In the Long Run We’re All Dead

Frank, Bj?rn

£14.99

A humorous and sideways look at the lives of some of the great and eccentric economic minds.

Out of stock

Publish Date: 29/06/2023

Description

No one grows up dreaming of becoming an economist. Until the late nineteenth century, economics couldn’t even be studied at university and was the preserve of polymathic figures whose radical curiosity drew them to an evolving discipline that was little understood and often derided. Each of the thirteen chapters of this book tells the story of just such a figure. Each of their extraordinary lives is worthy of fiction, and the manner of their deaths, oddly, often illuminate their work.In the Long Run We’re All Dead shows us how these great economists developed their theories for which they became famous, even if, tragically, much too late for them to enjoy their fame. And these often-complex ideas – of Utilitarianism, of Social Costs, of the Endowment Effect, to name just a few – are explained here with reference to the lives of their creators in a style that is engaging, irreverent, and comic. Though what Frank tells us about these lives is true, this is also a book of imaginative speculation that considers how economists’ principles might be applied to problems of today and of the future.’In the long run’, said John Maynard Keynes, we are all dead’. A blandly straightforward statement but one, when uttered by perhaps the greatest economist of the twentieth century, intriguingly gnomic too. Keynes is but one of the eccentrics, radical, unconventional, and often revolutionary thinkers whose lives Björn Frank entertainingly recounts.

Additional information

Dimensions 216 × 153 mm
Author

Publisher

Imprint

Cover

Hardback

Pages
Language

English

Edition
Dewey
Readership

General – Trade / Code: K