Thomas J. DiLorenzo in this 2004 Mises Daily, “The New Deal Debunked (again)”, provides detail on the work by Cole and Ohanian behind the Ohanian video highlighted on Mark Thornton’s Circle Bastiat post “The Rothbard/Higgs/Vedder and Gallaway Thesis.

Highlights from DiLorenzo:

Macroeconomic model builders have finally realized what Henry Hazlitt and John T. Flynn (among others) knew in the 1930s: FDR’s New Deal made the Great Depression longer and deeper. It is a myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt “got us out of the Depression” and “saved capitalism from itself,” as generations of Americans have been taught by the state’s educational establishment.

This realization on the part of macroeconomists comes in the form of an article in the August 2004 Journal of Political Economy entitled “New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis,” by UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian. This is a big deal, since the JPE is arguably the top academic economics journal in the world.

And

On top of that, virtually every single one of FDR’s “New Deal” policies made things even worse and prolonged the Depression. Austrian economists have known this for decades, but at least the neoclassical model builders have finally caught on—we can hope.

In this regard the most disappointing thing about the Cole-Ohanian article is that they do not even cite the pioneering work of Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway—Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth Century America—first published in 1993.

Indeed, it is somewhat scandalous that they do not cite this well-known work while making essentially the same arguments that Vedder and Gallaway do.

And

This last conclusion—that the abandonment of FDR’s policies “coincided” with the recovery of the 1940s is very well documented by another author who is also ignored by Cole and Ohanian, Robert Higgs. In “Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War” (Independent Review, Spring 1997), Higgs showed that it was the relative neutering of New Deal policies, along with a reduction (in absolute dollars) of the federal budget from $98.4 billion in 1945 to $33 billion in 1948, that brought forth the economic recovery. Private-sector production increased by almost one-third in 1946 alone, as private capital investment increased for the first time in eighteen years.

Too bad the true lesson has not been learned. DiLorenzo’s lesson:

In short, it was capitalism that finally ended the Great Depression, not FDR’s hair-brained cartel, wage-increasing, unionizing, and welfare state expanding policies.

Free market capitalism is what is needed to generate real recovery from the current Great Recession.  Slow recovery or a double dip recession will be the future with the continuation of the Fed-supported Bush-Obama hare-brained Keynesian stimulus spending, accompanied by war and welfare state expanding policies which are again generating significant regime uncertainty,

The Road Not Taken in 1933 and its Modern Consequences

           The crisis in Cyprus is awakening some to the true nature of fractional reserve banking as evidenced by  headlines such as this (from the Drudge Report March 28, 2013) ‘THEY HAVE STOLEN OUR MONEY’… . Compared to responses to previous crises and applications of too big to fail, at least this response has moved away from tax payer financed bailouts of bank creditors. See for example: 1. In today’s Wall Street Journal Luskin and Roche Kelly, “Regime Change Comes to Euro Policy who argue, “The banking crisis in Cyprus prompted an overdue financial reckoning that, with luck, will spell the end of ‘too big to fail.’; and 2. From yesterday’s WSJ “Shocked About Cyprus”, with its subtitle, “How dare a European bank rescue not hit taxpayers.”

            This should be a great time to re-awaken the public again to the true risks of money substitutes and fiduciary media and begin a focus of meaningful banking reform as a beginning of true recovery and sustainable prosperity.

            Rothbard (AGD, 21) provides an strong argument for the bebefical aspects of bank failures:

Banks should no more be exempt from paying their obligations than is any other business. Any interference with their comeuppance via bank runs will establish banks as a specially privileged group, not obligated to pay their debts, and will lead to later inflations, credit expansions, and depressions. And if, as we contend, banks are inherently bankrupt and “runs” simply reveal that bankruptcy, it is beneficial for the economy for the banking system to be reformed, once and for all, by a thorough purge of the fractional-reserve banking system. Such a purge would bring home forcefully to the public the dangers of fractional-reserve banking, and, more than any academic theorizing, insure against such banking evils in the future.

And later in the same work, Rothbard commenting on the bank panic-bank holidays of late 1932 and early 1933 (AGD 329) provides a template for handling a bank failure in line with protecting property rights and the rule of law in a way that could ultimately end the boom-bust cycle:

The laissez-faire method would have permitted the banks of the nation to close—as they probably would have done without governmental intervention. The bankrupt banks could then have been transferred to the ownership of their depositors, who would have taken charge of the invested, frozen assets of the banks. There would have been a vast, but rapid, deflation, with the money supply falling to virtually 100 percent of the nation’s gold stock. The depositors would have been “forced savers” in the existing bank assets (loans and investments). This cleansing surgical operation would have ended, once and for all, the inherently bankrupt fractional-reserve system, would have henceforth grounded loans and investments on people’s voluntary savings rather than artificially extended credit, and would have brought the country to a truly sound and hard monetary base. The threat of inflation and depression would have been permanently ended, and the stage fully set for recovery from the existing crisis. But such a policy would have been dismissed as “impractical” and radical, at the very juncture when the nation set itself firmly down the “practical” and radical road to inflation, socialism, and perpetuation of the depression for almost a decade.

