<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: The life of the Doomslayer
Review: The world lost a very special person on February 8th, 1998. I remember hearing of his death the day after it happened and it was the first time I felt truly sad at the passing of someone I had never met. Julian Simon was an economist who studied a broad range of issues but he will most certainly be remembered for his breakthrough work in population economics, showing that population growth correlates with increases in human well being, not decreases. Simon turned doomsayers like Thomas Malthus on their heads and was dubbed the "doomslayer" in a Wired Magazine interview about a year before his death. Although Simon died well before publication, his wife, Rita, was able to put together this book, working from about 900 (!) pages of manuscript that Julian wrote before his death. Unfortunately, the book seems to suffer a bit from poor editing and typographical mistakes, but that's a minor nit. I'm not a fan of biographies in general, so much of the childhood years bored me, but the chapters on his career and research are fascinating and, alas, way too short. I couldn't help but get the feeling that there were mounds of interesting anecdotes on his career and research that were left out for space reasons. It's too bad; most people who would read it would be most interested in that part. Fortunately, unlike some other autobiographies written by economists, Simon does discuss how he evolved in his thinking over the years The book covers all the areas that Simon is well known for, including population studies, immigration, treatment of depression, advertising and the mail order business and, of course, Simon's brilliant idea for solving the problem of overbooked planes. This last item was a stroke of genius and Simon deserves a place of honor for that alone. The solution came to him in the mid-sixties, but it wasn't until 1978, when an economist was appointed head of the Civil Aeronautics Board that it was put into use. Simon was baffled as to why it took so long, but an obvious explanation never occurs to him: the airline industry was a heavily regulated, government-enforced cartel, so there was less of an incentive to innovate.
Rating:
Summary: The life of the Doomslayer
Review: The world lost a very special person on February 8th, 1998. I remember hearing of his death the day after it happened and it was the first time I felt truly sad at the passing of someone I had never met. Julian Simon was an economist who studied a broad range of issues but he will most certainly be remembered for his breakthrough work in population economics, showing that population growth correlates with increases in human well being, not decreases. Simon turned doomsayers like Thomas Malthus on their heads and was dubbed the "doomslayer" in a Wired Magazine interview about a year before his death. Although Simon died well before publication, his wife, Rita, was able to put together this book, working from about 900 (!) pages of manuscript that Julian wrote before his death. Unfortunately, the book seems to suffer a bit from poor editing and typographical mistakes, but that's a minor nit. I'm not a fan of biographies in general, so much of the childhood years bored me, but the chapters on his career and research are fascinating and, alas, way too short. I couldn't help but get the feeling that there were mounds of interesting anecdotes on his career and research that were left out for space reasons. It's too bad; most people who would read it would be most interested in that part. Fortunately, unlike some other autobiographies written by economists, Simon does discuss how he evolved in his thinking over the years The book covers all the areas that Simon is well known for, including population studies, immigration, treatment of depression, advertising and the mail order business and, of course, Simon's brilliant idea for solving the problem of overbooked planes. This last item was a stroke of genius and Simon deserves a place of honor for that alone. The solution came to him in the mid-sixties, but it wasn't until 1978, when an economist was appointed head of the Civil Aeronautics Board that it was put into use. Simon was baffled as to why it took so long, but an obvious explanation never occurs to him: the airline industry was a heavily regulated, government-enforced cartel, so there was less of an incentive to innovate.
<< 1 >>
| 
