After a couple of months hunting for reliable (I mean cheap!) online book sellers, finally before year 2009 ended I was able to order some wish-list books and they arrived by the last week of 2009. Following are list my latest collection:
- The Return of the Economic Naturalist: How Economics Helps Make Sense of Your World by Rober H. Frank (Author of The Economic Naturalist)
- The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics by Steven E. Landsburg (Author of The Armchair Economist and More Sex Is Safer Sex)
- Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity In A Disordered World by Tyler Cowen (Authoer of Discover Your Inner Economist)
- Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (Author of Freakonomics)
- Dear Undercover Economist: Priceless Advice on Money, Work, Sex, Kids and Life's Other Challenges by Tim Harford (Author of The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life)
- Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence, and the Poverty of Nations by Raymond Fisman and Edward Mogul
- Parentonomics: An Economist Dad's Parenting Experiences by Joshua Gans
The last two books - Economics Gangsters and Parentonomics - are the first books I bought and already finished to read them.
I recommend Economic Gangsters for any of you who interested with corruptions and violence from economics perspectives. It is well written and worth to read during your spare times. My favorite chapter is the first one which discuss about Suharto Inc. While for Parentonomics, I feel a bit uneasy while reading it. Not necessary because it discuss a lot about parenting, but the writing style not so specific. It is quite understandable because it close to economist parenting diary rather than economist parenting theory/concepts compilation. However, it is still worth to read if you are interested with parenting and economics.
For the first five books, I am just in the middle of exciting reading the two hot books: Superfreakonomics and Dear Undercover Economist. Both of them really superb books, highly recommend! I hope I can blog them - and the rest of the book - very soon. Especially the Dear Undercover Economist, wifey really enjoyed reading it as well.
In case you have your own opinion or review regarding one or any of my reading list, please kindly share your thought.
2 comments:
impressive blog!
Once, a friend of mine sent an email of an article from Kompas Daily. I don't remember exactly the date it published. It's a very interesting article regarding how the corruption in Indonesia during Suharto era actually helped the economic growth. The author made some valid arguments to support his view but don't ask me what they were cos I can't remember a thing except the aforementioned comment.
However, the author intent has nothing to do with supporting the corruption culture or even endorsing it. The article, IMHO, was beautifully written in paradoxical and cynical style, if you know what I mean. He mentioned the positive side of corruption but he truly saddened about the corruption reality in Indonesia.
It would be nice, if you can find the article (or maybe you have) and give comment on it to your reader about it in this blog. Oops, it was written by Luky something, if I am not acceptably mistaken.
Keep up the good work.
@Ahmad: I remember reading several blog posts and journal paper which discussed about "cost-benefit" of corruption. If you are interested, the following is my friend posts in their more impressive blog:
http://cafesalemba.blogspot.com/2006/05/corruption-devils-advocate-view.html
IMHO, corruption is an activity in which very difficult for us to draw the line whether it is good (beneficial) or bad (harmful). Currently, the line mostly take sided into the bad/harmful side. This is hardly to reject since in most cases corruption create further negative externalities rather than positive ones. But again, we will facing the problem of measurements as well as judgement. I cannot going further to analyze this.
Regarding the book I mentioned, the author interestingly analyze Indonesia case with a unique approach. That's the best part of looking at corruption from academic-empirical perspective.
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