From Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe) comes this review of the new ISI book The Literary Book of Economics. “Watts, a Purdue economist, had the ingenious notion of representing economic principles with selections drawn from literature, poetry, and drama. The result is a wonderfully rich and vivid survey of the economic realm — a compilation far more likely to kindle an interest in economics than Greenspan’s jargon-filled sludge. For Watts, Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” illustrates the idea of opportunity cost — the options forgone every time a choice is made. Six epitaphs from Edgar Lee Masters’s “Spoon River Anthology” help illuminate specialization and the division of labor — key elements of industrial productivity. “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift’s satirical recommendation that Irish children be eaten, is a perfect — and grisly — example of cost-benefit analysis.”
