nonetheless.

This book is for everyone interested in Economics without need of specialized background, as Linda Yueh writes pretty clearly and didactically.

[Vinay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Yueh's book is a perfect introduction to great ideas in economics. The chapters in the book are structured in the following way.

Part 1. Introduction to the economist's ideas
Part 2. Historical context
Part 3. Analysis of today's societies
Part 4. How their ideas can help us

As a novice to this field, I found the book, for the most part, easy to read. Some chapters were a little hard to grasp(hope they revise them for next edition).

Here's a list of chapters that I found interesting.
1. Adam Smith: Should the Government Rebalance the Economy?
2. John Maynard Keynes: To Invest or Not to Invest?
3. Joseph Schumpeter: What drives Innovation?
4. Douglass North: Why are so Few Countries Prosperous?

I heard about this book on NPR's "Indicator" podcast. I would also recommend NPR's Planet money for people who like this book.

Regards,
Vinay

[Ahmad Badghaish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Really enjoyed it and learned a lot from it.

[GooseReadsBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an amateur in economics, I'm always grateful for a book that synthesizes a lot of complex economic theories and make them accessible. Yueh has taken on a massive challenge in attempting to bring the reader up to speed on 300 years of economic theory. For the most part, I feel she has succeeded in her goal.

The book is definitely not too long with about twenty pages or so dedicated to each economist. The book starts with Adam Smith and finishes in the conclusion with a review of the ideas of Paul Samuelson. Yueh practices a high level of objectivity, and it is difficult to glean where her ideas diverge from those she is writing about. The book pitches itself at a level where a reader with a very basic understanding of economics (such as myself) will be able to understand. However, I have to say that some chapters are clearer than others; the chapter on Douglass North is exceptionally well written, in my opinion; in contrast, I found the chapter on Milton Friedman difficult to follow.

I made this point about another book earlier this year, and that is the fact that I bought this book based on its novelty (I don't mean to use that word in a disparaging way) of reading what economists of the past would have made of today's problems. I ended up wishing that the book had been more of a history of economic thought and focused on the way each of the theorists borrowed and developed from each other. Don't get me wrong the book has this, I just would have liked more.

Overall, this is an excellent book for an overview of economics. It has definitely left me with a desire to keep furthering my knowledge while also giving me a boost in my confidence on this subject. I would definitely recommend it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a lot that this book does well, such as creating parallels between current economic events and the chosen figures, the small biographies for said figures, as well as their selection. The tone used rarely feels opinionated in a political way (though constantly mentioning Marx was living off of his friend Engels and living well off, whilst brushing aside Fisher's involvement in eugenics as merely "controversial" is weird).

All in all, it explains complex topics with an approachable style.

[Sumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book to build a broad structure on which to build an understanding of economics - to have a taxonomy on which to tie what I plan to learn. And this book definitely provided that. By presenting this wide and varied array of economists, who worked in different contexts and turned their attention to specific questions of their time, the book circles the main ideas of western ´traditional’ economics. It does, however, remain within those bounds; within growthism and tends to remain at the economy level, with few incursions into peoples’ experiences of the economy. Environmental externalities are also completely absent.

[Valentina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Douglass North’s insight on institutions as well as the reoccurring mention of Japan’s ‘lost decades’. I learned a lot from this novel.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books that feel like a college class. This was informative and intriguing.

“Instead a dominant services sector and a persistent trade deficit continue to characterize these post industrial economies. Smith wouldn’t have been surprised. In his economic model governments cannot fundamentally change the economy. They can only add distortions to how the market functions. Smith didn’t suggest however that a nation’s economic strengths could not be shaped. He did believe in government regulation and policies designed to improve market efficiency.”

“Marx was a man of contradictions. He advocated for the working class but worked in genteel though poor circumstances. That was not uncommon for the time. Most 19th century European revolutionaries were middle-class intellectuals and not laborers.”

“In The Communist Manifesto there was a program which would carve despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production. It included
1) abolition of property and land and application of all rents of land to public purposes
2) a heavy progressive or graduated income tax
3) abolition of all rights of inheritance
4) confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
5) centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly
6) centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state
7) extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing of cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of soil generally in accordance with a common plan
8) equal liability of all to work, establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture
9) combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country by a more equitable distribution of the populus over the country
10) free education for all children in public schools, abolition of child factory labor in its present form, combination of education with industrial production, etc”

“...inequality and poverty are relative concepts. Indeed it’s not just the absolute difference between the incomes of the rich and poor that matters for wellbeing… In fact in developed economies it is income relative to the median income… that defines poverty.”

