Zombie Economics
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Review
This book is certainly a good read for anyone eager to know why it is urgent that economists come up with a socially useful body of thought or suggestions. -- "Shanghai Daily Entertaining and thought-provoking... [W]orks as a good summary for non-specialists of how the economics debate has developed. -- Philip Coggan, Economist Quiggin is a writer of great verve who marshals some powerful evidence. -- "Financial Times Lucid, lively and loaded with hard data, passionate, provocative and ... persuasive... [Zombie Economics] should be required reading, even for those who aren't Keynesians or Krugmaniacs. -- Glenn C. Altschuler, Barron's Apparently some economists have a sense of humor, dismal though it may be. Quiggin uses the 2008 global financial crisis as the focal point for examining five core macroeconomic and financial theories that have been--to use zombie terminology--killed by our current predicament... Economics students and interested lay readers will find this valuable. -- "Library Journal Erroneous economic ideas resemble the living dead, writes John Quiggin in his smart new book Zombie Economics. They are dangerous yet impossible to kill. Even after a financial crisis buries them, they survive in our minds and can rise unbidden from the necropolis of ideology. -- James Pressley, Bloomberg News The financial crisis has disproved many cherished tenets of 'market liberalism', such as the 'Efficient Markets Hypothesis', yet these zombie ideas still shamble through newspapers and journals. Enter economist Quiggin, calmly wielding dual shotguns to blast them relentlessly in the face... As Quiggin explains with elegance, lucidity and deadpan humour, the undead ideas here are interconnected: killing one causes it to knock over another in a sort of zombie-dominoes effect. -- "Guardian Zombie Economics is ... a highly readable and sobering assessment of the role played by discredited economic ideas in the global financial and economic meltdown of 2008-09. Quiggin delves deeply into the origins and development of all the star culprits so loved by the economic right in recent decades: from the efficient markets hypothesis to privatization and Real Business Cycle Theory. None has stood up to the stern test posed by real markets and economies in crisis. Yet most live on, still featured in many curriculums and advocated by those academics who have staked their careers on them. -- "Globe & Mail It's hard to resist a book called Zombie Economics, and University of Queensland professor John Quiggin makes his tale as compelling as his title... It's the rare read that's both thoughtful and fun. -- "Biz Ed [A]n excellent new book. -- Jessica Irvine, Sydney Morning Herald I haven't done justice to Quiggin's book, so if you're interested in a readable exposition of the exploits of academic economists over the past 35 years I recommend it highly. It's the story of how economists forgot much of what they knew. Please, guys, don't do that again. -- Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald As well as exposing how these flawed ideas brought on the global crisis and how they live on, Quiggin offers his view on a new way forward in economic theory. It's time to bury the zombie. -- Fiona Capp, The Age From the so-called 'great moderation' concept to the implications of the efficient markets hypothesis, Quiggin does an excellent job summarizing each zombie idea and explaining why it is discredited in a simple (but not simplistic) manner. -- "Choice [Cogent] and readable ... -- "The Nation Cleverly titled, with a wonderful and very un-academic cartoon cover and written without excessive jargon, Zombie Economics provides an elegant critical introduction and analysis of some of the key ideas of modern economic thought. -- Satyajit Das, Naked Capitalism blog Put a bullet through the decaying brain of walking-dead economics by reading Quiggin. -- Seth Sandronsky, SN&R Peppered with humorous quotations, theory and history, Quiggin has assembled a compelling read about the misguided intellectual economic assumptions of the last forty years and also gives possible solutions to our current financial dilemma. -- Ted Stamas, Bullfax.com
Review
This book is certainly a good read for anyone eager to know why it is urgent that economists come up with a socially useful body of thought or suggestions. -- Shanghai Daily
Entertaining and thought-provoking. . . . [W]orks as a good summary for non-specialists of how the economics debate has developed. -- Philip Coggan, Economist
Quiggin is a writer of great verve who marshals some powerful evidence. -- Financial Times
Lucid, lively and loaded with hard data, passionate, provocative and . . . persuasive. . . . [Zombie Economics] should be required reading, even for those who aren't Keynesians or Krugmaniacs. -- Glenn C. Altschuler, Barron's
