Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities

Description

A provocative and inspiring case for a more humanistic economics Economists often act as if their methods explain all human behavior. But in Cents and Sensibility, an eminent literary critic and a leading economist make the case that the humanities, especially the study of literature, offer economists ways to make their models more realistic, thei

Gary Saul Morson is the Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities and professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Northwestern University. His many books include Narrative and Freedom, "Anna Karenina" in Our Time, and The Words of Others: From Quotations to Culture. Morton Schapiro is the president of Northwestern University and a professor of economics. His many books include The Student Aid Game (Princeton). Morson and Schapiro are also the editors of The Fabulous Future?: America and the World in 2040.

"Focusing mostly on integrating exposure to great realist novels (such as Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, and War and Peace) into economics education, the authors use three case studies on, respectively, higher education, the family, and the economic development of nations to make an insightful and compelling argument. Morson and Schapiro succeed in finding new ways of thinking about big issues as well as new ways to read classic novels... The case studies read like popular nonfiction. There's immense joy to be found throughout this work on thinking with creativity and passion."--Publishers Weekly