Book review – The Picketty Phenomenon

French economist Thomas Picketty’s book ’Capital the Twenty-First Century’ toped the best seller lists all around the world, which was most unusual for a six hundred plus page book on economics. Enterprising publisher Tom Rennie has now come up with the idea of gathering a group of New Zealand economists to provide a series of essays on how they see Picketty’s book.

Fifteen people with economics expertise agreed to take part and resulting book is ‘The Picketty Phenomenon.’ Their backgrounds are very diverse as are their particular interests and outlooks – to illustrate the width of knowledge and interest best list some them:

Geoff Bertram from the Research institute for Governance and Policy, Victoria University. Donal Curtin former Chief Economist BNZ. Prue Hyman Associate professor Victoria University. Simon Chapple Senior Research Fellow Otago University. Hautahi Kingi PhD Mathematics Cornell University New York. Brian Easton Distinguish Fellow New Zealand Economics Association. Susan St John Associate Professor Economic Auckland University. Bernard Hickey managing editor Interest.Co.  Cathy Wylie Chief Researcher New Zealand Council for Educational Research. Economist  Gareth Morgan, economist. Robert Wade Professor of Economy London School of Economics. 

The strength of the is book is that each essay is written in straightforward language readily understandable for lesser mortals like myself who struggled with Pickettys’ rather dense tome.  The first essay by Geoff Bertram set the standard with his clear précis of Picketty’s book.

Each following essay had a different take, one debated Picketty’s findings another looked at his theories from a New Zealand perspective. An interesting essay described how reading the book led to thoughts on other matters. Others described their reaction from the point of view of their particular interests. 

The essays were cleverly mixed with each opening up a different aspect, bookended by the first explaining Pickett’s book and the last neatly bring it all onto a purely New Zealand focus

For me a sentence from Cathy Wylie’s essay underlining the importance of people who are prepared to think outside the mainstream struck a chord; 

“ Accounts such as Picketty’s are compelling because they show adventurous minds at work : steeped in detail they make, but not lost in it, and open about the nature of the conceptualisations”. 

  This may appear to be a surprisingly small book, however it is not one to be rushed through. Rather read a chapter at a time and then give time to ponder. A really interesting book.

Mike Beckett