“[Irving] Fisher identified all great depressions as starting from a point of over-indebtedness. He wrote” the public psychology of going into debt for a gain passes through several more or less distinct phases
The lure of big prospective dividends or gains in income in the remote future
The hope of selling at a profit and realizing a capital gainIn the immediate future
The vogue of reckless promotions taking advantage of the habituation of the public to great expectations
The development of downright fraud, Imposing on a public which has grown credulousAnd gullible.”

“This combination of high inflation and high unemployment, known as stagflation, contradicted the standard relationships.”

“But every entrepreneur's profit is temporary because competitors will eventually copy the innovation causing market prices to fall” Competing down, Joseph Schumpeter

“[Schumpeter] outlined five types of innovation that derive from entrepreneurs:
The introduction of a new good - for example one with which consumers are not yet familiar or of a new version of a good that is of better quality
The introduction of a new method of production
The opening of a new market
The conquest of a new source of raw materials or half manufactured goods
The creation of a new organization of any industry - like the creation of a monopoly position. For example through trustification or the breaking up of a monopoly.”

“[Friedrich Hayek] argued that society is more efficient when rules or laws enable each individual to use their own knowledge and abilities for their own purpose rather than conform to the plan of a central authority. He was opposed to the idea that it was possible to manage a technologically advanced society from a central perch.”

“[Joan Robinson] developed a theory of monopsony to refer to the market power that firms can wield in the labor market alongside the more familiar and established term monopoly power where firms have market power in the product market and can charge more for a good or service above their costs, earning them monopoly profits. Monopsony power allows employers to pay workers less than the value of their output and keep more for themselves.” imperfect competition → low wages

“More than half the jobs created since 2010 are low wage. This process, which has been happening, for over a quarter of a century is known as the hollowing out of the middle class.”

“In short, weaker worker bargaining power and technology have contributed to the shrinking middle class in America. Coupled with globalization and the growth of part time jobs, these factors help explain low wages in the US and elsewhere.”

“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” - Joan Robinson

“For [Milton] Friedman, each government policy needed to be carefully analyzed for its impact on the economy. In his view one of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

“In all, over a billion people have been lifted out of poverty since 1990 which is an extraordinary achievement. For the first time in history just one in 10 people live in extreme poverty around the world. And both the United Nations and the World Bank believe we are moving toward the historic goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030. So achieving the first of the sustainable development goals (the SDGs) adopted in 2015. The other 16 Sustainable development goals are: zero hunger, good health and well-being, quality education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work and economic growth, industry innovation and infrastructure, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate [action], life below water, life on land, peace justice and strong institutions, Partnerships for the goals.”

BRIC economies: brazil, russia, india, china - large emerging markets

Forward guidance - central banks giving guidance on future interests

Inclusive growth - growth that benefits everyone in a society

QE, quantitative easing - cash injections from central bank into economy

Ricardian equivalence - David Ricardo’s theory that rational people know that the government debt will have to be repaid at some point in the form of higher taxes, so they save in anticipation and do not increase current consumption that would boost growth

[David Farrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Starting in 2018, I started to enjoy studying economics in general and behavioral economics in particular. I love learning about how traditional economic thought applies to modern issues, but realized that I didn't have a great foundation in basic economic theory or much information on the contributions from prominent economists. This book provided both. I originally listened to Linda Yueh debate a British MP on an I2 Podcast about the economic situation in the UK. She used her book as the main data points in her point-counter-point discussions. I immediately bought the book on Amazon with a gift-card I received for my birthday.

