Paul Baxter's wife, Lenise, has a weblog entitled "Paxifist". I hear that Paul's wife was, like me, once a grad student in economics. He told me that she was surprised to learn upon entering Chapel Hill's PhD program that no one else had ever read Smith's Wealth of Nations. The fact that Paul retold that anecdote in a way that made his wife sound shocked and angry is one reason I plan to read this blog regularly.
Posted by scott at March 10, 2004 11:17 PM | TrackBackI don't know. Are physicists appalled because physics graduate students haven't read Newton's original work?
Economists haven't repudiated Adam Smith, but they've accounted for his theory on much firmer analytical ground. That they way science moves along.
Adam Smith is a good read, but there's nothing there that an economist needs that he can't find elsewhere.
Posted by: Jim at March 11, 2004 07:16 PMI would say that "Foundations" would be a much more importent for a modern economist. But I wouldn`t reccomend that either.
I read the Wealth of Nations but it is morea rite of passage to me than an is morea rite of passage to me than an essential book.
Posted by: Robi at March 13, 2004 10:46 AM