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Favorite economists

Published by marco on

Updated by marco on

I sometimes wonder what my younger self would think of what he’s become. I like to think that I’ve avoided a disappointed reaction, but it’s hard to say because I’ve always been a bit “judgey”. At the very least, there are several things I couldn’t have predicted. One is that I actually have a list of favorite economists. 20-year-old me couldn’t have imagined that in a million years.

In no particular order,

Dean Baker
He’s the founder of CEPR, the voice of sanity and national treasure of American economics. I cite him often and can recommend his book: Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer by Dean Baker (2016) (read in 2017).
Mark Blyth
He’s a professor at Brown University, an excellent economist and a former stand-up comedian. He also has a German wife, speaks German and has a good grasp of European affairs. I’ve written about him in Discussion between Mark Blyth and Wendy Schiller on Nov. 9, 2016, Mark Blyth on Global Trumpism, Mark Blyth on the Jimmy Dore show, and, of course, a review of his groundbreaking shredding of austerity in Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Blyth (read in 2015).
Richard Wolff
He’s a Marxist/Socialist economist and one of the driving forces behind the Democracy at Work organization. I wrote about him in Bernie Blindness and the U.S. hatred of Socialism under the sub-head “Richard Wolff is a National Treasure”.
Yanis Varoufakis
He’s the former finance minister of Greece and current founder of DIEM25, there’s very little I don’t like about this guy. I’ve written about him several times: A brace of videos from Oxford (Varoufakis, Piketty & Žižek), Adults in the Room: My Battle with the European and American Deep Establishment by Yanis Varoufakis (2017) (read in 2018) (a book that is long, but highly recommended).
Thomas Piketty
I have a few draft article in the making on his latest work Capital and Ideology, which seems to encompass and eclipse his previous groundbreaking work in Capital in the 21st Century. I wrote about him in A brace of videos from Oxford (Varoufakis, Piketty & Žižek).

I mean, I like J.K. Galbraith, Jeffrey Sachs, James Tobin, and Joseph Stiglitz[1], too—but the ones above are my top five.


[1] Yes, I noticed. All men. The only woman I can think of, off the top of my head, is Ann Pettifor.