In the book, Yueh examines the views from 12 prominent economists between the 1700's to the 2000' and how their views might apply to modern economic issues. For example, she examined Adam Smith's view on government's role in rebalancing economies, Karl Marx's view on China wealth, John Maynard Keynes view on government investment, Joan Robinson's view on wage stagnation, Milton Friedman's view on the role of central banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve, and Robert Solow's view on potential for a slow-growth future. She ends the book with thoughts on globalization and some first order analysis on issues of the day such as the U.S. administration use of tariffs and trends toward protectionism, re-industrialization, status of multi-lateral free trade agreements, China's recent sluggish economic performance, impacts of Brexit on UK and European economies, and the outlook for developing economies. Some key points from the book (in no particular order):

-Economic thinking has come a long way since the 1700s - both in academic institutions and policy circles. What started as an informal area of inquiry that blended political and technical topics, has slowly been established as its own academic discipline. Formal economic researched tended to focus on mathematics and individual theories from scholars but lacked a scientific approach. Economists now try and blend human behavior and social influences with policy and quantitative models to arrive at better conclusions. Data remains the long pole in the tent...how to collect it, access it, analyze it, validate it, interpret it, etc.

-It is hard to advance economic theory with new ideas and research outside of elite economic institutions - Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics, and later...the Chicago University Economics Department, MIT, etc.

-China's economic transformation is breathtaking. Karl Marx would be stunned by what modern communism looks like and the amount of wealth they have generated base on their shift towards market orientation. Their reduction of extreme poverty since the 1980s is nothing short of amazing. However, their continued growth isn't certain - central banking, rule of law and protection of intellectual capital, central planning, state owned enterprises, debt, scale, lack of experience with R&D and innovation, and demographics of aging population are challenges. China aims to move from 'made in China' to 'designed and made in China'. State-owned enterprises, companies, and banking scares western investors as it is not clear what real role the Communist Party plays in their operations and future planning. Transparency is a major issue.

-Avoiding another Great Depression like the 1930s and/or a Great Recessions/Economic Crisis like 2008 are first an foremost in the minds of economists and policy-makers’ minds.

-Innovation is critical to driving economic development. 'Creative destruction' and development of new technologies, processes, markets, etc. drives economies forward. Economies need investment, technical skill, infrastructure, and ability to manage transition from the entrepreneurial phase to operations / management phase to be successful. Developed countries in the West are still the best at this.

-Developed and reliable institutions play a major role in functioning economies. They provide structure, reliability, and order. Institutions can be formal and informal, but provide a ‘norm’ and some level of predictability that give investors confidence. Developing economies usually fail to develop reliable institutions and concentrate power in few/strong groups that prioritize self interest and survival over the greater economic good. This scares off investors from investing resources in developing countries and can have a ripple effect. If an investor loses capital in one developing market, they may choose to pull resources out of every developing market to minimize risk.

-Current debates about trade deficits are more political than technical (but the two can’t really be separated). Deficits need to be examined as a whole, and not on a partner by partner basis. How the government regulates industries has a big impact as well; regulation can be unevenly applied based on level (national, regional, state, local) and type of policy tools used (taxes, fines, incentives). Deficits may or may not matter depending on the trading partners, overall volume, the products, goods, and services involved, and how they relate to a global system. Traditionally, countries divest production and/or export of goods and services that they cannot make effectively or efficiently and choose to import them instead. This frees up resources to focus on products, goods, and services that produce competitively or that fills a local or global market niche or gap. This produces winners and losers in numerous industries and markets domestically and globally - the real or potential impacts can become very political and force protectionist policies that can produce a lag on economies. It is VERY hard to accurately account for and measure the value of services and knowledge-based work in overall economic output. Based on the lack of reliable service measurement data, policy makers may over-value things they can measure such as industrial output, assets, etc. when making macroeconomic decisions.

-Market, technology, labor, and infrastructure development all go hand in hand. The U.S. economy boomed in 1950’s and 1960’s due to the alignment of global conditions following WWII, advances in capital system and technologies that improved productivity, an increase in labor resources, and improvements in the transportation systems and infrastructure that enabled the flow of goods, products, and services domestically and globally. Though modern IT systems have great promise and are a source of advanced innovation, they have yet to have mass impact on real economic output. IT capabilities are unevenly applied by public and private institutions, industries, and markets. It isn’t clear yet on what infrastructure is required to optimize IT investments and whether public or private institutions should provide those resources to enable the investment. Additionally, IT and advanced computing can automate processes that eliminates human labor requirements. This is at odds with economic research that proves that productivity and value increases and economies improve when more labor is engaged, not less.