This week’s quote(s) highlights why an explanation of a general boom-bust pattern of economic must be a monetary theory of the trade cycle. The first key is to clearly distinguish between fluctuations, which are a normal and indispensable part of the market process, and cycles, which are extra-market; the result of interventions into the market order. Hayek makes similar observations if Monetary Theory of the Trade Cycle and refers to explanations of fluctuations as opposed to true cycles, which rely on external shocks as essentially a non-economic explanation of observed changes in business conditions. The real business cycle research thus actually attempts to explain fluctuations, not cycles. One way to interpret their results is that the research provides some historical evidence that much of what appears to be the ebb and flows of economic activity is actually market adjustments to shocks. However, much is left unexplained (30%?). That which is left unexplained is the boom and bust of the cycle, best understood through the lens of ABCT.

All quotes are from AGD (Scholar’s edition, 4-9).

Cycles and Fluctuations: Error and the Role of the Entrepreneur

 It is important, first, to distinguish between business cycles and ordinary business fluctuations. We live necessarily in a society of continual and unending change, change that can never be precisely charted in advance. People try to forecast and anticipate changes as best they can, but such forecasting can never be reduced to an exact science. Entrepreneurs are in the business of forecasting changes on the market, both for conditions of demand and of supply.

The more successful ones make profits pari passus with their accuracy of judgment, while the unsuccessful forecasters fall by the wayside. As a result, the successful entrepreneurs on the free market will be the ones most adept at anticipating future business conditions.

Stabilizing fluctuations would be irrational.

 It is, therefore, absurd to expect every business activity to be “stabilized” as if these changes were not taking place. To stabilize and “iron out” these fluctuations would, in effect, eradicate any rational productive activity.

We may, therefore, expect specific business fluctuations all the time. There is no need for any special “cycle theory” to account for them. They are simply the results of changes in economic data and are fully explained by economic theory.

There is thus a necessary role for monetary shocks. Only monetary shocks can create the cluster of errors and thus the cycle; boom, crisis and depression.

In considering general movements in business, then, it is immediately evident that such movements must be transmitted through the general medium of exchange—money. Money forges the connecting link between all economic activities.

It is not legitimate to reply that sudden changes in the data are responsible. It is, after all, the business of entrepreneurs to forecast future changes, some of which are sudden.

In the purely free and unhampered market, there will be no cluster of errors, since trained entrepreneurs will not all make errors at the same time. The “boom-bust” cycle is generated by monetary intervention in the market, specifically bank credit expansion to business.

Mark Thornton and Mises in today’s Wall Street Journal in “Letters to Editor” responses to Alan Blinder’s Easing Angst About Fed Easing which originally appeared March 13 in the print edition. A15.

Mark’s commentary (2^nd letter in the link above):

Prof. Blinder aptly explores the dangers of the Fed’s easy-money policy but claims it has succeeded in its mandate to keep price inflation low. I object.

Gasoline and food prices have risen. Commodity prices have risen. The Producer Price Index is at an all-time high. Farmland prices have risen to all-time highs. Gold prices are up $1,000 per ounce since the crisis began. Stocks and bonds are at all-time highs. Manhattan real estate and contemporary art prices are at all-time highs. These are all “prices.” Plus, we are exporting inflation around the globe. None of this is good news for Joe Mainstreet and is worrisome for the future.

For more by Mark on inflation see: “Where is the inflation?”

From the first letter by Mike Smith of Sugar Land, Texas

Alan Blinder’s op-ed “Easing the Angst About Fed Easing” (March 13) brings to mind Ludwig von Mises’s observation: “Credit expansion (easy money) is governments’ foremost tool in their struggle against the market economy . . . it is the magic wand designed to expropriate the capitalists . . . to lower the rate of interest or to abolish it altogether, to finance lavish government spending . . . and to make everybody prosperous” (“Human Action,” 1966).

Smith concludes:

At some point, we must ask ourselves how many years of 0% rates we must endure before the Federal Open Market Committee stops “plugging away” and allows the unhampered market work its magic.

 

Frank Shostak says NO!. See:

Should the Fed Reverse Its loose Stance

Some Highlights:

Contrary to popular thinking, loose monetary policy, which leads to a misallocation of resources, weakens the economy’s ability to generate final goods and services, i.e. real wealth.

This means that loose monetary policy not only cannot provide support to the economy but on the contrary undermines the foundations for economic growth.

