Wow, what an ungracious review. As someone who recently edited another 
volume in the Elgar Companion series, and received similar criticism about 
the choice of chapters and contributors, let me remind Art Diamond that a) 
not everyone invited to contribute a chapter accepts the invitation, b) some 
submitted chapters are unacceptable, and c) certain subjects don't have many 
qualified enthusiasts. For these and various other reasons, some topics fall 
through the cracks. The final product may differ considerably from the 
editor's ideal vision. Herding cats and all that. Sheesh.

Peter Klein
University of Missouri


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Humberto Barreto" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 7:17 PM
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SHOE] RVW -- Diamond on Emmett, ed., _The Elgar Companion to the 
Chicago School of Economics _

> ------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW ------
> Title: The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics
>
> Published by EH.NET (May 2011)
>
> Ross B. Emmett, editor, /The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of
> Economics/. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2010. xi + 350 pp. $200
> (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-84064-874-4
>
> Reviewed for EH.Net by Arthur M. Diamond, Jr., Department of Economics,
> University of Nebraska at Omaha.
>
> The Chicago School of economics has been described in a variety of ways. 
> In
> the current volume, a useful description is given in the essay of Bruce
> Kaufman who emphasizes “... a deep commitment to rigorous scholarship and
> open academic debate, an uncompromising belief in the usefulness and 
> insight
> of neoclassical price theory, and a normative position that favors and
> promotes economic liberalism and free markets”  (p. 133).
>
> The volume has been edited by Ross Emmett, a Michigan State historian of
> economic thought whose previous research has focused on early Chicago
> economist Frank Knight.  About two-thirds of the volume consists of 
> fifteen
> “Essays on the Chicago School” in Part 1.  The remaining third of the
> volume, in Part 2, consists of nineteen brief profiles of “Some Chicago
> Economists.”
>
> The only essay that attempts any kind of broad overview of the volume is
> Emmett’s four-page introduction.  His essay briefly establishes the
> historical context of the Chicago School and points us toward some of the
> earlier literature in the history of economic thought that discusses the
> Chicago School.  But it does not attempt to summarize the diverse messages
> of the essays of the volume, let alone try to synthesize these messages 
> into
> any overarching conclusions.
>
> Synthesis would have been difficult, if not impossible, because of the
> apparent absence of any consistent criteria for selection of the contents.
> This volume appears to be opportunistic in the sense that the contributors
> often were culled from those who attended conferences with the editor on 
> the
> Chicago School, and the editor has left the contributors considerable 
> leeway
> in the length, content and style of what they have contributed.  Emmett
> openly admits (p. 3) that some important topics have been left out of the
> “Essays” section of the volume.  But he does not identify the most
> glaring omission:  the contributions of George Stigler and his colleagues,
> such as Brozen, Demsetz and Peltzman, to industrial organization and the
> economics of regulation.
>
> Most of the essays adopt a neutral, expository stance, reporting the main
> research contributions of various Chicago scholars on various topics. 
> Some
> of these essays are written by scholars with some connection to the 
> Chicago
> School, and some simply by scholars with an interest in the history of
> economic thought.  Among the expository essays, economic historians will
> especially appreciate David Mitch’s chronicle of Chicago’s contributions
> to economic history, with some discussion of Earl Hamilton, and special
> attention to Fogel and McCloskey; and Hugh Rockoff’s extensive account of
> the genesis and findings of Friedman and Schwartz’s tour de force in /A
> Monetary History of the United States/.
>
> Some of the other expository essays are fairly detailed accounts of 
> aspects
> of the Chicago School, e.g., Daniel Hammond’s thorough account of Friedman
> and Stigler’s development of Chicago price theory; and Daniel Benjamin’s
> account of the three most important papers by Armen Alchian. Others paint
> with a broader brush, but provide useful overviews of their topics, e.g.,
> Steven Medema’s account of the development of Chicago law and economics; 
