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Taking Economics Seriously
Dean Baker
The MIT Press
May 2010
On Sale: April 30, 2010
136 pages
ISBN: 0262014181
EAN: 9780262014182
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
There is nothing wrong with economics, Dean Baker contends,
but economists routinely ignore their own principles when it
comes to economic policy. What would policy look like if we
took basic principles of mainstream economics seriously and
applied them consistently? In the debate over
regulation, for example, Baker—one of the few economists who
predicted the meltdown of fall 2008—points out that
ideological blinders have obscured the fact there is no
"free market" to protect. Modern markets are highly
regulated, although intrusive regulations such as copyright
and patents are rarely viewed as regulatory devices. If we
admit the extent to which the economy is and will be
regulated, we have many more options in designing policy and
deciding who benefits from it. On health care reform, Baker
complains that economists ignore another basic idea:
marginal cost pricing. Unlike all other industries, medical
services are priced extraordinarily high, far above the cost
of production, yet that discrepancy is rarely addressed in
the debate about health care reform. What if we applied
marginal cost pricing—making doctors' wages competitive and
charging less for prescription drugs and tests such as
MRIs? Taking Economics Seriously offers an
alternative Econ 101. It introduces economic principles and
thinks through what we might gain if we free ourselves from
ideological blinders and get back to basics in the most
troubled parts of our economy.
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