[Jiang Qin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It provides a quick overview of general ideas and life of the most famous economists in the hundreds years.
If I read those economists myself, I always trapped in their language skills or mind twisting. Thus it’s good to read someone gave a general and horizontal explanation of all of them.
The topics those economists researched on might be outdated and it’s no benefits to read into their models without seeing their outlines. The best takeaways from this book is that I might less be fooled by economists after reading it.
To provide a new idea and make it stand needs a lot more explanation and proof and evidence besides genius instincts. But I’m only interested in the genius ideas. This book is a good fit for me.

I don’t like most of the economists models.
Such as owing to development all to institutions, which I think is too mechanical and narrow minded.
Solow’s model claiming that growth depend on increasing investment and decreasing unemployment, I think is outdated, because AI can replace people, unemployed people replaced by AI has better production.
I don’t like the hangover theory. Overgrowth in times of good, and some less competitive ones are dead when times are not good. That’s biology species growth stages.

[Rishabh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting book for the layman who have heard about famous economists but have little idea why they are famous. Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, and Frederich Hayek are the most prominent ones. In just under 300 pages, Linda Yueh includes David Ricardo, Joan Robinson, Joseph Schumpeter, Irving Fisher, Milton Friedman, Alfred Marshall and Douglass North – and has a cameo appearance of Paul Samuelson.

Yueh provides a short but captivating personal biography of each of these economists and explains lucidly what mad these men famous. What is the important aspect of this book? It addresses the problems that we see almost daily in the news media about trade war and verbal war among major politicians. Yueh says: ‘Brexit and Trumpism are among the most prominent political expressions of discontent with the status quo. Globalization’s unequal impact, creating winners and losers, is part of the status quo. But there are other factors, such as robotics and automation, at play too.’

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review title: Globalization works, and how to respond when it doesn't

Yueh, a young economist (Oxford, London School of Economics) and journalist (BBC, Bloomberg TV) and author, provides an introduction to the "Great Economists" for those of us who didn't know there were any. And she does it with an innovative and engaging approach: after providing an abstract of the life and ideas of these 11 men (and one woman--it has been a heavily male-dominated field), she applies their theories, models, and recommended actions to today's big issues.

The innovation is in this format of selecting the economists, examining their work individually and then seeing how that work would answer one of the "biggest problems" we face right now. Rather than trying to synthesize the state of the art of economic theory into one solution, she lets each speak through their legacy, and applies that voice to just one problem which seems to contradict or present a problem for their economic model. So, for example for Adam Smith, the founder of the science and the originator of the Invisible Hand, does government have a role in fixing an economy when the Invisible Hand has resulted in negative outcomes? And for Karl Marx, Mr. Historical Determinism, what about China, which appears to be transitioning from communist socialism to a mix of communist capitalism: can that work? And for John Maynard Keynes, whose model of government deficit spending helped drive the world out of the 1930s Great Depression, can government still play that role now with massive deficits and new economic shocks like the 2008 mortgage collapse?

As you can see by these three examples, the great economists she has chosen are, if not all household names, key figures in past economic and political eras. Seven of the 12 I have studied in college or read either directly or in summary since. I'm sure an academic economist could argue for her own favorite to be included, and indeed along the way Yueh references other names she considered, but for the rest of us these truly are a good representation of the Great Economists. And the problems she poses to their legacies are appropriately Big: stagnant wage growth, growing economic inequalities within the developed countries, globalization and free trade in the world of Brexit and Trump protectionism, eradicating global poverty, learning from past economic crises like the Great Depression and the global mortgage collapse of 2008. While economics often seem focused on minute details and arcane numbers, the great economists like these think about and try to answer the big problems.

The engaging part of Yueh's approach is in making these economists relevant today by showing how they would address today's problems. Economists' models and predictions are notoriously wrong more often than any profession except perhaps meteorology. And their models seem to be so narrowly focused and so far in the past that these dusty old ideas can have no value right now. Yueh dusts off those old models and gives them value by showing how current conditions are alike or different from the ones the economists originally created their models and theories to address, and shows how those models would address the current conditions. And she does so in a language and approach that assumes no economic or mathematical training, which in its seeming simplicity is in fact a most difficult feat and indicates both her great understanding of the subject and her skill as a teacher. In my career I have identified the most brilliant people I have worked with as those who thoroughly understand the most complex ideas but can explain them in simple terms to someone who does not, and Yueh fits that definition.

