a typical university pub discussion descended briefly into the "you can't criticise domain X because you have no expertise" yesterday - maybe fair enough, maybe not - in this particular case, domain was economics - so how much does one have to read to have some informed view on economics?
I realize that in some subjects/disciplines, there is also the underlying "cannon" or even several churches of the true faith (Adam Smith, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, Kahneman etc etc, which i've actually read:) but perhaps doing an economics degree gives some magic edge?
I'm not so sure - firstly, doing any degree at all gives one the training to know how to study a further subject on ones own, and to find form and structure, and critically absorb. Secondly, disciplines are constantly changing, and so it depends how long since one worshipped at the alter of this or that font of academic wisdom, whether the official qualification has any especial value over being "self taught". Of course, I'm assuming basic numeracy, literacy, and critical thinking - but that is what anyone with a BA or BSc in anything has.
So just for background, here's some of what I've read overlapping economics and my own "expertise" (computer science, maybe, and cyberspace, perhaps) because I like to stay informed - in the last 5+ years (this is a subset - in some cases, I went and looked at data or source papers):-
I realize that in some subjects/disciplines, there is also the underlying "cannon" or even several churches of the true faith (Adam Smith, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Friedman, Kahneman etc etc, which i've actually read:) but perhaps doing an economics degree gives some magic edge?
I'm not so sure - firstly, doing any degree at all gives one the training to know how to study a further subject on ones own, and to find form and structure, and critically absorb. Secondly, disciplines are constantly changing, and so it depends how long since one worshipped at the alter of this or that font of academic wisdom, whether the official qualification has any especial value over being "self taught". Of course, I'm assuming basic numeracy, literacy, and critical thinking - but that is what anyone with a BA or BSc in anything has.
So just for background, here's some of what I've read overlapping economics and my own "expertise" (computer science, maybe, and cyberspace, perhaps) because I like to stay informed - in the last 5+ years (this is a subset - in some cases, I went and looked at data or source papers):-
That may look like a bit of an arbitrary list, but its mine:-)
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