Reflections of a Pragmatic Economist: My Intellectual Journey

摘要

Emery Castle's Reflections of a Pragmatic Economist is historical, philosophical, and biographical as well as a fascinating read. He is well known in the economic profession, with numerous major journal articles to his credit, and he coauthored the influential and popular Farm Business Management textbook (the first edition was Castle and Becker, 1962). In Reflections, he describes his intellectual journey in the context of his autobiography. He provides his readers an inside look at his evolution into a pragmatic economist by recounting his depression-era upbringing in rural Kansas, close calls in bombers over Germany during World War II, and events in his personal, educational, and leadership roles at Resources for the Future, the internationally known nonprofit research organization in Washington, D. C, and at Oregon State University. I'm pleased to relate that he has a down-to-earth engaging writing style that does not require one to be an economist to understand his life and work as he recounts it here.