The so-called recovery that Bernanke and most commentators are referring to is nothing more than the revival of various non-productive or bubble activities [emphaisi mine], which in a true free market environment wouldn’t emerge in the first place.

And

Contrary to popular thinking, loose monetary policy, which leads to a misallocation of resources, weakens the economy’s ability to generate final goods and services, i.e. real wealth.

This means that loose monetary policy not only cannot provide support to the economy but on the contrary undermines the foundations for economic growth.

The so-called recovery that Bernanke and most commentators are referring to is nothing more than the revival of various non-productive or bubble activities, which in a true free market environment wouldn’t emerge in the first place.

Alan Blinder says yes!

Contrast Dr. Shostak’s analysis with Alan Blinder’s Easing the Angst About Fed Easing in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Blinder approvingly quotes Bernanke to Senate banking Committee on Feb. 26:

The FOMC has indicated that it will continue purchases until it observes a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market,” he said, making it clear that no such improvement has been seen. He also asserted that “the benefits of asset purchases, and of policy accommodation more generally, are clear: Monetary policy is providing important support to the recovery.

And

Which brings me to the main point: The fundamental case for extreme monetary ease has hardly changed. Mr. Bernanke and the FOMC majority believe deeply in the Fed’s dual mandate, to keep both inflation and unemployment low. They know they are succeeding on the first but failing on the second. They also learned long ago that cutting the federal funds rate by over 500 basis points (five percentage points) was inadequate to combat the recession. Rather than give up, they opted for “unconventional” monetary policies like quantitative easing.

And:

It’s not a pretty picture. But then again, neither is unemployment lingering above 7% indefinitely. This is why Ben Bernanke and the FOMC majority keep plugging away.

Is there a way out? Here’s one thing that could help. As I have argued for some time, the Fed should reduce the interest rate it pays on the roughly $1.7 trillion of banks’ excess reserves. If it did so, banks would keep less cash on deposit at the Fed. The liberated funds would probably flow mainly into the money markets, but some would probably find their way into increased lending—which would give the economy a little boost.

Back to Shostak:

If our assessment is valid then obviously the sooner the loose stance is reversed the better it is going to be for the economy.

 Needless to say, bubble activities are not going to like this since the diversion of real wealth to them from wealth generators will slow down or cease all together [Emphasis mine].

A fall in economic activity in this case is in fact the demise of various bubble activities.

Contrary to Bernanke, we can conclude that the continuation of loose monetary policies could only lead to financial instability and prolong the economic crisis.

A  reversal of current policy is a necessary first baby step on a road to real recovery and renewed sustainable economic activity. Real recovery will only begin as resourrces are shifted away from resource consuming bubble activities back to real wealth creators.

For an Austrian critique of former Fed Board member Alan Blinder’s monetary policy framework see:

Central Banking in Theory and Practice by Alan S. Blinder

From the Introduction to the Fourth Edition (1982) of America’s Great Depression

While deficits are often inflationary and always pernicious, curing them by raising taxes is equivalent to curing an illness by shooting the patient. In the first place, politically higher taxes will simply give the government more money to spend, so that expenditures and therefore deficits are likely to rise still further. Cutting taxes, on the other hand, puts great political pressure on Congress and the administration to follow suit by cutting spending.

And:

 Deficits, then, should be eliminated, but only by cutting government spending. If taxes and government spending are both slashed, then the salutary result will be to lower the parasitic burden of government taxes and spending upon the productive activities of the private sector.

No “balance” of revenue enhancements combined with reductions in the rate of growth of spending, no ten year plan to bring budget balance in 10 years based on only mild reductions in the rate of spending increases and expected revenue enhnacements for higher growth rates. No revenue neutral tax “reform”. Real cuts in spending made believable by cuts in tax rates actually intended to shrink, not grow government revenues.  Government austerity or economy is the path to private sector prosperity.

Robert Higgs advises us Don’t Rely on a Quack Doctor  as a parable about government intervention in the economy.

Rothbard in AGD documents the effects of a visits with Dr. Hoover on the economy. This week‘s quote is from the conclusion of AGD (pp. 336-37):

Mr. Hoover met the challenge of the Great Depression by acting quickly and decisively, indeed almost continuously throughout his term of office, putting into effect “the greatest program of offense and defense” against depression ever attempted in America. Bravely he used every modern economic “tool,” every device of progressive and “enlightened” economics, every facet of government planning, to combat the depression. For the first time, laissez-faire was boldly thrown overboard and every governmental weapon thrown into the breach. America had awakened, and was now ready to use the State to the hilt, unhampered by the supposed shibboleths of laissez-faire. President Hoover was a bold and audacious leader in this awakening. By every “progressive” tenet of our day, he should have ended his term a conquering hero; instead he left America in utter and complete ruin—a ruin unprecedented in length and intensity [emphasis mine].

