Economics and Literature

A Novel Approach
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-87765-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Economics and fiction often pursue parallel objectives. Economists analyse human decisions and interactions in markets and other institutions. Fiction writers also provide keen insights into individual minds and motives, examining how their characters respond to conflict and tensions in varied situations. This book explores the insights to be gained from developing this parallel.

In each chapter, economists discuss classic or contemporary literary creations exploring economic incentives that motivate the characters, the economic mechanisms that tie them together, and/or the economic context in which they live and develop. Exploring the synergy across economics and literature offers new understandings of themes including capitalism and colonialism, marriage and markets, gender norms, inheritance and estates, and the political economy of poverty. The broad and deep range of literary works includes writers from Shakespeare and Goethe, through Chekov and Steinbeck, to recent Nobelists Abdulrazak Gurnah and Han Kang. By offering new understandings of both economics and literature, readers will gain deeper insights into people’s thought processes, choices, and consequences.

This book will captivate readers in economics, social sciences and the humanities and open their minds to the viewing of economic ideas and concepts through the prism of great works of literature.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dixit, Avinash K

Bourguignon, François

Bourguignon, Francois

Platteau, Jean-Philippe

Leruth, Luc

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftstheorie, Wirtschaftsphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Editors’ Introduction  Part I: Development and structural transformation of society and economy 1             A Bengali Novel on Economic Transition in History 2         Tradition and Modernity in Subsaharan Africa: Insights from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart 3      The Art of Conquering Without Being Right: Agency, Education, and Learning by Doing in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s “Ambiguous Adventure”. 4          On Capitalism and Colonialism: The Economic Imperatives Underlying Amitav Ghosh’s “Sea of Poppies” 5    The Lone Scream in the Dark: Cultural Change and Institutional Transformation in Modern China as seen through Lu Xun’s Novel  6                Zola's Ladies’ Paradise and Creative Destruction 7             Women in a nervous breakdown: Intra household bargaining and gender norms in South Korea Part II: Market operation and dysfunction8        Only the Housing Problem Has Corrupted Them 9             Can Machines Replace Us? 10             Abdulrazak Gurnah and Contract-Enforcement Institutions in His Novel By the Sea 11            Marriage and Markets: Lessons from Pride and Prejudice Part III: Limits of the Homo Economicus model 12             The Esterházy Myth: How Economics and Literature Correct Mistakes 13     The Nostalgia for Missed Opportunities  14               The Financial Expert of Malgudi 15           Estates, Inheritance and Gifts: Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth 16   The Inheritance Mess: Père Goriot and King Lear Offer Us a Mirror 17           The Master, the Helicopter, and Margarita 18      Money in the Faustian pact Part IV: Rent-seeking, corruption and bad political governance 19              How Steinbeck Speaks to Institutions in Economics 20        The Economics of Innocence: Imbolo Mbue’s “How Beautiful We Were”  21    Frank Herbert’s Dune

Über Autor(innen)

François Bourguignon is Professor Emeritus at the Paris School of Economics.

Avinash Dixit is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Princeton University.

Luc Leruth is a Research Associate at the University of Clermont Auvergne.

Jean-Philippe Platteau is Emeritus Professor at the University of Namur where he belongs to the Department of Economics.