Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society

Rating:
Summary: Quick insights from a free-marketeer
Review: Barro writes a mixture of essays with a smattering of his macroeconomics textbook, Macroeconomics, thrown in for good measure. The essays are clear and worth reading, whatever your ideological persuassion. If you have ever read Paul Krugman's Pop Internationalism, you will recognize and appreciate the candor with which economic giants "dumb down" arcane empirical research into understandable prose. Good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: A good reflection on economic topics.
Review: I found this book very readable. Barro is candid in his views and doesn't have extreme or alarming suggestions for improving our shared economic welfare. He has some original opinions based on his own research but can easily tip his hat to the contributions of others in his field. I would reccommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about economics.

Rating:
Summary: A good reflection on economic topics.
Review: I found this book very readable. Barro is candid in his views and doesn't have extreme or alarming suggestions for improving our shared economic welfare. He has some original opinions based on his own research but can easily tip his hat to the contributions of others in his field. I would reccommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about economics.

Rating:
Summary: Clear Economics from a Leading Scholar
Review: Most people distrust economists, and given what passes for an economist in the public eye, it's not surprising. The newspapers are full of hacks and mediocre economists like Paul Krugman passing off political opinion as economic wisdom. For that matter, most of what is presented as economic knowledge is political opinion. Most competant economists, whatever thier philisophical stance, pretty much agree among themselves as to the basic dynamics of the economy; it's the policy choices that divide them. Yet few economic writers in the public eye make this clear. They're more likely to present one side of a political argument and call it economic truth. Or they present a simple appear to ignorance that devalues their own profession: "As is obvious to the simplest reader..." To the public, economists are people who can't agree among themselves, can't predict where the market is going and certainly don't seem to be able to give the government any good advice. What use are they?

And then along comes someone like Barro. Here's a modern economist who is conversant with the latest theoretical models and yet who still has a good intuitive understanding of the basics of supply and demand. Barro doesn't have to throw up a smokescreen of buzzwords to intimidate the reader. He can walk you through an argument in a way that makes makes complex questions clear. In this volume he considers a number of contemporary issues, analyzes the underlying economic issues, and unlike most of his contempraries, presents a wealth of historical data to illustrate his points. And if that weren't enough, he analyzes both sides of an issue honestly.

Barro covers most of the contemporary economic issues that fill newspaper columns these days. Growth, monetary and fiscal policy, balance of trade, the role of the fed, the effects of regulation... it's all here. This isn't light reading, but it's nothing that a reasonably intelligent person can't follow. Plus, it's well written and downright entertaining. You can't ask for more.

Rating:
Summary: Great for developing intuitions about macroeconomics
Review: Robert Barro is a treasure. He is one of the very few people writing on macroeconomics who is actually qualified to do so. When you add to that his ability to make complicated concepts accessible to lay readers you realize how valuable he really is.

This is a short book that in four chapters that are fashioned from columns that Barro wrote for the Wall Street Journal. However, the book does NOT read like a bunch of columns stitched together. It reads like a well-formed book.

The four chapters are 1) Economic Growth, 2) Monetary and Financial Policy, 3) Fiscal and Other Macroeconomic Policies, and 4) The Power of Economic Reasoning.

There is a lot to think about in these 175 pages. It doesn't take long to ready, but you won't want to dash through this. This is the kind of writing that you want to think about and linger over, not because it is difficult, but because it seriously challenges many of our present society's basic operating assumptions. I can't follow Barro all the way down the path he has taken, but I sure like most of it.

Reading this book is also a good way to introduce yourself to macroeconomic thinking and how it differs from microeconomics. It isn't a formal introduction, but the concepts are presented in such a clear manner that they can be grasped with just a little consideration of what the author is presenting.

Of course, there is a lot of serious study to do for the student who wants to understand macroeconomics in a serious way. But this book can help the everyday person develop some good intuitions about fundamental macroeconomic principles.

Rating:
Summary: Great for developing intuitions about macroeconomics
Review: Robert Barro is a treasure. He is one of the very few people writing on macroeconomics who is actually qualified to do so. When you add to that his ability to make complicated concepts accessible to lay readers you realize how valuable he really is.

This is a short book that in four chapters that are fashioned from columns that Barro wrote for the Wall Street Journal. However, the book does NOT read like a bunch of columns stitched together. It reads like a well-formed book.

The four chapters are 1) Economic Growth, 2) Monetary and Financial Policy, 3) Fiscal and Other Macroeconomic Policies, and 4) The Power of Economic Reasoning.

There is a lot to think about in these 175 pages. It doesn't take long to ready, but you won't want to dash through this. This is the kind of writing that you want to think about and linger over, not because it is difficult, but because it seriously challenges many of our present society's basic operating assumptions. I can't follow Barro all the way down the path he has taken, but I sure like most of it.

Reading this book is also a good way to introduce yourself to macroeconomic thinking and how it differs from microeconomics. It isn't a formal introduction, but the concepts are presented in such a clear manner that they can be grasped with just a little consideration of what the author is presenting.

Of course, there is a lot of serious study to do for the student who wants to understand macroeconomics in a serious way. But this book can help the everyday person develop some good intuitions about fundamental macroeconomic principles.

Rating:
Summary: Solid Economics for Anybody
Review: This is a lively example of the growing genre of solid economic texts written for the average reader. It is written as a series of loosely connected essays that cover a broad range of areas, including such typical areas as economic growth, monetary and fiscal policy, and finally, towards the end of the text are a more free flowing breakdown of several 'lighter' subjects including school choice, second hand smoke, privatization, endangered species, term limits and baseball. The purpose of this final chapter is provide the reader a demonstration of the application of economic reasoning, however in doing so the author makes some very solid points in a logical manner about topics that are frequent sources of discussion.

I much enjoyed the the scientific manner in which the author ranks presidents according to their performance on the 'Misery Index', backs up his discussion of economic growth by introducing the Iron Law of Convergance, and the effects of democracy on economic success. This is a very interesting set of essays with just enough graphs and tables to prove the point without overwhelming the reader.