Product Description
The Market Revolution and its limits summarises why many economists believe that markets are best. It explores how even 'market failures' can be given market solutions, and asks why market ideas seem to have taken such a firm hold. Non-polemical in its approach, this book provides a comprehensive appraisal of the market and its alternatives, backed up with empirical international illustrations.
Shipman concludes that the 'revolution' lies in redefining the market process rather than the market outcome.
Shipman concludes that the 'revolution' lies in redefining the market process rather than the market outcome.
From the Author
A balanced but critical account of 'free market' economics
'The Market Revolution' isn't a textbook, but it does cover all the principal applications of market economics: micro, macro, industrial, international, public etc. Aside from one unavoidable equation in the chapter on growth, it tries to put all the main ideas back into the intelligible prose in which most were originally expressed. The aim is to describe how, then explain why, the market was brought back into these areas when forms of planning, public ownership/regulation and demand management had for so long seemed acceptable, because effective. Starting with static (general equilibrium) neoclassical theory, I try to show how little is left of the pro-market argument when all types of 'market failure' are taken into account, but how much is restored when issues of growth, change, discovery and innovation are introduced. The market as an information processing system, as characterised by 'Austrian' economics, turns out to be central, even though the 'Austrians' are marginalised by neoclassical tradition. I've tried to keep the critique an 'internal' one, using wherever possible neoclassical authors' own words to show the limitations of their theory. I myself am an economist who's also spent time as business journalist, emerging markets and 'transition economy' analyst, and management student. This is my first economics book, the one I'd like to have read when first studying economics - so it's highly recommended.
'The Market Revolution' isn't a textbook, but it does cover all the principal applications of market economics: micro, macro, industrial, international, public etc. Aside from one unavoidable equation in the chapter on growth, it tries to put all the main ideas back into the intelligible prose in which most were originally expressed. The aim is to describe how, then explain why, the market was brought back into these areas when forms of planning, public ownership/regulation and demand management had for so long seemed acceptable, because effective. Starting with static (general equilibrium) neoclassical theory, I try to show how little is left of the pro-market argument when all types of 'market failure' are taken into account, but how much is restored when issues of growth, change, discovery and innovation are introduced. The market as an information processing system, as characterised by 'Austrian' economics, turns out to be central, even though the 'Austrians' are marginalised by neoclassical tradition. I've tried to keep the critique an 'internal' one, using wherever possible neoclassical authors' own words to show the limitations of their theory. I myself am an economist who's also spent time as business journalist, emerging markets and 'transition economy' analyst, and management student. This is my first economics book, the one I'd like to have read when first studying economics - so it's highly recommended.
