Friday, January 05, 2007

New books for a new year

I spent the holidays in the U.S. so I had time to update my bookshelves with some volumes I wanted to get for a while...
 
POLITICAL ECONOMY
 
 
I will be using the Oxford Handbook as one of the main sources for my political economy class this spring term--taking the place of Mueller's previous compilation: its several chapters provide an up to date survey on what has become a quite large literature.  Besley and Acemoglu/Robinson will only be suggested readings--these two volumes comprise something like the most current theoretical framework for political/institutional economics.
 
ECONOMETRICS
 
Microeconometrics: Methods and Applications By: A. Colin Cameron, Pravin K. Trivedi
 
Quoting from the authors' website:
"Distinguishing features include emphasis on nonlinear models and robust inference, as well as chapter-length treatments of GMM estimation, nonparametric regression, simulation-based estimation, bootstrap methods, Bayesian methods, stratified and clustered samples, treatment evaluation, measurement error, and missing data."
 
This volume has very nice supplement materials available on the web:
 
GENERAL INTEREST
 
Stumbling on Happiness By: Daniel Gilbert
 
ECONOMIC THOUGHT