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Economics textbook writer vs. Economics journalist

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moss

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Bringing your attention to an interesting conversation and discursive to and fro taking place between Gregory Mankiw and Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson about the need to tear out or not our economics textbooks. Find the to and fro here on Washington Post and here on Mankiw’s blog post titled ‘Not So Fast’. Author of the popular textbook ‘Principles of Macroeconomics’, wrote back stingingly saying that the days of textbooks are far from over. It makes for an interesting read. This stands out to me for multiple reasons:

 

1. The unprofessional and juvenile behaviour of writing about each other and not writing TO each other, which would be more grown up.

2. The interesting point raised about the obsoleteness of textbooks. I wonder if the time of textbooks is actually over?

3. The politics of fame as a writer. Does a Washington Post columnist tend to have a larger readership than a popular textbook author or is it the other way around? 

Thoughts?

 
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8 hours ago, moss said:

1. The unprofessional and juvenile behaviour of writing about each other and not writing TO each other, which would be more grown up.

Disagree. They are having an open debate.

8 hours ago, moss said:

2. The interesting point raised about the obsoleteness of textbooks. I wonder if the time of textbooks is actually over?

No, but some of them need to be re-conceived.

8 hours ago, moss said:

3. The politics of fame as a writer. Does a Washington Post columnist tend to have a larger readership than a popular textbook author or is it the other way around? 

It sounds like a popular textbook writer would, and he gets them while they're young and impressionable. 

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