George J. Stigler (1911–1991)

Some fundamental essays on the relation between individuals and the state. Though Stigler was an economic and social conservative, he wields his intellectual knife just as often against the right as against the left - he challenges any idea that is not grounded in evidence. Some of the essays are reprints of his statistical work on the effects (or absence of effects) of government regulations on the outcomes the regulations were intended to impact. These won him a Nobel Prize, but of course they are very dated studies today (some of the data is pre-WW2). A few of the essays are for a general audience: anyone interested in the limits of freedom in modern society. Stigler's prose is humorous and brimming with sharp observations. Stigler was a leader of the so-called Chicago School of economics. This label is often taken to mean conservative but it is more accurate to say that the School focused on empirical evidence concerning the functioning or malfunctioning of markets.… (mehr)

The work is a collection of 20 papers or essays representing a growing resurgence of political economy at the University of Chicago. After the origin of modern economics in the eighteenth century and authors such as Mill and Adam Smith, the field had largely fragmented into micro and macroeconomics. Economists largely sought value or motive free technical details. Beginning in the 1950s some efforts were made to look at (and perhaps predict) the effects of legislation and regulation on prices and markets.

These papers were originally published in various journals between 1968 and 1985, although some of them were updated or slightly expanded for this book. Stigler provides editing and an introduction as well as two of the papers. Overall the work addresses the impact of the political system on economics, studies about and some ideas toward a theory of regulation, and some proposals toward corrective policies.

While some later works contain summaries of the ideas presented, and some of the details in this work are dated, the very detail and references to emerging thought are important. As is usual in economic works, some of the mathematics is more complex than it need be, but this should at least be scanned by the serous student of the role of government and interest groups in the microeconomic areas.… (mehr)