Need to pick an economist - help!
 

I'm in a class where I can choose an economist to speak about and I want to make it interesting. A couple of people in my class have already done Steve Levitt and his book "Freakanomics." I wanted to do Tim Harford and his book "The Undercover Economist" but it's not here at the library.

I know there are some economics enthusiasts in OOT... please help

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Friedman and Keynes are safe bets.

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

J. K. Galbraith

make sure to refer to his interview with Ali G often

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Paul Krugman is a topical choice w/ buttloads of available material.

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

[ QUOTE ]
J. K. Galbraith

make sure to refer to his interview with Ali G often

[/ QUOTE ]

Shucks. The course name is "Galbraith, Friedman, and other economists" and right now we're on other economists.. I will look into Krugman. Thanks for the help so far.

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Krugman is a good contemporary choice.

You could do Myron Scholes/Fischer Black/Robert Merton. They are responsible for the Options Pricing Model (used to price financial instruments, primarily options). Merton and Scholes won the 97 Nobel in Economics for this. However, they were also a part of Long Term Capital Management, a spectacular failure of a hedge fund. Very interesting story.

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Even though he was not an economist by trade John Nash would be interesting to talk about. If you wanted to read a an econ book and talk about the author a bit my favorite econ prof had a book come out last spring in the same vain as Freakonomics (Harold Winter, Trade-Offs : An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and Social Issues).

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Would Adam Smith work or is he too philospohical?

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

Malthus is good if you want to go old school.

Re: Need to pick an economist - help!
 

F.A Hayek