Economists have been wrong about many things--even Yueh's Great ones, one of whom, Irving Fisher, lost millions of dollars in the stock market in 1929 when he continued to invest in the market because his model predicted an unbroken rise and then a quick recovery. But the world today, driven by political and governmental institutions and capitalist markets and ideas identified and modeled by these same economists, is measurably better off than at any time in recorded human history. More people are fed, clothed, housed, educated, employed, and live and die in relatively better circumstances than ever before. Yes, billions still suffer in poverty and ill health, or live under repressive and violent regimes. But in her epilogue bringing together all the questions and answers, Yueh makes a bold and simple statement: "Economic prosperity has been linked to globalization." (p. 283) In a few short pages she shows how all of the Big Problems she has posed to the economists revolve around globalization as either a cause or effect. The macro results of the Brexit and Trump electoral victories were driven by the micro decisions of individuals who perceive themselves as losers due to globalization and want that Big Problem to go away. But as Yueh brings together the minds of the Great Economists to address this Big Problem, she briefly shows how each of them would apply their model and theories to recommend different approaches to a solution, but would all agree that the anti-immigration, anti-free trade, and protectionist approaches of Brexit and Trump are not the best approaches to the Problem and will in fact likely worsen it.

The economic and political state of the world in any given era on any given day is driven by billions of individual decisions at every level. The solution to the Big Problems will never be simple, straightforward, universal, and long-term. Economists and their answers in models and recommendations are often wrong. But these Great Economists represent 300 years of the best thinking of the modern world. We, and our leaders, should listen, learn, think, and apply.

[David Wunderlich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook.

The title gives a wrong impression of what the book is actually like. It is mostly biographies of the economists followed by detailed descriptions of present problems. Then, the shortest parts of each chapter come at the end when the author quickly and sometimes perfunctorily describes what the economists would’ve prescribed to do about the issues.

It’s good as far as it goes, but it really, really doesn’t live up to the promise of that title. Also, most chapters boil down to “the economist would be in favor of free trade/globalism and/or not restricting economic activity”. After all, that’s the mainstream position of economics for a reason. So, read it for the biographies and less for the promise of solutions to the world’s problems.

[Will · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book reviews the ideas of a dozen economists but (almost) all approach the discipline through the narrow lens of how to foster growth. There is no discussion of whether growth is actually the right goal to target.

Further, despite being subtitled "how their ideas can help us today" there is not a single reference to climate change.

Overall, a very narrow and blinkered view of economics which is a sad reflection on the state of the subject.

[Teemu · Rating 2 out of 5]

The histories and reviews of the most known ideas of the renowned economists were intersting, rest not so much.

Maybe just read the wikipedia articles on the following:

Adam Smith
David Ricardo
Karl Marx
Alfred Marshall
Irving Fisher
John Maynard Keynes
Joseph Schumpeter
Friedrich Hayek
Joan Robinson
Milton Friedman
Douglass North
Robert Solow

[Daniel Schotman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good introduction, introducing the most important works of several important economists and a good starting point from where you could go deeper.

It does however not so much answers the question 'How their ideas can help us today'.

[João De Matos Zacarias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Good Book! I really recommend people to read this absolute piece of art!!

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Linda Yueh provides the reader with an introduction to economics, using current economic issues as a guide, through the lens of 12 “great” economists. Topics include: “What drives innovation?” (Schumpeter), and “Is inequality inevitable?” (Marshall).

I don’t envy Yueh having to write an accessible book on what is, to most people, a dry topic. She follows a similar format for the 12 economists: introduction of issue, introduction of expert economist, discussion of problem, and finally what the economist would say/do in that situation. It is a book that flies, but never soars. In trying to be fair to Yueh, improving the book may have changed it fundamentally. There’s a several-page biography for each writer; I don’t think this is necessary (but I’m sure others will disagree).

I think one of the key problems is that Yueh, occasionally, struggles to bridge the gap between her knowledge and the readers lack of knowledge. As an example, in the chapter “Why are wages so low?”, at no point does Yueh explain why they should be higher. To me, in a wealthy country, it seems obvious that if inflation is a hair over zero, then wages should also be about the same zero growth.

