Nothing is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium

Rating:
Summary: Well-Written, interesting, but also a bit narcissistic
Review: Barro writes well, Barro has a lot of interesting things to say, but before you get to the interesting part, which consists of Barro's enlightened and reasonable views on various economic topics, you must hack through the self-serving, and in some cases embarrassingly self-serving, first third of the book.

In the first third of the book, Barro shares his personal experiences with several eminent economists, along with a couple of not-so-eminent economists, such as Bono and Joe DiMaggio. We learn, for example, that no one except Bob Lucas is allowed to smoke in Barro's university office. And we learn that Lucas' ex-wife was able to collect half his Nobel winnings.

Interesting, perhaps, but not welcome in a book sub-titled "Economic Ideas for the New Millennium", especially when such 'insights' take up many, many pages of the book.

Some of Lucas' stories unintentionally (I think!) characterize their subjects as selfish and conceited. In another story about Bob Lucas, we learn that the famed economist had promised to speak at one of Barro's seminars but then called him the night before to say he couldn't make it because all of the smoking seats in the coach section of the plane were taken. Lucas agreed to come only when Barro gave him more money to ride first-class. It's ironic that Lucas was quoted earlier in the book as saying "a deal's a deal" - unless it's not, I guess.

Consider all these stories and reminiscences in the first third of the book as your rite of passage to the far superior remainder of the book, where Barro writes about various social and fiscal issues through the lens of his free-market economic theory. These 100 or so pages somewhat make up for the vapidness of the previous 70 pages.

I'm glad I bought the book and read it, but it's really not worth the cover price for just 100 pages of good stuff.