A classic from my youth was Alice Cooper's "Schools Out" --- you know:
School's out for summer School's out forever School's been blown to pieces
No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks
Anyway, as college terms have ended it is time for students to really jump start their studies. If you are a high school student, read great novels this summer. Ayn Rand's books would be perfect, especially the great Atlas Shrugged. At some point you should also read your way through the classic works in literature for your own enjoyment, and not for grading and course credit. If you are older and in undergraduate school and hope to really educate yourself, get the course syllabus from St. Johns College in Annanpolis, MD and consider working your way through the Great Books.
Now if you are an undergraduate studying economics and have aspirations to becoming a professional economist make sure you get a healthy diet of mathematics on the one hand and history on the other. Read great historians, just like you read great novelists, to learn to write, and read mathematics and reason through problem sets in order to learn how to think clearly and rigorously. It is mistake to confuse formalism and rigor, but it is also a mistake to reject reading mathematically oriented work simply because you have doubts about injudicious applications. As Marshall argued mathematics can be an indispensible servant to serious thinking, but what it cannot become is the master. In the Austrian critique of mathematical economics it is this question of the master-servant relationship that is being raised, not a wholesale rejection of mathematics as a discipline. But in addition to reading math and history, if you have time read the great works in economics, learn the evolution of economic ideas, and read the great public policy debates and know the main positions. A good place to start is with Milton and Rose Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom and then Free to Choose.
If you are a graduate students in economics, read the journals and write. You write as you read, so pick the great writers in economics to read ---- starting with McCloskey's discussions on the writing of economics. Write economic analysis everyday --- 3 to 5 pages. Learn how to construct an argument, and understand how big is big. And also remember that the best economics is also joyful economics. Steve Levitt, for example, obviously enjoys tremendously thinking like an economist. I had Kenneth Boulding as one of my teachers and I must say that he combined a sheer joy of ideas with a passion for the task of learning that was absoultely amazing and downright inspiring. Read thinkers like that and stay away from those that labor with their words, and produce boring work. My favorite writers in economics are: Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, Axel Leijonhufvud, Ronald Coase, Mancur Olson, and Murray Rothbard. My favorite thinkers in economics are Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Israel Kirzner, and James Buchanan so the two groups are not perfectly interchangable. But there is no doubt a connection. The bottom line --- read to learn to write, and then write daily to refine your craft, and then share with others completely so you can get the critical feedback you need.
If you are a professor, use the summer to read all the things you are not able to digest during the academic year due to other obligations. Read popular treatments of policy issues, and historical works. I like biographies --- both of people --- e.g., Richard Parker's biography on John Kenneth Galbraith --- and of ideas --- e.g., David Warsh's Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations. Enjoy the time away from preparing lectures and pursue your passions. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was that the trick to academic life was to pursue your passions, allow your heart to dictate your interests, but learn to analyze your passions with your head.
Just remember 'schools out for the summer'.
Modesty forbids Prof. Boettke from suggesting his own co-authored book, The Economic Way of Thinking, which embodies a delightful marriage of deep ideas and crystal clear writing. For undergrads, I recommend it ahead of almost everything else, even the worthy Friedman works that he lists above.
Posted by: Curt | June 02, 2006 at 11:16 AM
No more English, no more French!
No more sitting on a hard board bench!
Anon
Posted by: Rafe Champion | June 02, 2006 at 07:59 PM
You recommended undergraduates reading mathematics texts. Anything in particular? If Marshall, what texts?
Posted by: Jake | June 03, 2006 at 03:34 PM
Jake asks what mathematical texts. It depends on what you want to learn and how to read through mathematical reasoning. I find biographies of people and ideas fasinating, so I enjoy tremendously works like Morris Kline's Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty . If you would like to learn about game theory, for example, I really like the following order of progression --- Nalbeuf and Dixit, Thinking Strategically, Poundstone, Prisoners' Dilemma, and then Gibons, Game Theory for Applied Economists. That would be the general pattern I find useful for that way I learn --- a nice book talking about the usefulness of the concepts, then a nice summary of how the ideas came about historically, and then a work trying to show how to work with the concepts in a technically competent way.
You can do this with statistics as well. Against the Gods by Peter Bernstein is a great read on the history of probability theory and its practical relevance. Follow that up with other works about the development of probabiity and statistics and then look at Peter Kennedy's book A Guide to Econometrics.
I don't recommend that everyone learn this way, but it is the way that I learn.
As for just pure preparation for graduate study as opposed to exploring the adventure of the evolution of ideas and concept, the Schaum's outline series is probably the best place to start ... but be prepared there is nothing adventurist in these book, just straightforward learning of the technique without any attempt to sell you on the power of the techniques to understand the world.
With regard to your quesiton on Marshall --- he advice on mathematical economics was in a letter he wrote. There is no better introduction to Marshall than his principles book however. Good luck with your studies.
Posted by: Peter Boettke | June 06, 2006 at 01:56 PM