Intressant granskning av Mankiws lärobok

Edward Fullbrook: Toxic Textbooks | Institute for New Economic Thinking

http://ineteconomics.org/blog/inet/edward-fullbrook-toxic-textbooks

Kritiken är bitvis träffande. Ett exempel: Vad menar Mankiw när han skriver

PRINCIPLE #3: Rational People Think at the Margin [p. 6]

Fullbrook kommenterar:

Mankiw explains that by thinking at the margin he means “by comparing marginal costs and marginal benefits”.  Why is this bullying?  The student, as the author must know, will not read that as meaning “We are going to define ‘rational people’ as those people who think at the margin.”

Generellt sett om Mankiws fyra principer:

on the second page under the heading HOW PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS, Mankiw unveils his “four principles of individual decision making”.  At no point does he allude to how his basic principles were discovered.  No names, no dates and no processes of discovery are mentioned.  Instead he seeks, by appeal to folksy stories to persuade the student to accept them on faith.

Comments

[Marcus]

Viss kritik är säkert träffande, men bitvis var den specifika och träffande kritiken uppblandad med en hel del betydligt mer svepande och tveksamma påståenden. Och en del tröttsam retorik av den sort som han själv vänder sig emot.

[bergh]

Exakt min åsikt, lite av "det vanliga tugget", men en hel del bra poänger också.