Book Recommendations for Curious Economics Students
Read Time: 3 Minutes
Author: James Tierney
Introduction
When I used to teach at Penn State University, my aim each semester was to inspire students to continue exploring economics. If I accomplished that goal, I considered the semester a success.
One way I measured success was by the number of students who requested further readings. Each semester, a handful of students would ask for more information on the Fed, behavioral economics, or several other economic topics. They would ask me, “If I wanted to learn more about economics, what books would recommend?” and I would have to retype out an email each time. This post made it much more simple than sending the same email over and over again. Here are the top books to send economics students.
Over the years, I’ve added to a list of books I’ve read that I recommend. You can find many of the books below and more on Jadrian Wooten’s Top Popular Press Books for Economics Students. Along with his coauthor, Jared McEntaffer, Wooten reached out to faculty and “received responses from 117 different individuals who recommended 150+ books.” They then reported the top 10. His list is excellent, and I continually send out his link along with the other books mentioned below.
Fun Reads on Economics & Behavioral Economics
Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner
Super Freakonomics by Levitt & Dubner
More Sex is Safer Sex by Landsburg
The Armchair Economist by Landsburg
Predictably Irrational by Ariely
The Upside of Irrationality by Ariely
The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty by Ariely
Thinking Fast & Slow by Kahneman
Nudge by Thaler
Misbehaving by Thaler
Fed & Financial Crisis (My Favorites)
The Courage to Act by Bernanke
Stress Test by Geithner
The Big Short by Lewis
Current Economic Issues
New Geography of Jobs by Moretti
Diversity Explosion by Frey
Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade… by Clausing
An Economist Walks Into a Brothel by Schrager
History of Economics
Keynes Hayek by Wapshott
The Worldly Philosophers by Heilbroner
The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes by Carter
The above is just a small number of excellent books available to the curious economic student. If you have additional readings you think should be included, please let me know. I plan to continually update this article to reflect more recently published books in this space.
The links above are Amazon affiliate links. If you order through the links above, I will receive a very-small payout. These earnings go towards keeping my websites updated and current.
An alternate option is to order through BookShop.org and support your local bookstore.