Steven Landsburg, author of the original pop-econ book, the wonderful “The Armchair Economist”, is blogging in support of a new book, “The Big Questions: Tackling the problems of of philosophy with ideas from mathematics, economics and physics”. I expect he will infuriate everyone because that’s his style.

The blog is here. The first two posts are on healthcare reform (insurance is part of the problem: well said!) and on why Richard Dawkins is wrong about God.

This is Paul Ormerod’s offering from 2005. I’m catching up. I enjoyed the book very much, although felt the last chapters were by far the best and most original. In them Ormerod studies patterns of biological extinctions and corporate bankruptcies, looks at the mathematical models that best explain them, and concludes that businesses appear to die out without any process of effective foresight, much as biological species do. Lots to chew over - an inspiration.

Mia de Kuijper, Profit Power Economics. Read more about it in the Times.

William Higham, The Next Big Thing. A book about trend marketing. I am sceptical on principle but perhaps the book is good.

Yoram Bauman, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics. I saw some early drafts and it looked very promising.

Brian W. Arthur, The Nature of Technology. Self-recommending.

Erik Brynjolfsson and Adam Saunders, Wired for Innovation. Ditto.

Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw. I skimmed this before an interview with Gladwell, although I have read most of it already because it is a collection of his New Yorker pieces, which I usually enjoy. Here is the FT review.

Perhaps I was naive in my reading of Superfreakonomics, but it didn’t occur to me that the chapter on geoengineering would stir up such a storm. I liked the book, but worried about the chapter. I wrote:

As for the final chapter on global warming, it is a striking discussion of geo-engineering, surveying various schemes for cooling down the planet rather than trying to prevent climate change by cutting carbon emissions. This is a strong story, but it is also one-sided, portraying the geo-engineers as brilliant iconoclasts, dismissing the objections to geo-engineering as the knee-jerk reaction of the unreflective, and failing to convey the views of a single credible geo-engineering sceptic. A well-deserved swipe at Al Gore does not really count.

According to this chapter, the only reason everyone is making so much fuss about carbon dioxide is that they’ve never heard of geo-engineering, or are the kind of stubborn Luddites who think technology never solved anything. I have some sympathy with that view but the section nevertheless needed more balance.

Anyway, others have put their criticism in rather firmer terms. (Brad DeLong even thinks the above paragraphs constitute a defence of the global warming chapter; well, you be the judge of that. I won’t deny that I liked the book overall.) Those who are interested could do worse than start at Free Exchange and follow the links. The uberbloggers you’ll find for yourselves, but also check out Yoram Bauman and Joshua Gans. Stephen Dubner defends the chapter here.

As for me? (Not that I am an expert: I presume I was invited to review the book because I am authority on popular economics writing, not an authority on climate change.) Well, I read all the criticism and the back and forth, went back to the original review, which I penned three weeks ago, and… I don’t think I’d change a word. It is a strong story. And it is one-sided.

Update: Nathan Myhrvold responds at Freaknomomics. Brad DeLong apologises to me, which is decent of him but not really necessary.

Here’s the hedgehog. Here’s the book. Thanks to NPR and Planet Money for inviting me on!

Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
By Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Allen Lane £20, 288 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16

For fans of the multimillion-selling pop-economics book, Freakonomics, all that needs to be said is that the sequel’s title is an accurate description. This book is a lot like Freakonomics, but better.

The original, a runaway hit, had its genesis in Stephen Dubner’s masterful New York Times Magazine profile of “rogue economist” Steven Levitt. “Rogue” may be stretching it a bit, because Levitt is, in fact, a garlanded and hugely influential professor at the University of Chicago…

Read the full article here.

Streetlights and Shadows by Gary Klein. A very interesting, well-written discussion of how decisions are made well and badly. Klein lists a number of apparently-obvious truths, eg “We can reduce uncertainty by gathering more information” and “The starting point for any project is to get a clear description of the goal” and argues that they are often false.

More specifically, such statements tend to be true in “streetlights” - simple, static situations but not in “shadows” - complex, fast-moving or unexpected situations. Lots of memorable case studies. Recommended.

According to his publisher, Dan “Da Vinci Code” Brown’s latest book, The Lost Symbol, sold more copies in its first 36 hours than any other adult hardback sold in total. (A certain boy wizard is excluded by the artful qualifier, “adult”.) The sales of Brown’s book were given a boost by an unprecedented price war. According to The Bookseller, an industry magazine, Waterstone’s offered a mere 50 per cent discount – £9.49 instead of £18.99. Tesco asked £7 and Asda £5. Asda’s book buyer celebrated “fantastic” sales, despite the fact that the store is thought to be losing £4 a copy. The old joke is made real: losing money on every sale, but making it up on volume.

Asda’s price wasn’t even the lowest available. The Book Depository, an online retailer, grabbed headlines with a price of £4.99 – whereupon Amazon quickly cut prices to match. These prices have prompted many people in the industry to feats of rhetorical self-flagellation. Industry insiders complained to The Bookseller about “ridiculously aggressive discounting” and asked “how can the book trade take itself seriously?”

To an economist, of course, this all makes perfect sense. Muddled thinking tempts us to speak of “the book trade” as a single sentient being. If it were, discounting a sure-fire bestseller from £18.99 to £4.99 would make no sense at all. But, happily for Dan Brown fans, the book trade does not have a single voice in charge and it would be illegal to appoint one.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.