This book focuses on the graduate education of a small group of economists-those at elite schools. It is intended for three audiences: aspiring economists, economists, and the lay public. The book reports conversations with MIT, Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia students.

Making sense of economists and their world in a persuasive and entertaining style, Arjo Klamer, the author of a number of influential books including Conversation with Economists and The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric, shows that economics is as much about how people interact as it is about the models, the mathematics, the econometrics, the theories and the ideas that come from the enormous aggregate of economics literature. Knowing and understanding economics requires both bookwork and mingling with other economists.

Viewing the subject as a collection of conversations, Klamer examines fundamental disagreements over the nature and purpose of the discipline, addressing how it is that a discipline that so permeates daily life is at once 'soft' and scientific, powerful and ignored, noble and disdained and in a reader-friendly style - without eschewing academic methodology demonstrates economics to be a living, breathing discipline rooted in the real world.

Whether you are a student, academician, journalist, practicing economist or interested outsider, Speaking of Economics will get you interested in a conversation about economics.

Making sense of economists and their world in a persuasive and entertaining style, Arjo Klamer, the author of a number of influential books including Conversation with Economists and The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric, shows that economics is as much about how people interact as it is about the models, the mathematics, the econometrics, the theories and the ideas that come from the enormous aggregate of economics literature. Knowing and understanding economics requires both bookwork and mingling with other economists.

Viewing the subject as a collection of conversations, Klamer examines fundamental disagreements over the nature and purpose of the discipline, addressing how it is that a discipline that so permeates daily life is at once soft and scientific, powerful and ignored, noble and disdained and in a reader-friendly style without eschewing academic methodology demonstrates economics to be a living, breathing discipline rooted in the real world.

Whether you are a student, academician, journalist, practising economist or interested outsider, Speaking of Economics will get you interested in a conversation about economics. "

The field of economics proves to be a matter of metaphor and storytelling - its mathematics is metaphoric and its policy-making is narrative. Economists have begun to realize this and to rethink how they speak. This volume is the result of a conference held at Wellesley College, involving both theoretical and applied economists, that explored the consequences of the rhetoric and the conversation of the field of economics.

The field of economics proves to be a matter of metaphor and storytelling - its mathematics is metaphoric and its policy-making is narrative. Economists have begun to realize this and to rethink how they speak. This volume is the result of a conference held at Wellesley College, involving both theoretical and applied economists, that explored the consequences of the rhetoric and the conversation of the field of economics.

A collection of interviews with 11 of the nation's leading economic theorists providing an introduction to current issues in economic theory and to the ways in which economists think.