From the inability of wealth to make us happier, to our catastrophic
blindness to the credit crunch, Economyths reveals ten ways in which
economics has failed us all.Forecasters predicted a prosperous year
in 2008 for financial markets - in one influential survey the average
prediction was for an eleven percent gain. But by the end of the year,
the Standard and Poor's 500 index - a key economic barometer - was
down 38 percent, and major economies were plunging into recession.
Even the Queen asked - "Why did no one see it coming?" An even bigger
casualty was the credibility of economics, which for decades has
claimed that the economy is a rational, stable, efficient machine,
governed by well-understood laws. Mathematician David Orrell traces
the history of this idea from its roots in ancient Greece to the
financial centres of London and New York, shows how it is mistaken,
and proposes new alternatives. Economyths explains how the economy
is the result of complex and unpredictable processes; how risk models
go astray; why the economy is not rational or fair; why until 2009 no
woman had ever won the Nobel Prize for economics; why financial
crashes are less Black Swans than part of the landscape; and finally,
how new ideas in mathematics, psychology, and environmentalism are
helping to reinvent economics.

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