"M is the key letter in this book: it stands most of all for models (or modeling) but also for methodology, empirical measurement, misinformation about, and misapplication and misinterpretation of those mathematical models. A respected authority on globalization,Rodrik (international political economy, Harvard) spent two years at the Institute for Advanced Study, and the present title is largely a result of that experience. He puts into this brief, coherent,readable volumehis thoughts—complete with solid endnotes—about what economics, as science, has to offer noneconomists, policy makers, and others in the social sciences, and about the failures of his own discipline and what changes it has to make from within.The titles of the first four chapters—'What Models Do,' 'The Science of Economic Modeling,' 'Navigatingamong Models,' 'Models and Theories'—suggest the scope and flavor of the book; the last two chapters—'When Economists Go Wrong' and 'Economics and Its Critics' —open a dialogue for all parties around the research table. The epilogue offers ten commandments for economists and ten for noneconomists; though not as profound as the ten God gave Moses, they nevertheless should instill a little humility in both factions. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals."

"He demonstrates that economics, properly understood and properly practised, is innocent of many of the charges levelled against it. [...] The challenge is to choose which model applies to the situation at hand. This choice requires theoretical open-mindedness and empirical investigation and is, as Rodrik succinctly puts it, a craft not a science. That idea — that good economics is about good craftsmanship as much as anything else — is a hugely valuable contribution. Rodrik is well placed to make these arguments because he is himself a master craftsman. [...] Rodrik’s book cannot fully dispel the scepticism. In particular, he does not quite answer one question that his argument prompts: if economics itself is as ecumenical as he describes, how come economists seem so sure of their conclusions? [...] Rodrik presents survey evidence that on many policy issues (such as rent control) economists overwhelmingly swing behind one view — which suggests that they all select the same model even when many others exist. And when Rodrik rightly extols economists’ recent open-mindedness towards 'behavioural models' in which people make irrational choices, one is allowed to ask why it took them so long to accept simple truths about human nature that all non-economists take for granted. The answer is hinted at elsewhere in Rodrik’s book, when he stresses the intertwined nature of the 'positive and the normative analyses — investigations, respectively, of what is and what should be'. In setting out a defence of the best in economics, Rodrik has also provided a goal for the discipline as a whole."

"This is where the book excels: In the detailed and highly readable recounting of both failures and successes of economics in recent years, and in the analysis of what went wrong and what went right in each case. The emphasis in these case studies is, however, decidedly on the failures. Indeed, the conclusions Rodrik draws about his own field are at times devastating. [...] His vision of an economics that is non-dogmatic, sensitive to context, and places a greater weight on empirical adequacy strikes me as very attractive. But in the more critical parts of the book, the reader gets the sense that this picture is more a vision of how economics ought to be, or perhaps of where it is headed, not of how it already is. Rodrik criticises his colleagues for not appreciating the diversity of economic models, and for being misguided in their model selection, with grave consequences. His rebuttal to outside critics of economics, on the other hand, is less convincing, and I suspect that many of them will see themselves strengthened by Rodrik’s critical assessment of his discipline. [...] The book ends on the note that, given how difficult it is to learn about the social world with models, economists should show humility. Yet, and despite all the book’s criticism of economics, Rodrik titled it Economics Rules. This is not just a clever trick to get his colleagues to buy it. The book in fact frequently asserts the superiority of economics, especially in the opening and concluding chapters. It claims that economics is more meritocratic than other social sciences, that the mathematical consistency of economic models and the sophisticated empirical methods economists employ make the field more rigorous than other social sciences, and that those other sciences would do well to emulate that rigour, if they don’t already do so. The sole evidence cited for the alleged lack of professional standards of some other social sciences and the humanities is the Sokal Hoax. [...] The rhetoric of superiority is not only unnecessary, but detracts from the interesting ideas and insightful analysis also found in the book."