Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society

by Robert J. Barro and Paul M Warburg Professor of Economics Robert J Barro

Book Overview

Since 1991, Robert Barro has been a lively contributor to the Wall Street Journal and other popular financial media. Getting It Right brings together, updates, and expands upon these writings that showcase Barro's agility in applying economic understanding to a wide array of social issues. Barro, a "conservative who takes no prisoners," and a self-described libertarian, believes that most governments have gone much too far in their spending, taxation,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0262522268
• ISBN13: 9780262522267
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: MIT Press
• Length: 207 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.4" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Great for developing intuitions about macroeconomics

Robert Barro is a treasure. He is one of the very few people writing on macroeconomics who is actually qualified to do so. When you add to that his ability to make complicated concepts accessible to lay readers you realize how valuable he really is.This is a short book that in four chapters that are fashioned from columns that Barro wrote for the Wall Street Journal. However, the book does NOT read like a bunch of columns stitched together. It reads like a well-formed book.The four chapters are 1) Economic Growth, 2) Monetary and Financial Policy, 3) Fiscal and Other Macroeconomic Policies, and 4) The Power of Economic Reasoning.There is a lot to think about in these 175 pages. It doesn't take long to ready, but you won't want to dash through this. This is the kind of writing that you want to think about and linger over, not because it is difficult, but because it seriously challenges many of our present society's basic operating assumptions. I can't follow Barro all the way down the path he has taken, but I sure like most of it.Reading this book is also a good way to introduce yourself to macroeconomic thinking and how it differs from microeconomics. It isn't a formal introduction, but the concepts are presented in such a clear manner that they can be grasped with just a little consideration of what the author is presenting.Of course, there is a lot of serious study to do for the student who wants to understand macroeconomics in a serious way. But this book can help the everyday person develop some good intuitions about fundamental macroeconomic principles.

A good reflection on economic topics.

I found this book very readable. Barro is candid in his views and doesn't have extreme or alarming suggestions for improving our shared economic welfare. He has some original opinions based on his own research but can easily tip his hat to the contributions of others in his field. I would reccommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about economics.

Clear Economics from a Leading Scholar

Most people distrust economists, and given what passes for an economist in the public eye, it's not surprising. The newspapers are full of hacks and mediocre economists like Paul Krugman passing off political opinion as economic wisdom. For that matter, most of what is presented as economic knowledge is political opinion. Most competant economists, whatever thier philisophical stance, pretty much agree among themselves as to the basic dynamics of the economy; it's the policy choices that divide them. Yet few economic writers in the public eye make this clear. They're more likely to present one side of a political argument and call it economic truth. Or they present a simple appear to ignorance that devalues their own profession: "As is obvious to the simplest reader..." To the public, economists are people who can't agree among themselves, can't predict where the market is going and certainly don't seem to be able to give the government any good advice. What use are they?And then along comes someone like Barro. Here's a modern economist who is conversant with the latest theoretical models and yet who still has a good intuitive understanding of the basics of supply and demand. Barro doesn't have to throw up a smokescreen of buzzwords to intimidate the reader. He can walk you through an argument in a way that makes makes complex questions clear. In this volume he considers a number of contemporary issues, analyzes the underlying economic issues, and unlike most of his contempraries, presents a wealth of historical data to illustrate his points. And if that weren't enough, he analyzes both sides of an issue honestly.Barro covers most of the contemporary economic issues that fill newspaper columns these days. Growth, monetary and fiscal policy, balance of trade, the role of the fed, the effects of regulation... it's all here. This isn't light reading, but it's nothing that a reasonably intelligent person can't follow. Plus, it's well written and downright entertaining. You can't ask for more.

Quick insights from a free-marketeer

Barro writes a mixture of essays with a smattering of his macroeconomics textbook, Macroeconomics, thrown in for good measure. The essays are clear and worth reading, whatever your ideological persuassion. If you have ever read Paul Krugman's Pop Internationalism, you will recognize and appreciate the candor with which economic giants "dumb down" arcane empirical research into understandable prose. Good stuff.