"The students’ entrepreneurialism is evident in this book. Packed with original research, it comes with pages of endorsements, evidently harvested by the students themselves, from Vince Cable to Noam Chomsky. Yet the text is rarely angry. Its tone is of a strained politeness, as if the authors were talking politics with a putative father-in-law. [...] The high priests of economics still hold power, but they no longer have legitimacy. In proving so resistant to serious reform, they have sent the message to a sceptical public that they are unreformable. Which makes The Econocracy a case study for the question we should all be asking since the crash: how, after all that, have the elites – in Westminster, in the City, in economics – stayed in charge?"

"Ultimately, the authors pin the blame on the standard method for analysing the economy — the “neoclassical” perspective that is ubiquitous in economics courses, the financial industry and policy analysis. [...] But there is little in the book of the big debate going on in macroeconomics about how important individualist “microfoundations” are, and what the alternatives could be. Nor is much attention paid to the huge research efforts under way in behavioural economics. [...] If a standard undergraduate economics education keeps these parts of economics away from students’ view, no wonder they come away disenchanted. But how is this a problem with neo­classical economics, and how is it solved by the methodological pluralism The Econocracy calls for?"

"The Econocracy is a polemic arguing for better education, largely via very specific changes to pedagogy (more evaluative questions) and curriculum (more plurality of schools of thought). It is impressive and encouraging that the authors feel sufficiently strongly to write this book and this is a rare opportunity to hear a full-length and qualitative discussion from recent students. However, the fundamental issue is whether the arguments are sufficiently convincing to encourage academic economists to change their teaching. The book raises important issues and contains interesting data, but at the moment these serve more for a basis on which to formulate more precise questions and to collect more information. In its present state the narrative of this book is unlikely to persuade any but those who are already converted."