Apparently some economists have a sense of humor, dismal though it may be. Quiggin uses the 2008 global financial crisis as the focal point for examining five core macroeconomic and financial theories that have been--to use zombie terminology--killed by our current predicament. . . . Economics students and interested lay readers will find this valuable. -- Library Journal
Erroneous economic ideas resemble the living dead, writes John Quiggin in his smart new book Zombie Economics. They are dangerous yet impossible to kill. Even after a financial crisis buries them, they survive in our minds and can rise unbidden from the necropolis of ideology. -- James Pressley, Bloomberg News
The financial crisis has disproved many cherished tenets of 'market liberalism', such as the 'Efficient Markets Hypothesis', yet these zombie ideas still shamble through newspapers and journals. Enter economist Quiggin, calmly wielding dual shotguns to blast them relentlessly in the face. . . . As Quiggin explains with elegance, lucidity and deadpan humour, the undead ideas here are interconnected: killing one causes it to knock over another in a sort of zombie-dominoes effect. -- Guardian
Zombie Economics is . . . a highly readable and sobering assessment of the role played by discredited economic ideas in the global financial and economic meltdown of 2008-09. Quiggin delves deeply into the origins and development of all the star culprits so loved by the economic right in recent decades: from the efficient markets hypothesis to privatization and Real Business Cycle Theory. None has stood up to the stern test posed by real markets and economies in crisis. Yet most live on, still featured in many curriculums and advocated by those academics who have staked their careers on them. -- Globe & Mail
It's hard to resist a book called Zombie Economics, and University of Queensland professor John Quiggin makes his tale as compelling as his title. . . . It's the rare read that's both thoughtful and fun. -- Biz Ed
[A]n excellent new book. -- Jessica Irvine, Sydney Morning Herald
I haven't done justice to Quiggin's book, so if you're interested in a readable exposition of the exploits of academic economists over the past 35 years I recommend it highly. It's the story of how economists forgot much of what they knew. Please, guys, don't do that again. -- Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald
As well as exposing how these flawed ideas brought on the global crisis and how they live on, Quiggin offers his view on a new way forward in economic theory. It's time to bury the zombie. -- Fiona Capp, The Age
From the so-called 'great moderation' concept to the implications of the efficient markets hypothesis, Quiggin does an excellent job summarizing each zombie idea and explaining why it is discredited in a simple (but not simplistic) manner. -- Choice
[Cogent] and readable . . . -- The Nation
Cleverly titled, with a wonderful and very un-academic cartoon cover and written without excessive jargon, Zombie Economics provides an elegant critical introduction and analysis of some of the key ideas of modern economic thought. -- Satyajit Das, Naked Capitalism blog
Put a bullet through the decaying brain of walking-dead economics by reading Quiggin. -- Seth Sandronsky, SN&R
Peppered with humorous quotations, theory and history, Quiggin has assembled a compelling read about the misguided intellectual economic assumptions of the last forty years and also gives possible solutions to our current financial dilemma. -- Stamas, Bullfax.com
Entertaining and thought-provoking. . . . [W]orks as a good summary for non-specialists of how the economics debate has developed. -- Philip Coggan, Economist
Quiggin is a writer of great verve who marshals some powerful evidence. -- Financial Times
Lucid, lively and loaded with hard data, passionate, provocative and . . . persuasive. . . . [Zombie Economics] should be required reading, even for those who aren't Keynesians or Krugmaniacs. -- Glenn C. Altschuler, Barron's
Apparently some economists have a sense of humor, dismal though it may be. Quiggin uses the 2008 global financial crisis as the focal point for examining five core macroeconomic and financial theories that have been--to use zombie terminology--killed by our current predicament. . . . Economics students and interested lay readers will find this valuable. -- Library Journal
Erroneous economic ideas resemble the living dead, writes John Quiggin in his smart new book Zombie Economics. They are dangerous yet impossible to kill. Even after a financial crisis buries them, they survive in our minds and can rise unbidden from the necropolis of ideology. -- James Pressley, Bloomberg News
