Spin-Free Economics isn’t.
That’s the short version of this review. Sorry, I couldn’t resist being clever. Probably more than a few other people thought of that little witticism too. So maybe I’m not really being that clever.
Behravesh’s premise is that politics has captured the public economic intellectuals. There is now a need for an impartial economist to arbitrate and determine which side is right on the key economics questions of today. That person is Nariman Behravesh!
There’s several problems with putting Behravesh into that position though. First, his economics have no creativity. This book is all about pushing the conventional wisdom of the economics profession. Indeed, early on he notes that economists are in largely in agreement on all the issues he notes in the book. Which would be well and good if agreement meant that these people were right. If economists are so smart, how did they as a profession miss the housing bubble? Some economists saw it, but by and large the group did not. So much for conventional wisdom. In some matters, such as on free trade generally, they are undoubtedly right. But on others, the jury is still out.
Second, Behravesh argues his cases very poorly. The book shows lots of correlations but very rarely demonstrates causation. Asia has adopted technology. Asia’s economies do well. Africa has not adopted technology. Africa’s economies don’t do well. Therefore Africa needs to adopted technology in order for it’s economies to do well. While that has a certain logical appeal, that’s correlation, not causation. Both items may be symptoms of something else, or completely random. The things he writes make sense
but making sense doesn’t mean they are true.
Third, Behravesh documents his arguments and positions poorly. There are no footnotes or endnotes. Behravesh simply includes a list of sources
in the back for each chapter with some short discussion of what can be found at each source. But he doesn’t tie together his actual claims with specific sources.
Fourth, some of Behravesh’s claims didn’t match up with what I found. For instance, he claimed the Canadian health care system is plagued by long unacceptable waits, worse than the U.S. But that doesn’t match up with what I found in this report from Statistics Canada or this study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Longer waits, but not unacceptably longer, generally.
Bottom line: don’t rely on Spin-Free Economics for unbiased truth. Like everyone, Behravesh has his prejudices, and they affect what he writes.
Title: Spin-Free Economics: A No-Nonsense, Nonpartisan Guide to Today’s Global Economic Debates
Author: Nariman Behravesh
Imprint / publisher:
Format: McGraw-Hill
Length: 334 p.
Publication date: 2009
ISBN-10: 0-07-154903-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-154903-5
Subject: International economic relations
Subject: International finance
Subject: Globalization — Economic aspects
Subject: Economic development
LC classification: HF1359 .B42 2009
