Fatal Equilibrium

by Marshall Jevons

Marshall Jevons is actually a pseudoname for two MIT academics who, in this book, attempt to make a gripping thriller out of conventional economic theory. Aparrently it was written in the 80s, but it reads much more like a 60s whodunnit.

There's a bit of action with mysterious messages and murders to keep you reading along, but really it's pretty tedious. There are also a few though-provoking ideas - these tend to be the bits of economic theory. And it's an insight into the upper echolons of a top US university and the petty rivalries you'll find there. Oh, and did I leave out the brilliant characterisation? There's a reason for that.

So, perhaps for undergraduates required to take an economics course, there's some decent material here. And possibly for the finance dabbler, a few nuggets of information about our mad economic system. Think of it as an easy-reading economics textbook rather than a novel. 'Small is Beautiful' this ain't.


© Arjuna Krishna-Das 2007. This page last modified 11 March, 2007	Top