The financial crisis has disproved many cherished tenets of 'market liberalism', such as the 'Efficient Markets Hypothesis', yet these zombie ideas still shamble through newspapers and journals. Enter economist Quiggin, calmly wielding dual shotguns to blast them relentlessly in the face. . . . As Quiggin explains with elegance, lucidity and deadpan humour, the undead ideas here are interconnected: killing one causes it to knock over another in a sort of zombie-dominoes effect. -- Guardian
Zombie Economics is . . . a highly readable and sobering assessment of the role played by discredited economic ideas in the global financial and economic meltdown of 2008-09. Quiggin delves deeply into the origins and development of all the star culprits so loved by the economic right in recent decades: from the efficient markets hypothesis to privatization and Real Business Cycle Theory. None has stood up to the stern test posed by real markets and economies in crisis. Yet most live on, still featured in many curriculums and advocated by those academics who have staked their careers on them. -- Globe & Mail
It's hard to resist a book called Zombie Economics, and University of Queensland professor John Quiggin makes his tale as compelling as his title. . . . It's the rare read that's both thoughtful and fun. -- Biz Ed
[A]n excellent new book. -- Jessica Irvine, Sydney Morning Herald
I haven't done justice to Quiggin's book, so if you're interested in a readable exposition of the exploits of academic economists over the past 35 years I recommend it highly. It's the story of how economists forgot much of what they knew. Please, guys, don't do that again. -- Ross Gittins, Sydney Morning Herald
As well as exposing how these flawed ideas brought on the global crisis and how they live on, Quiggin offers his view on a new way forward in economic theory. It's time to bury the zombie. -- Fiona Capp, The Age
From the so-called 'great moderation' concept to the implications of the efficient markets hypothesis, Quiggin does an excellent job summarizing each zombie idea and explaining why it is discredited in a simple (but not simplistic) manner. -- Choice
[Cogent] and readable . . . -- The Nation
Cleverly titled, with a wonderful and very un-academic cartoon cover and written without excessive jargon, Zombie Economics provides an elegant critical introduction and analysis of some of the key ideas of modern economic thought. -- Satyajit Das, Naked Capitalism blog
Put a bullet through the decaying brain of walking-dead economics by reading Quiggin. -- Seth Sandronsky, SN&R
Peppered with humorous quotations, theory and history, Quiggin has assembled a compelling read about the misguided intellectual economic assumptions of the last forty years and also gives possible solutions to our current financial dilemma. -- Stamas, Bullfax.com
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Two years on from the beginnings of the Global Financial Crisis, books are emerging that step back from the initial, journalistic questions - what happened, and how - and are beginning to consider the implications for policymakers and economists, who with few and unregarded exceptions failed to predict the crisis and have since seemed at a loss for credible policy directions. 'Zombie Economics' is one of these books.
John Quiggin, an academic economist, takes his starting point from a remark by Keynes.
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."
Quiggin argues that the debacle of 2008-9 exposed to merciless scrutiny a set of economic ideas, collectively forming an economic orthodoxy, that had been allowed to masquerade for thirty years as a living body of coherent doctrine but were in fact 'zombie ideas': intellectually vital only until their pulse was checked, and dangerous in their capacity to supplant real thinking.
The author organises his book around an analysis of five such 'zombie' conceptions: the 'Great Moderation'; the 'efficient markets hypothesis'; 'dynamic stochastic general equilibrium'; 'trickle-down economics'; and 'privatization'. In each case, he presents a description of the concept, an historical account of its rise to prominence, an analysis of its weaknesses and a provisional verdict on whether, like the zombie, the concept in question has been killed definitively or is likely to prove inconveniently undead.
The book concludes with a consideration of the implications of his findings for the academy and for policymakers. Quiggin points out that this is the second time in the years since World War II that an economic orthodoxy of long standing has found itself challenged by unforeseen events and has found itself unable to respond. In the 70s Keynesian macroeconomics suffered a catastrophic decline in prestige when it appeared to have no answer to runaway inflation. Now market liberalism is struggling to account for a catastrophic market failure that seems to expose the belief that markets will always produce the best net social outcome as a fantasy.
