ISAS Special Reports

Economists have now begun to accept that their discipline - even when two of its components, microeconomics and macroeconomics, are put together - does not fully explain all human behaviour. It also falls well short of providing an all-encompassing theory to explain the wealth and poverty of nations. In 1984, economics Nobel laureate George Stigler suggested that economics was on its way to becoming the queen of social sciences. He called his discipline an 'imperial science' which will conquer the entire land of social sciences. In 2006, an American economist published a book titled Freakonomics that became an instant bestseller. The reviewers applauded the book for using principles of economics to explain daily life.