> H.
> Spencer Banzhaf’s account of the development of Chicago welfare economics;
> and Gordon Brady’s account of the Chicago School “roots” of the
> Virginia School that was James Buchanan’s early intellectual home.
>
> Parts of Eric Schliesser’s essay are less expository and more tendentious
> -- implying that Milton Friedman was indirectly responsible for the worst
> that Pinochet did in Chile.  When Schliesser’s essay was earlier presented
> to the American Economic Association, Deirdre McCloskey powerfully and
> persuasively defended Friedman.  Part of McCloskey’s defense was her
> report of a Chicago economics faculty meeting she attended, where Friedman
> had successfully argued for turning down funding that had been offered to 
> the
> department from a repressive regime.  But in this volume, Schliesser’s
> critique of Chicago is left unanswered.  The volume would have been better
> if it had included both sides.
>
> Nineteen economists are included in the profiles of the “Some Chicago
> Economists” part of the volume.  The basis for selecting the nineteen is
> not obvious.  If we limit ourselves to economists who fit Kaufman’s
> description of the Chicago School, then it is hard to understand the 
> absence
> of Nobel-Prize-winning Chicago economists Milton Friedman (yes, /Milton
> Friedman/ is absent), Robert Lucas, James Heckman, James Buchanan, Robert
> Mundell, Merton Miller and Robert Fogel.  And if we adopt a broader 
> concept
> of the Chicago School, as Emmett seems to do when he includes Paul Douglas
> among his nineteen, then it is also hard to understand the absence of
> Thorstein Veblen (an early editor of Chicago’s /Journal of Political
> Economy/), and F.A. Hayek.
>
> The profiles that are included often have useful information.  But much of
> importance is omitted, sometimes due to the brevity of the profiles, and
> sometimes due to the agendas of the profile authors. The four pages on 
> George
> Stigler, for instance, focus primarily on his biography, who he associated
> with, and a selection of his political views; but give scant attention to 
> his
> wit, his erudition, and his contributions to research, especially in the 
> area
> of the history of economic thought.  And to make matters worse, the
> bibliography to the profile neglects to reference key works that do focus
> mainly on Stigler’s research.  (The Wikipedia entry on Stigler does a
> better job.)
>
> But on the other hand, it was good to see Evelyn Forget’s profile of
> Margaret Reid included in “Some Chicago Economists.”  When I was a
> graduate student at Chicago, Reid had been long retired, but she still
> regularly attended Becker’s workshop, and still pursued her research.  In
> those days, graduate students would spend long hours at the computer 
> center
> with their decks of IBM punch cards, to wait their turn to run their
> regressions on the mainframe.  And it did not entirely escape our 
> attention
> that Margaret Reid was there too, with her deck of cards, waiting her 
> turn.
> Her presence and her persistence taught us something about the values of 
> the
> Chicago School --something that Klamer and Colander would later reconfirm 
> in
> their interviews with graduate students in /The Making of an Economist/. 
> At
> Chicago, economic research was not just some puzzle-solving game by which 
> you
> earned your living; not something you retired from; economics was a 
> calling
> that mattered.
>
> References:
>
> Friedman, Milton, and Anna Jacobson Schwartz. / A Monetary History of the
> United States, 1867-1960/, NBER Studies in Business Cycles.  Princeton:
> Princeton University Press, 1963.
>
> Klamer, Arjo, and David Colander. / The Making of an Economist/.  Boulder,
> CO: Westview Press, 1990.
>
> Arthur M. Diamond Jr. received three graduate degrees from the University 
> of
> Chicago, and was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in economics at the University. 
> He
> has recently published several papers related to Schumpeter’s process of
> creative destruction and is at work on a book entitled /Openness to 
> Creative
> Destruction/. [log in to unmask]
>
> Copyright (c) 2011 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied
> for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author 
> and
> the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator
> ([log in to unmask]). Published by EH.Net (May 2011). All EH.Net reviews
> are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
>
> Geographic Location: North America
> Subject: History of Economic Thought; Methodology
> Time: 20th Century: Pre WWII, 20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
>