One of the flaws in the book was that the writing was ok, but not great. Yueh uses a lot of double negatives, reducing clarity in a book depending upon it. There’s also lazy editing, such as when Yueh writes about Adam Smith: “He moved to Edinburgh, where he lived again with his mother, Janet Douglas, a cousin who was also the housekeeper, and his heir, a cousin’s son, David Douglas…” I’m not a hard-line grammarian, but this is exactly why semicolons were invented. Was his mother and Janet the same person, or two people?

Anyway, I’d like to read more entry-level economics books, so I may change the review if it turns out this was comparatively better than the competition.

[Grommit · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a joke: What would you get if you lined up all the economists end to end? No conclusions.
And that is the fate of this book.
The book is well-written, with the smart approach of putting each economist in the context of their surrounding times. 12 famous economists. Interesting insights here.
But, of the 12, several suffered financial ruin. So, you might say, being an economist does not mean you are great at investing. Oh?
The thrust of this book is that economists provide a context for really large, overarching, global/governmental financial policies. But what ALL of these economists have to say is based on events of the past, NOT what is coming now and in the future. And repeatedly we get the mantra that, well, economists don't really know either. Yes, Bernanke applied some financial tools to relieve the 2008 financial crisis. But, but... If you do not have a clear understanding of economics (not Finance, not Accounting), then you will need a thesaurus for this one.
Ahh...this one just CANNOT cut it, because economists just don't have the tools. And this book makes that quietly clear. I especially like the chapter on wages, which includes the reference to "employers being willing to pay more." What? Are you kidding? Employers work fiendishly to curtail wages, cut hours, trim benefits. They are ALL in the business of making the most profit for THEMSELVES...they do not give a hoot about the standard employee, and would replace each and every one of them if they could find a way that would max their profit.

[Noah Kidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I picked up this book, I expected Linda Yueh's work to focus on how important historical figures would hypothetically approach today's economic problems. This is what the title of the book seemed to suggest.

The title of this book is misleading. Although Yueh does devote a few pages at the end of each chapter to modern problems and how famous economists from history might approach them, this book would be better described as a collection of biographies.

As a collection of biographies, the author does a good job. I left this book with just enough knowledge about the economic bigwigs to pretend to be knowledgeable about economics at parties. Now, when someone throws around names like Schumpeter, Hayek, Friedman, Joan Robinson, and Solow, I will know just enough to refrain from shaking my head in confusion. Schumpeter invented the concept of creative destruction, Hayek wrote a bestseller about the dangers of socialism called The Road to Unfreedom, and Friedman was one of the founding fathers of American libertarianism... with just a little knowledge about the most famous economists, I can pretend to know more about economics than I do.

I didn't intend to learn just a little about each of the most famous economists, but I did, and I'm not disappointed. I didn't leave this book with any profound realizations, but it's worth reading. I only wish that this book had made its biographical focus a little clearer.

It's not the best book about economics out there, but it's worth reading. Go ahead and give it a go.

[Michael Loveless · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed with Linda Yueh's book, but it might be more my fault than hers. I had hoped that each chapter would be about an economic problem in the world today, and that the author would extrapolate from the writings of several economists and cause them to argue about the best solution for the chapter's topic. I think that would be a great book. What Yueh did instead was to allow only one historian to speak in each chapter. She used current problems merely as an opportunity to give a short biography and synopsis of ideas for a historian who's work somehow addressed that problem. I did learn a lot from reading the book. Yueh contextualized the ideas of each historian by giving the reader some background about them. However, I felt that the title was false advertising. Of course Karl Marx would deal with inequality today by having government control the means of production. What I wanted to know was how the economists would talk to each other about today's problems - to hear each argue their case before the reader, with the author providing analysis. Hindsight might help us determine whose ideas are more likely to be helpful, because we have a lot of economic data that's been gathered since they wrote. If you want to know more about the world's greatest economists and what they wrote, this is a good book to read. If you want to know what the world's greatest economists would say about today's problems, this book is less helpful.

[Reza Amiri Praramadhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this book, we are served with the theoritical contributions of twelve (thirteen, if you include short description of Paul Samuelson) economists, tested against some of the most pressing economic issues at the time (some of which still pressing until now. While the main focus of the each chapter is to point out the relevance of the theories vis a vis economic challenge, the author does not forget to include the biography, and the historical contexts in which the theories and concepts were developed.

