February 4, 2022
“I want to understand the basics of economics. What should I read?”
That’s probably the question I get more than any other from students and curious people from all walks of life. I say “curious” because, to my mind, curiosity is the most important trait a person can have for learning economics.
What such a person is asking for is what I sometimes call “mere economics.” What are the basic principles that economists, through the generations, have believed and taught? A knowledge of economics—the science of tradeoffs—should include a grasp of choice, cost, specialization, exchange, property, prices, and profit & loss.
If someone had a spare half hour (or less) for thirty-one days—a month—here’s what I’d suggest they read:
1.
Hazlitt: “The Lesson”
2.
Greaves: “What is Economics?”
3.
4.
Shapiro: “How Can People Get By?”
5.
Bastiat: “Abundance and Scarcity”
7.
Bastiat: “The Broken Window”
8.
Read: “I, Pencil”
9.
Landsburg: “The Iowa Car Crop”
10.
Smith: “Of the Division of Labour”
12.
Alchian: “Property Rights”
13.
Harper: “Why Pay for Things?”
14.
Hazlitt: “How the Price System Works”
15.
Sennholz: “The Formation and Function of Prices”
16.
Taylor: “The Market and Market Prices”
17.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Shenoy: “The Sources of Monopoly”
23.
Hazlitt: “The Curse of Machinery”
24.
Bastiat: “A Petition”
25.
Yandle: “Bootleggers and Baptists”
26.
27.
Raico: “The European Miracle”
28.
29.
Shleifer: “The Age of Milton Friedman”
30.
31.
Heilbroner: “Socialism”