Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
And so must be every other economics on the planet.
He just posted the syllabus for his Economics 101b class for Fall 2003 and Problem Set 1 for the same class.
And the textbook for said class, by the man himself, costs $122.00.
I look over the syllabus and problem set, man, I see stuff like:
September 11 Section: Cover Kremer (1993) QJE: was an industrial revolution inevitable? Additional reading: Michael Kremer (1993), "Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990," Quarterly Journal of Economics 108:3 (Aug 1993), pp. 681-716
From One Million B.C.? That reminds me of the time I read the definitive number of elementary particles in the universe.
And the syllabus…well, if the math stays pretty close to the level required by Problem Set 1, then all I'd have to do is learn the terminology and definitions well enough to solve the kind of word problems we used to get in high school. Applied calculus was a long time ago. Still, if I let my eyes glaze over until he got to the part where he says "And so we have demonstrated…" then listened closely, I'd know more macroeconomics than ~97% of all policy makers.
Of course, right now I can't afford to spend $122 on a book that's not a necessity, even though it's on my Amazon wish list. I'm considering asking Mr. deLong for a reviewer's copy. If he sent it, that would be proof he's crazy.
Posted by P6 at August 25, 2003 09:45 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1428Michael Kremer's article is a very nice one--it points out that we can tell a surprisingly large amount about the character of innovation and the pattern of useful idea creation from just the long-run guesses we have on human populations.
I'll see if I have any more review copies anyplace...
Brad DeLong