The Economic Novel

Marginal Revolution is looking for suggestions on novels form which to teach economics (link). He’s welcome to cop some of my bankruptcy posts if they help. I also offer a sentimental favorite, even if perhaps a bit dated: the John Putnam Thatcher mysteries of Emma Lathen (link). Thatcher was a clear-headed banker and most of the novels revolve around businesses in trouble—maybe it’s just Chapter 11 bankruptcy stuff in disguise—and still, with qualification, the best introduction(s) I know to the world of business and finance.

“Lathen” was, in fact, a collaboration of two women—from Wiki, I learn that one died in 1997 and I infer that the other is still alive. I see there are 24 in all—far more than I ever read, the last bearing a date of 1997.

A banker-detective: in a way, it’s surprising that it hasn’t been done more often. Good bankers live by investigating and sifting evidence—and they are often wrong (an essential in a good mystery plot). They can pop up anwhere and investigate almost anything.

Unencumbered by complete knowledge, I’d say that (as is often the case with this sort of thing), the earlier ones are the better as novels, with tighter plots and more nuanced characterization. But if you read mysteries for the throwaway stuff, they never fail. Accounting for Murder (1964 (link)) might be a nice place to start. “Forensic accounting” is one description of her entire oeuvre, and this one makes the theme pretty explicit. (side note: through the magic of Amazon, I learn that a learned text entitled Advances in Accounting Education cites Lathen, and in two places, and with approval (link)).

From there, you can go many directions, and what’s really remarkable is how much Lathen was able to tackle, and how profitasbly. Murder to Go takes on fast food franchising (1969 (link)) East is East does the Japan miracle, with a sideline in foreign corrupt practices (1991 (link). A Shark Out of Water (1998 (link)) tackles—and makes a decent shot at undertaking to explain—international finance. A sentimental favorite of mine is Green Grow the Dollars (1983 (link)), my first exposure to the patented tomato.

So Lathen never stopped learning and growing, but time does not stand still, even as we march on. In the age of electronic fund transfer, who but an antiquarian would care about a “bearer bond” (Come to Dust, 1968 (link))? By contrast, what would she have made of the secondary mortgage meltdown, the coming collapse of public pensions? It’s hard to think of anyone who covered so much, with such intelligence and insight.

But much as I love her, I have to say that Lathen remains a second choice. As the all-time chamption of the economic novel, who could match the daring, the enterprise, the rational maximization of (the envelope, please)—Jane Austen. “IT is a truth universally acknowledged,” as she says at the beginning of her most popular novel, “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Gary Becker, call your office.