Economic Ideas You Should Forget

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Capitalism

   • Daron Acemoglu

   Pages 1-3

3. Sola Protestantism in Economics

   • Rüdiger Bachmann

   Pages 5-7

4. Economics Has Nothing to Do with Religion

   • Sascha O. Becker

   Pages 9-10

5. More Choice Is Always Better

   • Christine Benesch

   Pages 11-12

6. People Are Outcome Oriented

   • Matthias Benz

   Pages 13-14

7. Deriving People’s Trade Policy Preferences from Macroeconomic Trade Theory

   • Thomas Bernauer

   Pages 15-16

8. Size (of Government) Doesn’t Matter

   • Tim Besley

   Pages 17-19

9. Bayesianism

   • Ken Binmore

   Pages 21-22

10. The Return on Equity

    • Urs Birchler

    Pages 23-25

11. Peak Oil Theory

    • Charles B. Blankart

    Pages 27-28

12. More Choice Is Always Better

    • Alan S. Blinder

    Pages 29-30

13. (Un)Productive Labor

    • Monika Bütler

    Pages 31-32

14. Volatility Is Risk

    • Peter Cauwels

    Pages 33-34

15. Robots Will Take All Our Jobs

    • Reto Cueni

    Pages 35-36

16. Economic Growth Increases People’s Well-Being

    • Richard A. Easterlin

    Pages 37-38

17. Big Data Predictions Devoid of Theory

    • Thomas Ehrmann

    Pages 39-41

18. Government Debts Are a Burden on Future Generations

    • Reiner Eichenberger

    Pages 43-44

19. Public Spending Reduces Unemployment

    • Lars P. Feld

    Pages 45-46

20. The Capital Asset Pricing Model

    • Pablo Fernandez

    Pages 47-49

Reporting on cutting-edge advances in economics, this book presents a selection of commentaries that reveal the weaknesses of several core economics concepts. Economics is a vigorous and progressive science, which does not lose its force when particular parts of its theory are empirically invalidated; instead, they contribute to the accumulation of knowledge.


By discussing problematic theoretical assumptions and drawing on the latest empirical research, the authors question specific hypotheses and reject major economic ideas from the “Coase Theorem” to “Say’s Law” and “Bayesianism.” Many of these ideas remain prominent among politicians, economists and the general public. Yet, in the light of the financial crisis, they have lost both their relevance and supporting empirical evidence.


This fascinating and thought-provoking collection of 71 short essays written by respected economists and social scientists from all over the world will appeal to anyone interested in scientific progress and the further development of economics.

• Bayesianism
• Coase Theorem
• Economic Ideas
• Economic theories
• History of economic thought
• Karl Popper
• Progress in Economics
• Say's Law
• Scientific Progress

“The result was a potpourri of short essays that span economic science and economic policy.” (David Colander, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 55 (3), September, 2017)

• University of Basel CREMA, Zurich, Switzerland

  Bruno S. Frey

• KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

  David Iselin

Bruno S. Frey is Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Basel. He was Professor of Economics at the University of Zurich from 1977-2012, Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Science at the Warwick Business School, UK from 2010-2013 and Senior Professor of Economics at Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany from 2013-2015. Frey is Research Director of CREMA – Centre for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Switzerland and Co-Founder of CREW - Centre for Research in Economics and Well-being at the University of Basel. He was Managing Editor, from 1969-2015, and is now Honorary Editor of Kyklos. Bruno Frey seeks to extend economics beyond the standard neo-classics by including insights from other disciplines, including political science, psychology and sociology.


David Iselin is an economist and member of the corporate communications team at KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich. He is editor of Ökonomenstimme, a policy platform for German-speaking economists. In November 2016, he finished his PhD at ETH Zurich, in which he analyses the relationship between news and the economy. As a freelance journalist, he is a regular contributor for the Swiss weekly DAS MAGAZIN, among others.