The year has flown past, and it’s time to announce the list of contenders for the Enlightened Economist Prize this year. Last year’s winner was Jeremy Adelman’s biography of Albert Hirschman, The Worldly Philosopher. A reminder of the rules: this is my personal choice among the books I happened to read in the past 12 months, no matter when they were published. The prize is that I offer to take the winner out to dinner should we find ourselves in the same city.

With that, here is this year’s shortlist.

[amazon_link id=”0262019388″ target=”_blank” ]Made in the USA: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing[/amazon_link] Vaclav Smil (review)

[amazon_link id=”1846682436″ target=”_blank” ]How Asia Works[/amazon_link] Joe Studwell (review) [amazon_image id=”1846682436″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]How Asia Works: Success and Failure in the World’s Most Dynamic Region[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0691148686″ target=”_blank” ]The Confidence Trap[/amazon_link] David Runciman

[amazon_link id=”1780744056″ target=”_blank” ]The Blunders of Our Governments[/amazon_link] Anthony King & Ivor Crewe [amazon_image id=”1780744056″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Blunders of Our Governments[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0393239357″ target=”_blank” ]The Second Machine Age[/amazon_link] Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee (review)

[amazon_link id=”0571251293″ target=”_blank” ]The Unwinding[/amazon_link] George Packer (review) [amazon_image id=”0571251293″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Unwinding: Thirty Years of American Decline[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0691162549″ target=”_blank” ]The Son Also Rises[/amazon_link] Gregory Clark (review)

[amazon_link id=”067443000X” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the 21st Century[/amazon_link] Thomas Piketty (review)

[amazon_link id=”1594203288″ target=”_blank” ]The Idea Factory [/amazon_link]Jon Gertner (review) [amazon_image id=”1594203288″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0691152098″ target=”_blank” ]Complexity and the Art of Public Policy[/amazon_link] David Colander and Roland Kupers (review)

[amazon_link id=”1846272998″ target=”_blank” ]Deep Sea, Foreign Going[/amazon_link] Rose George (review) [amazon_image id=”1846272998″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% of Everything[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0691156646″ target=”_blank” ]Finding Equilibrium[/amazon_link] Till Duppe and Roy Weintraub (review) [amazon_image id=”0691156646″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Finding Equilibrium: Arrow, Debreu, McKenzie and the Problem of Scientific Credit[/amazon_image]

The winner will be announced in a couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I posted the shortlist for the Enlightened Economist prize this year. The time has come to announce the winner – with the reminder that the rules are wholly idiosyncratic: the candidates are books I happen to have read this year, regardless of publication date; the choice is entirely down to me; and the prize (apart from the honour) is that I will take the author for a fine dinner should we find ourselves in the same city.

It has been a tough choice. In fact, so close that I want to announce two runners-up as well. They are [amazon_link id=”0691156840″ target=”_blank” ]The Bankers’ New Clothes[/amazon_link] by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig and [amazon_link id=”0300197195″ target=”_blank” ]The Carbon Crunch[/amazon_link] by Dieter Helm.

[amazon_link id=”0691156840″ target=”_blank” ]The Bankers’ New Clothes[/amazon_link] makes a simple, powerful argument: that banks need to raise more capital. It is entirely persuasive that the extent of their leverage makes the financial system fragile, and it clearly and patiently demolishes all the counter-arguments made by the banks and their lobbyists. Why should banks, so central to the economy and in the business of risk, be allowed to get away with so much less capital versus debt than any other kind of business? Here is my original review.

[amazon_image id=”0691156840″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Bankers’ New Clothes: Whats Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0300197195″ target=”_blank” ]The Carbon Crunch[/amazon_link] is a wonderfully clear-eyed assessment of energy policy in the light of climate change, and in its respect for facts over myths could annoy environmentalists and climate change sceptics equally. It is a model of how applied economics should engage with policy questions, with recommendations that lie in the realm of everyday politics. It is also extremely well-written – everybody should at least read the chapter on wind power. My review here.

[amazon_image id=”0300197195″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Carbon Crunch: How We’re Getting Climate Change Wrong – and How to Fix it[/amazon_image]

However, the winner is Jeremy Adelman’s [amazon_link id=”0691155674″ target=”_blank” ]The Worldly Philosopher[/amazon_link], a biography of Albert Hirschman. Hirschman’s life story is extraordinary, and his early years make for a gripping tale. What I particularly enjoyed, though, was the portrait of an economist whose economics had a context in the realities of the countries Hirschman studied, their history and politics and culture, and in his wide reading in philosophy and other subjects. As I noted in my review and an FT Alphachat podcast discussion with Tyler Cowen, Hirschman was out of touch with the direction economics took during his lifetime, but the subject is now turning away from abstraction and back (I think and hope) towards its roots as ‘worldly philosophy’.

[amazon_image id=”0691155674″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman[/amazon_image]

A worthy winner – congratulations to Professor Adelman!

It is a year since I announced the winner of the inaugural Enlightened Economist Book Prize – it was Ariel Rubinstein’s [amazon_link id=”1906924775″ target=”_blank” ]Economic Fables[/amazon_link]. A little late this year, here is this year’s shortlist.

A reminder of the rules. This prize is wholly idiosyncratic. The entrants are books I happen to have read since the last prize – date of publication, format etc are irrelevant. They are suitable for the general reader as well as the professional economist. The choice of winner is entirely mine, although I’m always interested in other people’s opinions. The prize is the kudos, although I also offer a nice dinner to the winner, should he or she want to take it up.