Overall, as a one-time student of political economics, I found myself rather disinterested when the discussion on subjects turn into the more economics aspects, rather than political implications of the application of the economic theories. Thus, chapters on Keynes, Hayek and Marx piqued me the most, while chapters that focused on lesser known economists (outside economists’ circle) such as (Irving) Fischer, (Douglass) North, and (Robert) Solow goes mostly forgotten, both due to my unfamiliarity with the subjects and my general lack of interest. Overall, though, I recommend this book who seeks to understand the basics of some of major economic theories and the political-historical implications of their applications.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't much in the execution. Short biographies of a dozen famous economists, followed by short descriptions of the key aspects of their theories and then a discussion of how each of them might deal with a particular economic challenge in the world today. I learned a few things, but mostly already know who these guys were and what they are famous for. The part I really was looking forward to was the part about how they would solve today's biggest problems. A spirited debate between Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes about how to deal with stagnating productivity or the world trade in the 21st century would have been fun. But on this score the book really didn't deliver. It just provided some lame top level description of how the theories of each might apply. Of course Marx would be suspicious of class interests and Ricardo would want to reduce trade barriers and Friedman would have ideas about monetary policy. Duh. It could have been much better if it had been written with a livelier style and a more nuanced point of view without a need to be more technical or harder to understand.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of thought went into this book, as grasping the key thoughts of those economists and linking them to current issues is complicated. But the chapters themselves are not very sophisticated or interesting, and they are deeply redundant. Quite literally, the author will make the same point six or seven times in a single essay. I think she does this because she’s writing for an audience unfamiliar with basic economics or economic history, but I think that’s a mistake because those people wouldn’t even pick up the book. This book would have been much better if she’d gone deeper and more sophisticated, and perhaps if she’d dropped the pretense that she could guess how economists would “solve” perhaps stuck with the more mundane idea of how they would view problems that arose. Basically, that’s her strong suit, such as showing how early economists would look at inter trade today or how wages trail economic growth.

[Mountain_of_Conflict · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does it achieve what the title implies? Yes, absolutely. You get a good, brief overview over the most important ideas from arguably the most famous economists, a little bit of biography (funny how many lost fortunes at the stock market, but unsurprising given the Great Crash) and how they are placed in economic theory.
BUT the book is unfortunately a little light on criticism of the economic theories. What’s the current consensus on Keynesian economics? What are other issues of Marxism (which is less of an economic theory than most people think)? And why does a modern book talk so little of the effects of automatism? The book talks more about Apple and Android than for example the problems of Keynesian measures.

[Richard Durrans · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent and succinct history of big ideas from the most important economists over the past 200 years. I think most of them would not be happy with current economic policy - they would recognise that the capitalist system was not allowing market prices to give the true signals (either because there is no pricing (externalities) or because prices distorted by imperfect competition and barriers), they would not have liked govts bailing out companies, they would have been concerned about monetary policy leading to misallocation of capital, and the low level of investment. Great ideas can drive policies but at the end of the day, politics drives policies.

[Tibercubmom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book on every level. It was so interesting to read and learn about the different perspectives. In doing so, Yueh also provides a lot of historical background so I felt like I was learning a lot. We're all busy so I hate wasting time reading something that isn't that great or I feel like I didn't get anything out of it. Not with this book. I really enjoyed it and feel more knowledgeable about the topics she covered. Another bonus, the bibliography was great too. If you like history, business and social issues, you'd probably like the book.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. I know it wasn't high level stuff but I liked the format...brief review of the economist biggest contributions, a quick bio, deeper into their work, then bring it to bear on modern times. I have an economy minor....from 30 years ago. And hey, I listen to Marketplace :-). So this was abut my pace. Plus the world wasn't like this 30 years ago so it was interesting to revisit the theories I studied so many years ago applied in a new context. Plus we picked it for my book club...so there's that.

[Jimbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

The historical context for the great economists is really good if you don't know them. But the premise of the book is not very useful for readers. The great economists lived and developed their ideas in past conditions, so their theories would be completely different if they lived today. To say what any of these 12 brilliant minds would do today is nonsense. Yueh should have stock with how people today can use these theories. It might sound like a subtle change, yet it would make the book a lot more practical for today's problems.