Cents and Sensibility: What Economics Can Learn from the Humanities

A provocative and inspiring case for a more humanistic economics

Economists often act as if their methods explain all human behavior. But in Cents and Sensibility, an eminent literary critic and a leading economist make the case that the humanities, especially the study of literature, offer economists ways to make their models more realistic, their predictions more accurate, and their policies more effective and just.

Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro trace the connection between Adam Smit...