Quiggin argues that we should avoid the conclusion that recent events wholly invalidate market liberalism, just as much error and distress might have been avoided had Keynesian economics not been wholly dismissed in the UK and USA, Australia and New Zealand from 1979 onwards. Instead, he proposes a return to a genuinely mixed economy based on insights into the strengths and weaknesses of both market and managed economies gleaned from actual experience. Necessarily, this involves letting go of many defunct economic ideas that actually function only as political shibboleths.
For his fellow economists, he recommends humility in the face of unhelpful data and a far greater scepticism towards conceptually elegant theoretical structures that bear no relation to reality. It is interesting and heartening to see an academic diagnose the faults of his own profession - in this case, its tendency to compliance with the external political climate and the careerist pressures generated by its own institutional structures - with such candour and penetration. The intelligent, undogmatic general reader who is prepared to follow the author carefully will find this a very informative read.
John Quiggin, an academic economist, takes his starting point from a remark by Keynes.
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist."
Quiggin argues that the debacle of 2008-9 exposed to merciless scrutiny a set of economic ideas, collectively forming an economic orthodoxy, that had been allowed to masquerade for thirty years as a living body of coherent doctrine but were in fact 'zombie ideas': intellectually vital only until their pulse was checked, and dangerous in their capacity to supplant real thinking.
The author organises his book around an analysis of five such 'zombie' conceptions: the 'Great Moderation'; the 'efficient markets hypothesis'; 'dynamic stochastic general equilibrium'; 'trickle-down economics'; and 'privatization'. In each case, he presents a description of the concept, an historical account of its rise to prominence, an analysis of its weaknesses and a provisional verdict on whether, like the zombie, the concept in question has been killed definitively or is likely to prove inconveniently undead.
The book concludes with a consideration of the implications of his findings for the academy and for policymakers. Quiggin points out that this is the second time in the years since World War II that an economic orthodoxy of long standing has found itself challenged by unforeseen events and has found itself unable to respond. In the 70s Keynesian macroeconomics suffered a catastrophic decline in prestige when it appeared to have no answer to runaway inflation. Now market liberalism is struggling to account for a catastrophic market failure that seems to expose the belief that markets will always produce the best net social outcome as a fantasy.
Quiggin argues that we should avoid the conclusion that recent events wholly invalidate market liberalism, just as much error and distress might have been avoided had Keynesian economics not been wholly dismissed in the UK and USA, Australia and New Zealand from 1979 onwards. Instead, he proposes a return to a genuinely mixed economy based on insights into the strengths and weaknesses of both market and managed economies gleaned from actual experience. Necessarily, this involves letting go of many defunct economic ideas that actually function only as political shibboleths.
For his fellow economists, he recommends humility in the face of unhelpful data and a far greater scepticism towards conceptually elegant theoretical structures that bear no relation to reality. It is interesting and heartening to see an academic diagnose the faults of his own profession - in this case, its tendency to compliance with the external political climate and the careerist pressures generated by its own institutional structures - with such candour and penetration. The intelligent, undogmatic general reader who is prepared to follow the author carefully will find this a very informative read.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Like the villain in a horror movie, discredited economic theories can return to haunt you. Australian economist John Quiggin claims that some of these ideas - like total privatization, perfectly rational markets and trickle-down policies - nearly destroyed the world's economy, and that they are trying to make one more comeback. In an attempt to drive the final stake through the brain-eating, dead soul of "zombie economics," he knifes through the five most dangerous principles of "market liberalism." With no apparent fear of being controversial, he presents a compelling case as to why each of those "zombie ideas" failed and describes a new, alternative approach, melding the best of free-market capitalism with judicious use of government involvement to address crucial social needs. Quiggin heavily annotates his work and provides a thoughtfully researched bibliography. Though the economic jargon can, at times, slow your progress, Quiggin's book rewards your persistence. getAbstract recommends this eerie tour through defunct yet durable economics to anyone who enjoys a good scare. Find your silver bullets, construct your booby traps and carry your axes for good measure: Quiggin says it is high time to kill those zombies once and for all.
14 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Quiggin is arguing for a return to Keynsianism, and is attacking market economics.
