Favorite Things 2000s

|Peter Boettke|

There are tons of lists produced at the end of the year and especially at the start of a new decade. So here are mine for whatever they are worth ...

Favorite Things in the 2000s

Economists --- Andrei Shleifer. While I disagree with different aspects of his arguments, I think there is no other economists over the past 2 decades that has made me think more seriously about my own research in comparative political economy than Shleifer.  The other nominees would be Vernon Smith (a true life-longer learner whose idea of ecological rationality is among the most significant ideas in contemporary economics), Bob Higgs (and his idea of regime uncertainty) and Avner Greif (and his development of institutional analysis).  In the 1990s, joining Shleifer would have been rational choice scholars such as Jon Elster, Russ Hardin, and Barry Weingast.

Books -- tie between Chris Coyne's After War, and Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook, with honorable mention going to Bill Easterly (both The Elusive Quest, and The White Man's Burden) and Deirdre McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues.

Sports Moment --- GMU defeat of UConn to make the NCAA Final Four, followed by Yankees winning World Series in 2009.  Honorable Mention: Roger Federer's performances at Wimbledon throughout the decade, and the 2002 UConn women's basketball team led by Sue Bird (undefeated national championship season). 

Best Movie --- Lord of the Rings trilogy, with sentimental honorable mention to Juno, Superbad (I know, but I laugh at those movies), and Stranger than Fiction (I love the scene where Will Ferrell covers Whole Wide World)

Comments

[Barkley Rosser]

But the "2000s" still have 90 years to go or so. Guess you are punting on that nettlesome question of what to call this passing decade, :-).
(Aughties? Noughties? or just plain Naughties?)

[Steve Horwitz]

I'll chime in:

Best economist: I'm gonna go with Bob Higgs. He's been terrific about every level of the recession not to mention almost every other issue of the expanding state. Theory, empirics, political economy, the whole package.

Best book: (tie) McCloskey's *Bourgeois Virtues* and Paul Seabright's *In the Company of Strangers*. Two books I wish I'd written.

Sports: It's been a great decade for this Detroiter, with one NBA championship, one AL pennant, and two Stanley Cups. I'll take the 2002 Red Wings, who were a mighty juggernaut of a team and were just an utter joy to watch play every night, with a combination of skill and passion that every sport should have. And winning that one at home makes it extra special.

The best single sports moment though was Ordonez's homerun to win the AL pennant in 2006. Deep down inside every man (even one with my passion for hockey) is a little boy who played baseball and pretended to do just what Magglio did, and to do it at home for a city that needs every such moment it can get freezes that one for a lifetime.

Movies: I'm not enough of a movie freak to render a sensible opinion here, but I will say that no movie hit me emotionally as much as "Up" did.

Music: This one is easy. Seeing Rush opening night on the 2002 tour in Hartford after really believing they'd never write or perform again after taking 5 years off after Neil Peart lost his daughter and wife within 9 months of each other in 97-98. That night was all about overcoming tragedy, about three guys who are closer than brothers and who make magic music together, and about 14,000 fans who were happy beyond belief to have them back in our lives again.

Best rock band you've never heard of: still The Tragically Hip. And Best Hard Rock CD you've never heard: "In Absentia" by Porcupine Tree.

[Charles K. Rowley]

Regarding your choices of Andrei Shleifer and Avner Greif as two of three 'best economists' of the noughties, well at least it is the naughties! I guess that I should respond with the words of Renault in Casablanca: 'I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!'

[Peter Boettke]

Least Favorite Things of the first decade of the 2000s

Economist --- Paul Krugman, though in the first decade of the 2000s I'd have to put that as "economist".

Day -- September 11, 20001.

Debate -- Bush v Gore election (recount)

Month -- September 2008

Decade -- 2000-2009

As Frank Knight said during his Presidental Address to the AEA --- gentleman it is time we grab the bull by the tail and look the situation square in the face.

At least Knight also reminded us that to say a situation is hopeless is to say it is ideal. So hope and change are always a possibility in the affairs of men.

[liberty]

They freely call them the Naughties in the UK.

[Barkley Rosser]

Oh, I can't resist, :-). Pete's original invocation of the "2000s" (I know, now he is being careful and saying "first decade of," but I have to have my fun, :-)) actually implied an entire millennium, not just a century. So, he was making claims about the next 990 years!!!

On that one, while the expert on corruption who learned it first hand is certainly a very bright fellow with many interesting ideas, I seriously doubt he will be remembered 990 years from now as the "greatest of the 2000s."

[Peter Boettke]

Barkley,

I hope the medical innovations that we will experience from the health care reforms will enable us to be around to see if your prediction comes true :). As of right now, we shouldn't forget that Shleifer by all measures is the single most cited contemporary economist and the author of more than half of the most influential articles written in the last decade.

BTW, here is a lecture by Shleifer on the future of capitalism --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0BcqGaC6lI

I don't agree with his call for right regulation. So my assessment is not an ideological purity assessment. It is that he makes us think and that is I am sure why his work has had such an impact. Even where I disagree with him, I have to think hard about the arguments he is giving.

Here is a Shleifer story you might find entertaining. A few years ago we were both involved in a conference at the LSE assessing the contributions of PT Bauer. Anne Kruger concluded her paper by arguing that what we can all agree on is that what we want from government with respect to the economy is "reasonable regulation not capturable by interest groups." I raised by hand and said, "Yes, but what if that is a null set." Shlefier interjected laughing "Why are you unreasonable?"

Similarly, if you look at an early draft of my paper with Stringham entitled "Czech Your Premises", we adopted Shleifer's framework from Coase and the Coaseans, but argued he got the empirical state of affairs wrong. Unfortunately, we couldn't get that paper through the referees at the QJE.

So he doesn't make my list because I agree with him on everything, he makes the list because his work in political economy puts the questions that must be addressed on the table and he is brilliant in the way he addresses them.

[Barkley Rosser]

Pete,

I fully agree that he is a very innovative and influential economist. I will only warn that there are many out there who have been disturbed to discover that when they submit their papers to a rather wide array of journals, they find themselves under pressure to cite a certain individual. So, I would be a bit careful about those citation rates.

There is a lot more, but I am not going to put such stuff up on a blog, especially one run by a big fan of his, and certainly not on New Year's Eve on a thread where I have been mostly being humorous...

About time to party on, :-).

[PCLE]

Sports moment of the decade is of course England winning the Ashes against Australia in 2005.
It is America's tragedy not to have kept cricket in its culture. One feels so sorry for them, rather like the uneducated masses not having the cultural capital to appreciate Mozart.

Congrats on the new name for the blog. Jettisoning the charged "austrian" moniker is a great leap forward.