Review of “From Political Economy to Economics: Method, the Social and Historical Evolution of Economic Theory”

Review of Milonakis and Fine

This conclusion captures the tone of their critique. They believe that the best approach is
to be found in a political economy that is broad-based and interdisciplinary. In their view,
modern economic analysis has become hopelessly formalized, so the future of political
economy lies in interdisciplinary work that somehow will emerge.

The second volume, From Economics Imperialism to Freakonomics: The Shifting
Boundaries between Economic and other Social Sciences, takes up a particular sub area
of the first book—the shifting boundaries between economics and the other social
sciences. This sub area is related to their overall theme that the future of political
economy is to be found in interdisciplinary work. The book consists of ten chapters that
consider work involving what they call economic imperialism. This includes the rational
agent work of Becker, the public choice of Buchanan and Tullock, the information
theoretical approach of Akerlof and Stiglitz, as well as the new institutional economics.
They also discuss the work of Coase and Levitt. These discussions, like the discussions in
the first book, read a bit like reading edited notes written by scholars while reading the
vast literature. The authors recognize this and in the preface they tell the reader that the
analysis is partial and incomplete; they appropriately describe it as “a staging post in
what is a continuing programme of work.”

The “staging-post” nature of the book can be seen in their discussion of
Freakonomics. Since they included the term in the title, I had expected the topic to be
central to the discussion of the book. It isn’t. Their discussion of Freakonomics consists
of two and a half pages starting with the Wikipedia entry for Freakonomics, and then
saying that the truth about Freakonomics is more complicated. They write, “there is
apparent distance between Freakonomics and economics imperialism although, not

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