« The future of Latin America | Main | Markets in everything »
Schumpeter revealed
Here is my review of Thomas McCraw's new Schumpeter biography. Excerpt:
Prophet of Innovation is so splendid because it succeeds on so many different levels. If the book were simply an account of the Harvard economics department, it would stand as a lasting and significant contribution to the history of economic thought. Alternatively, it is one of the best treatments of what it was like for European intellectuals to migrate to the United States. Or are you interested in why Austria fell apart during the 1920s, and how someone with as little real world experience as Schumpeter became Minister of Finance? The book is also a love story, and an account of how a possibly dysfunctional man can nonetheless find romantic happiness after repeated failures and tragedies.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 4, 2007 at 05:28 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
Geez, how can I not read it after this? Just bought a copy, thanks :-)
Posted by: Tim Lundeen at May 4, 2007 12:30:11 PM
"Every year there are three or four non-fiction books that have to be read, and this is one of them."
Please tell your readers if and when you determine the other two or three. I for one am eagerly awaiting future Tyler Cowen book reviews and recommendations, particularly after the spot-on recommendations of Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations, Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance, and Stumbling on Happiness.
Posted by: Eliot W. at May 4, 2007 3:31:54 PM
Professor Cowen --
As a regular reader of both your blog and your professional publications, I respect both your insight and your fair-mindedness. In particular, I enjoyed the review, and intend to buy the book. But the review is marred by what seems to be a pointless bit of ideology that’s irrelevant to Schumpeter's life and — frankly — beneath you.
Specifically, you write: "The question is why creative destruction is so unpopular in Western Europe these days, among both policymakers and intellectuals … Western Europe lost that love of change with the two World Wars ... "
Do you have any evidence to support this claim? I suspect that perhaps you don’t … that you simply hold, as an article of faith, that Europe’s social arrangements (unlike those in the US) cannot sustain the creative destruction that drives economic growth.
If you do have evidence, I'd appreciate your laying it out. Because the data seem against you on this point--long run growth rates have been almost identical between the US and the European countries. For example, real GDP per capita roughly doubled in both over the period 1970 – 2004:
France 1.96
Germany 1.89
Italy 2.00
UK 2.09
US 2.07
(Source: Penn World tables 6.2)
Posted by: pireader at May 5, 2007 1:43:00 PM
Also, do you have figures on how many horse makers were put out of business by the automobile?
Posted by: Vance Maverick at May 6, 2007 2:24:30 AM
aion gold
aion money
cheap aion gold
cheap aion money
buy aion gold
Mabinogi online gold
Mabinogi gold
buy Mabinogi gold
cheap Mabinogi gold
Mabinogi money
2moons dil
2moons gold
buy 2moons dil
2moons dil
cheap 2moons dil
flyff gold
flyff penya
flyff money
buy flyff penya
cheap flyff penya
cheap flyff gold
Dofus kamas
buy Dofus kamas
cheap kamas
Dofus kama
Dofus gold
Dofus money
Knight online gold
Knight Gold
Knight Noah
Knight online Noah
Posted by: aion at Jul 10, 2009 11:20:45 PM
