Somehow, things haven’t slowed down since the end of term but I’ve been anticipating the holidays with some lighter than normal reading. Along with some detective novels, I read Hernan Diaz’ excellent Trust – apparently being made into a Netflix series which will be interesting as it has an Instance of the Fingerpost structure – about the making of gilded age money and what it does to people; and Georgi Gospodinov’s intriguing Time Shelter. They were both supposed to be saved for holiday reading but needs must.

Still, alongside this fare, I also read Making Economics Public: The Hows and Whys of Communicating Markets and Models, edited by two science communication experts, Vicki Macknight and Fabian Medvecky. Their introduction opens with the paradox that economics is very influential – often dominating the news and policy decisions – and yet there is a chasm in understanding and language between professional economists and the public. Concepts familiar and fundamental in economics (such as tax incidence, or the difference between household and government budgets, or why a central bank sees raising interest rates as key to bringing down the rate at which food prices are increasing) are not widely understood. Often not even by the expert journalists supposedly communicating the technicalities to the public.

I’ve long believed this chasm is ultimately an existential risk to economics: nobody gets to retain such influence without public legitimacy. It’s also a concern that some economists see the problem as a need to explain what ‘we’ think more clearly so the slow-of-understanding finally get what ‘we’ mean. As all good science communicators know, communication is a two-way process, done with the ears as well as the mouth. So this slim volume of essays is very welcome.

The book has three sections – why, how, and what are the challenges – and a final essay on economic rhetoric and freedom by Deirdre McCloskey. I needed no persuading on the first of these. The ‘how’ section has some nice chapters, including one on teaching by Chris Colvin (don’t swamp the students with maths) and one on media and communication by Romesh Vaitilingam. There’s a nice chapter by Carlo Martini in the challenges section about teaching students to recognise ‘pseudo-expertise’ of which there is plenty in economic discussions – only look at Twitter any day. (It isn’t always easy.)  All the essays are worthwhile, though, and it’s a slender book. Pricy, per page, though: one to get from the library.

Leonid Hurwicz: Intelligent Designer is a very enjoyable biography of one of the winners of the economics Nobel for his work on mechanism design (along with Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson). It’s written by his son Michael Hurwicz, and is therefore a genuine labour of love. It’s clear a lot of work has gone into assembling and recounting this tale of an extraordinary life, from his birth to Polish Jewish refugee parents in revolutionary Russia in 1917, via a childhood in Warsaw after the first World War, through being a near-penniless refugee away from his family during the second World War, to his academic career in the US, mostly at the University of Minnesota. His parents and brother survived the war (albeit his father ending up in a Soviet gulag for some time) and also moved to the US.

The book has very little of the economics, and is interesting as biographies generally are for tracing the intellectual history of their subject. Hurwicz’s family put much emphasis on their sons’ education – as the author writes, “Over the centuries, education had functioned as a uniquely portable form of wealth,” for people whose ancestors had often been forced to move. Hurwicz had been taught by or worked for people ranging from Hayek to Samuelson, Oskar Lange to (at the Cowles Commission) Jacob Marschak. He also sounds a delightful person. One of his characteristics – a love of learning many languages – reminded me of my beloved late tutor Peter Sinclair.

I read the book in two sittings. One reflection it prompted was on the unanticipated consequences of total war: their shaping of the character and ideas of a generation of great postwar economists – as the book’s second subtitle puts it, “How War and the Great Depression Inspired a Nobel Economist”; and on the huge stock of human wisdom the US gained by opening its borders, albeit with reluctance, to European refugees.

I’m late to writing about How to Be a Successful Economist by Vicky Pryce, Andy Ross, Alvin Birdi and Ian Harwood (in the order of the names on the cover). Three things dispose me kindly toward the book before even reading it. First, it’s dedicated to my much-loved, late undergraduate tutor in economics, Peter Sinclair. He’s the reason I’m where I am now. He was dedicated to the formation of future generations of economists and the potential of economics to do good in the world. Second and third, the authors interviewed me, among many others, in their research, and also cite many of the essays in an early book I edited, What’s The Use of Economics.

Having got the disclaimer done, this book, authored by distinguished academics and practitioners, is packed with useful tips and insights (including from the many interviewees)  for anybody from GCSE stage to those just graduating about why they might choose to study economics, the pros and cons, the evolution and limitations of how it’s taught; what jobs are open to economists, what specific and general skills are needed, how to communicate well, and why it matters – and much more. There is also a chapter reflecting on the many critiques of economics and why heterodox approaches are interesting and valuable.

So if you are, or know, a student (in the UK) pondering whether economics is the right thing to do, or having made that choice what they might do next, this is a thoughtful and incredibly useful book.