Peddling Prosperity

by Paul Krugman

Book Overview

This wonderfully received book finds him in top form, observing the years he's dubbed "the age of diminished expectations." The past twenty years have been an era of economic disappointment in the United States. They have also been a time of intense economic debate, as rival ideologies contend for policy influence. But strange things have happened to economic ideas on their way to power: they've been hijacked by policy entrepreneurs-economic snake-oil...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393036022
• ISBN13: 9780393036022
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 303 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Great book, not republican bashing...

I found one reader seemed to be biased. He told that Krugman was immature, becuase of his immediated attack against the supply side economists. If Krugman's way of criticizing is regarded as immauture and immediate, then no criticism in the world will survive. I doubt he read through Krugmans book throughly. Krugman used logic and evidences to attack. With those things, Krugman showed us how supply side economists deceived the world. I think his proof was quite logical. My friend who have Ph.D degree in economics recommened me this book as a must.This book is very insightful. If you never experience what does 'insightful' mean, now you found a rare opportunity to do that.

Outstanding

This and "Pop Internationalism" (also by Krugman) are the best popular economics books I've read.The best feature of these books are its translation of textbook micro- and macroeconomics (the kind you learn in Econ 101 and 102) into the language of the op-ed pages. In this language, Krugman is a persuasive voice for academic economics on policy issues such as trade and recession in which public (or at least popular) debate is too often dominated by non-economists. It's not the policy stances he ends up taking that are interesting so much as how convincingly he describes large portions of popular economic debate (for example, the debate about the "competitiveness" of the American economy) as much ado about nothing. It helps that he's usually clear about when he is speaking from the perspective of economics profession as a whole and when he is speaking from his own point of view. The ideas he presents are a lot more lively for his attaching their originators to them; I remember his allusions to Lawrence Summers' arrogance as particularly amusing.His politics are ultimately more critical of Republicans than of Democrats, but his criticisms are novel, thoughtful and much better than the usual blunt arguments we've heard a thousand times over from liberal columnists and talking heads. He is willing to engage the perspective of conservative economists, and is a lot more interested in carefully interpreting a few statistics than in spewing out a whole bunch and hoping their mere mass overwhelms the debate. I'm still a Republican after reading it, but I think I'm a better-attuned one, too.

Outstanding look at economics

I read "Peddling Prosperity" over a vacation, expecting to read a few pages, put it down, and pick up something more entertaining. (I had the latest Grisham waiting in the wings.) How interesting can a book about economics be? Answer- my Grisham never got read. I couldn't put this down.Typically economic treatises are uniformly dull, the author spending pages re-stating his thesis, over and over and over. As one of my college professors told me, economists have two basic rules-1) The market can decide best. 2) Anyone who questions rule #1 is a communist.I would add a third-3) bore the reader with technical jargon.Krugman, mercifully, avoids these traps. He distills economics down to its most basic elements in plain English. Krugman is also a more critical thinker than most of his counterparts, carefully making the argument for Keynesian economics and debunking the myths of Reaganomics. Even the most ardent free market enthusiast will find it difficult to explain away Krugman's notes about wealth distribution during the 1980s (the rich got richer, the poor got poorer) and about the disastrous effects of Reagan overseas. Protectionists will have difficulty as well in refuting Krugman's analysis of the disastrous effects of tariff barriers and the insignificance of America's trade deficit.The author has it all correct- the fallacy of protectionism (the strategic traders), the failure of Reaganomics, the positive role government can play in American economic life. What makes "Peddling Prosperity" such a good book is Krugman's skill in translating his thoughts into passages a reader without a Phd can understand. Good work.

An incredibly intelligent book

When referred to by "The Economist", Paul Krugman is called P. "Nobel Prize 2024" Krugman and he largely deserves this nickname. In "Peddling Prosperity", P. Krugman describes with clear and simple words what America's economic problems have been in the last 25 years. He presents theory, ideas, Government policies (or lack of) and individual stories - history, in fact - with such penetrating views that, while reading, one wishes the book could go on forever. We can only hope that he will repeat this achievement in the next book.

The truth hurts

This book should be required reading for any introductory economics course. This is also great reading to understand the silliness of our politicians' answers to our economic problems. This book can be offensive to die-hard conservatives as well as die-hard liberals. So, for those readers I would recommend reading it once and get the anger out, then a second time to really understand what is wrong with our economy.