Just recently I discussed some of the best books of the year with Tyler Cowen and Cardiff Garcia on the FT Alphaville podcast, so there is a small overlap (the first three titles here) with that discussion in my list.

The first time through my notes, I came up with shortlist of 28, which isn’t all that short. So I brutally struck out all the non-economics books, including some terrific histories, such as [amazon_link id=”0713998687″ target=”_blank” ]Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe[/amazon_link] by Anne Applebaum and [amazon_link id=”075381983X” target=”_blank” ]Building Jerusalem[/amazon_link] by Tristram Hunt, and technology books like [amazon_link id=”014101590X” target=”_blank” ]Turing’s Cathedral[/amazon_link] by George Dyson and [amazon_link id=”0262018624″ target=”_blank” ]Robot Futures[/amazon_link] by Illah Reza Nourbaksh.

So here is the final shortlist.

[amazon_link id=”0691155674″ target=”_blank” ]Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O Hirschman[/amazon_link] by Jeremy Adelman

[amazon_link id=”B00BIOFLWE” target=”_blank” ]America’s Assembly Line[/amazon_link] by David Nye

[amazon_image id=”B00BIOFLWE” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]America’s Assembly Line[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0262019132″ target=”_blank” ]Giving Kids a Fair Chance[/amazon_link] by James Heckman

[amazon_link id=”0525953736″ target=”_blank” ]Average is Over[/amazon_link] by Tyler Cowen

[amazon_link id=”1408704242″ target=”_blank” ]The Undercover Economist Strikes Back[/amazon_link] by Tim Harford

[amazon_link id=”0300197195″ target=”_blank” ]The Carbon Crunch[/amazon_link] by Dieter Helm

[amazon_image id=”0300197195″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Carbon Crunch: How We’re Getting Climate Change Wrong – and How to Fix it[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0691158681″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict and the Perilous Road ahead for the World Economy[/amazon_link] by Michael Pettis

[amazon_link id=”0691156840″ target=”_blank” ]The Bankers New Clothes[/amazon_link] by Anat Admati & Martin Hellwig

[amazon_link id=”B00BBJCUUW” target=”_blank” ]Shooting Star[/amazon_link] by Karl Sabbagh

[amazon_image id=”B00BBJCUUW” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Shooting Star (Kindle Single)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_link id=”0300190522″ target=”_blank” ]When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence[/amazon_link] by Stephen King

[amazon_link id=”0691149097″ target=”_blank” ]The Battle of Bretton Woods[/amazon_link] by Benn Steil

[amazon_link id=”0141975652″ target=”_blank” ]The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction[/amazon_link] by Nate Silver

[amazon_image id=”0141975652″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction[/amazon_image]

I will announce my winner in a couple of weeks.

The announcement of the shortlist for the FT’s Business Book of the Year is always interesting – tellingly, the article about it in yesterday’s paper had the headline A reading list to reflect loss of faith in capitalism. As ever, I’ve read some, but not all, of the titles, so it adds some interesting new ones to my reading list. Of the shortlist, I’ve reviewed Why Nations Fail, Paper Promises and What Money Can’t Buy.

I’ve gone back through the months since January 2012 to pick out my own longish shortlist for The Enlightened Economist Prize (the criterion is that I happened to read them in the past 12 months, and my non-economics reading is excluded).

The list is:

[amazon_link id=”1612191819″ target=”_blank” ]Debt: The First 5000 Years[/amazon_link] David Graeber

[amazon_link id=”0674057759″ target=”_blank” ]Capitalist Revolutionary: John Maynard Keynes[/amazon_link] Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman

[amazon_link id=”0141033576″ target=”_blank” ]Thinking, Fast and Slow[/amazon_link] Daniel Kahneman

[amazon_link id=”0393077489″ target=”_blank” ]Keynes-Hayek: The Clash that Defined Modern Economics[/amazon_link] Nicholas Wapshott

[amazon_link id=”0306818833″ target=”_blank” ]The End of Money [/amazon_link]David Wolman

[amazon_link id=”0099541726″ target=”_blank” ]Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World[/amazon_link] Nicholas Shaxson

[amazon_link id=”1846684293″ target=”_blank” ]Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty[/amazon_link] Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson

[amazon_link id=”0199794642″ target=”_blank” ]Working Hard, Working Poor: A Global Journey[/amazon_link] Gary Fields

[amazon_link id=”0691147566″ target=”_blank” ]The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East[/amazon_link] Timur Kuran

[amazon_link id=”0300117779″ target=”_blank” ]The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalization and the End of Mass Production [/amazon_link]Peter Marsh

[amazon_link id=”1906924775″ target=”_blank” ]Economic Fables[/amazon_link] Ariel Rubinstein

[amazon_link id=”0571279201″ target=”_blank” ]Positive Linking: How Networks Can Revolutionise the World[/amazon_link] Paul Ormerod

[amazon_link id=”1847940978″ target=”_blank” ]Dark Pools: The rise of AI trading machines and the looming threat to Wall Street [/amazon_link]Scott Patterson

[amazon_link id=”0691155895″ target=”_blank” ]The Quest for Prosperity; How Developing Economies Can Take Off[/amazon_link] Justin Yifu Lin

The winner of The Enlightened Economist economics book of 2012 will also be announced in September. I can’t offer a cash prize but will be delighted to offer a nice dinner in London to the winning author(s).

The prize – dinner’s on me