"Quiggin has no quibble about the power of markets, but he wants to sharpen our focus on the flip side of that coin — their limitations. Hence the two lessons. For me, Quiggin’s book might just as aptly be titled Markets Are Great, Except When They’re Not. Quiggin’s way of reconciling the virtues and vices of markets is to observe that 'market prices reflect and determine opportunity costs faced by consumers and producers.' This is Lesson One. Lesson Two is that 'market prices don’t reflect all the opportunity costs we face as a society.' That is, there are externalities that fall outside the price mechanism and drive a wedge between the outcomes markets deliver by themselves and the social outcomes we would like them to deliver. [...] There is little doubt that Quiggin’s Economics in Two Lessons will be an instant classic and feature on university reading lists around the world. It should also be compulsory reading for policymakers and public commentators, who all too often lack a framework for thinking clearly about the costs and benefits of markets. The good news is that Quiggin has one — and he’s happy to share."

"There are plenty of examples and the book is very clear, making it an attractive supplement for undergraduate courses – I guess this is the target market as each chapter has further reading. I like the way Quiggin weaves in the history of economic thought on these issues. It’s a shame he feels the need to knock ‘mainstream’ economics so much; there’s little here for a mainstreamer to disagree with, except swipes like these: 'The term ‘externality’ is one of those bits of jargon that most economists would be at a loss to explain.' What a bizarre claim. I have other quibbles – for instance, I’d disagree that Millian utilitarianism is inherently more egalitarian than post-Pareto welfare economics. On the whole, though, this is a highly readable introduction to the intellectual framework of modern policy economics, with plenty of lively examples [...]. Just remember – this isn’t anti-mainstream economics, it’s what economics is."

"Quiggin’s foray against Hazlitt misses its target, in no small part because of a problem with the key concept in the book, 'opportunity cost,' as he applies it to Hazlitt. He defines the concept in this way: 'The opportunity cost of anything is what you must give up so that you can have it.' (p.3) So far, so good, but now the difficulty in his case against Hazlitt arises. He applies the concept as it is used in neoclassical economics, but Hazlitt was an Austrian and does not use the concept in this way. [...] Quiggin has misunderstood Hazlitt’s argument in Economics in One Lesson. [...] Hazlitt wrote his book for a popular audience, but Quiggin, a skilled and learned professional economist, does not understand it properly because he reads it through the blinders of an assumption about what Hazlitt 'must' be saying. [...] Quiggin says that we should learn a Second Lesson besides the lesson Hazlitt taught, but this second lesson to a large extent consists of casting Hazlitt’s lesson aside. Readers would be well advised to stick to Hazlitt. He does not require emendations that reinstate the interventionist fallacies he challenged."