While Quiggin rightly attacks the ideas of a certain group of laissez-faire economists and bubble-blowing central bankers, whose ideas appear to have combined with lenders' dubious underwriting standards to produce faux prosperity built on unsustainable debt, he uses their failures as a straw man argument to attack all supporters of a private-sector-dominated market economy, whether they supported the unsustainable bubbles or not. Market economics and a private debt-based monetary system built on top of a debt-based fiat currency do lead to business cycles (as banks' reserves against losses mean that exponential increases in borrowing are needed to obtain money to keep up interest payments in aggregate); but while they lead to fluctuations, in the long-run they produce sustainability as they keep consumption and production in balance. It is when the business cycle is interfered with (e.g. the Greenspan put or governments running enormous fiscal deficits) to cut short the short-term pain of an inventory-led recession that the exponential increases in borrowing overwhelm all attempts to service the debt, ultimately leading to crisis.
Quiggin's proposed solution to the problems of recent years is not to enforce laws and stop the bail-out culture (privatising profits, socialising losses) by making powerful private sector actors eat their own losses, but instead to return to a stronger government interference as an economic actor. He believes the common Keynsian idea that governments can smooth the economic cycle by saving surpluses in good times to spend in hard times, using the "Golden Rule" of balancing budgets only over the whole economic cycle, but he ignores the economic reality that governments are no better than private sector actors at predicting economic cycles and how much they will need to save, and the political reality that governments unsurprisingly love fiscal stimulus in periods of deficit but hate (and fail to enforce) fiscal discipline in times of surplus. There is an analogy with Quiggin's suggestion that central banks should be given credit for extreme monetary easing (currently causing huge inflation in basic commodity prices, and arguably in government debt) after having (rightly) criticised them for their earlier bubble blowing.
It's about time people recognised that the "West" has been consuming more than it produces for a long time, and no monetary or fiscal policy fiddling will allow that unsustainable situation to continue in perpetuity. Quiggin would have us believe that Keynsianism can do just that, but it doesn't add up. He should read his Keynes quote from his Introduction: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." and apply it to himself and Keynes.
While Quiggin rightly attacks the ideas of a certain group of laissez-faire economists and bubble-blowing central bankers, whose ideas appear to have combined with lenders' dubious underwriting standards to produce faux prosperity built on unsustainable debt, he uses their failures as a straw man argument to attack all supporters of a private-sector-dominated market economy, whether they supported the unsustainable bubbles or not. Market economics and a private debt-based monetary system built on top of a debt-based fiat currency do lead to business cycles (as banks' reserves against losses mean that exponential increases in borrowing are needed to obtain money to keep up interest payments in aggregate); but while they lead to fluctuations, in the long-run they produce sustainability as they keep consumption and production in balance. It is when the business cycle is interfered with (e.g. the Greenspan put or governments running enormous fiscal deficits) to cut short the short-term pain of an inventory-led recession that the exponential increases in borrowing overwhelm all attempts to service the debt, ultimately leading to crisis.
Quiggin's proposed solution to the problems of recent years is not to enforce laws and stop the bail-out culture (privatising profits, socialising losses) by making powerful private sector actors eat their own losses, but instead to return to a stronger government interference as an economic actor. He believes the common Keynsian idea that governments can smooth the economic cycle by saving surpluses in good times to spend in hard times, using the "Golden Rule" of balancing budgets only over the whole economic cycle, but he ignores the economic reality that governments are no better than private sector actors at predicting economic cycles and how much they will need to save, and the political reality that governments unsurprisingly love fiscal stimulus in periods of deficit but hate (and fail to enforce) fiscal discipline in times of surplus. There is an analogy with Quiggin's suggestion that central banks should be given credit for extreme monetary easing (currently causing huge inflation in basic commodity prices, and arguably in government debt) after having (rightly) criticised them for their earlier bubble blowing.
It's about time people recognised that the "West" has been consuming more than it produces for a long time, and no monetary or fiscal policy fiddling will allow that unsustainable situation to continue in perpetuity. Quiggin would have us believe that Keynsianism can do just that, but it doesn't add up. He should read his Keynes quote from his Introduction: "Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." and apply it to himself and Keynes.
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