Speaking of Economics

Making sense of economists and their world, Arjo Klamer shows that economics is as much about how people interact as it is about the models, the mathematics, the econometrics, the theories and the ideas emerging from the literature.

1. The Strangeness of the Discipline 2. Economics is a Conversation or Better, a Bunch of Conversations 3. What it Takes to be an Academic Dog or the Culture of the Academic Conversation 4. It's the Attention, Stupid! 5. A Good Scientific Conversation, or Contribution Thereto, is Truthful, Meaningful and Serves Certain Interests 6. The Art of Economic Persuasion: About Rhetoric and All That 7. Why Disagreements Among Economists Persist, Why Economists Need to Brace Themselves for Differences Within their Simultaneous Conversations and their Conversations Over Time and Why they May Benefit from Knowing about Classicism, Modernism and postmodernism 8. How and Why Everyday Conversations Differ from Academic Ones and How and Why Academic Conversations Clash with Political Ones