Undercover Economist

Brad DeLong reviews some of the new pop-econ books (nothing by yours truly):

In the beginning were the Steves — Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, that is. And Dubner interviewed Levitt, who teaches at the University of Chicago and had won the American Economic Association’s Clark Medal as the outstanding young economist in his two-year cohort. And Dubner and Levitt brought forth Freakonomics (William Morrow, 2005), which sold many copies and populated the land. And the publishers of America looked upon Freakonomics and saw that it was good.

And the publishers of America said, "Let us commission and publish many books sort of like Freakonomics, for here is a previously unexploited market segment, books that use economists’ reasoning presented in clear prose to investigate and explain curious events and patterns in our lives."

Brad likes Tyler Cowen’s "Discover Your Inner Economist" and dislikes Steve Landsburg’s "More Sex is Safer Sex". Click on the hyperlinks to read my own reviews; I rather liked both.