Rothbard continues:

What was the trouble? Economic theory demonstrates that only governmental inflation can generate a boom-and-bust cycle, and that the depression will be prolonged and aggravated by inflationist and other interventionary measures. In contrast to the myth of laissez-faire, we have shown in this book how government intervention generated the unsound boom of the 1920s, and how Hoover’s new departure aggravated the Great Depression by massive measures of interference. The guilt for the Great Depression must, at long last, be lifted from the shoulders of the free-market economy, and placed where it properly belongs: at the doors of politicians, bureaucrats, and the mass of “enlightened” economists. And in any other depression, past or future, the story will be the same.

The recovery in the early 1920s, which Richard Vedder has referred to as a “stroke of luck” (Wilson, a progressive interventionist was president when the crisis began but was incapacitated by a stroke and his administration was unable to do damage before passing the reins to Harding) is an example of an economy rapidly recovering as government spending and taxes were cut. Another example is  “The Austerity of 1946” (see also Vedder and Gallaway ”The Great Depression of 1946”),  which despite Keynesian economists’ predictions of doom and gloom, was in fact was a period of  rapid return to relative prosperity following the massive reduction in government spending which followed the end WW II.

Things could have been and still could be different this time if recovery is left to the natural recuperative powers of an economy where economic agents are left free to plan, produce, exchange, and innovate.

Given how poorly the economy has fared following the ‘treatment’ proscribed by Dr. Bernanke and Dr. Obama isn’t it time to try a Dr. Rothbard’s natural cure?

Boom and Bust: What must be explained in any theory of the business cycle?

First and foremost is the general cluster of errors. See Hulsmann’s Toward a General Theory of Error Cycles:

 The explanation of depressions, then, will not be found by referring to specific or even general business fluctuations per se. The main problem that a theory of depression must explain is: why is there a sudden general cluster of business errors? This is the first question for any cycle theory. Business activity moves along nicely with most business firms making handsome profits. Suddenly, without warning, conditions change and the bulk of business firms are experiencing losses; they are suddenly revealed to have made grievous errors in forecasting.

Second, what has been recognized in real business cycle theory as a stylized fact of cycles, is the greater fluctuation of time dependent industries (capital goods and consumer durables) relative to industries serving more immediate consumption.

 Another common feature of the business cycle also calls for an explanation. It is the well-known fact that capital-goods industries fluctuate more widely than do the consumer-goods industries. The capital-goods industries—especially the industries supplying raw materials, construction, and equipment to other industries—expand much further in the boom, and are hit far more severely in the depression.

Third is the correlation between money and output over the cycle.

 A third feature of every boom that needs explaining is the increase in the quantity of money in the economy.

This third feature is highlighted by real business cycle models as well but is viewed as harmless reverse causation. But as Rothbard shows, the money and credit creation during the expansion, rather than being a harmless endogenous response of banks to changing market conditions, sets the stage for the boom-bust pattern of the cycle.

All quotes are from pp. 8 and 9.

Amity Shlaes in today’s Wall Street Journal provides  “The Coolidge Lesson on Taxes and Spending” makes the argument that those, as has been done at Mises Daily here, and here who want to “make government smaller” and “to lower taxes” as a means to “yield prosperity” should look not to Ronald Reagan but to “Silent Cal” Coolidge.

Coolidge’s record:

“The 30th president cut the top income-tax rate to 25% (lower than the 28% of the historic Reagan cut of 1986). Coolidge reduced the national debt and balanced the budget. When he departed the White House for his home in Northampton, Mass., he left a federal budget smaller than the one he found.

Shales points out Coolidge had a governing philosophy, “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones,” which would be an ideal counter to today’s knee jerk “urge to action,” the overactive animal spirits of the political class. He had a strategy on budget cuts that would be appropriate today; he “understood that ambitious budget cuts would be accepted if he could ‘align’ them with ambitious tax cuts.”

More on why Coolidge should be on the better (not necessairy good) list of presidents comes from a speech I heard years ago at Metro State by Robert Novak. Novak argued Coolidge was his favorite president because by his (Coolidge’s) own admission Coolidge slept 12 plus hours a day. Novak added he knows of no president who had harmed the U. S. while sleeping.

Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression is a good place to get additional insight into Silent Cal, the good, the bad, and perhaps even the ugly. A quick word search for Coolidge of the pdf yields some gems worth considering.

Some good: Paul Johnson from the introduction to the 5^th edition (xvi) on Hoover and Coolidge:

Hoover’s was the only department of the U.S. federal government which had expanded steadily in numbers and power during the 1920s, and he had constantly urged Presidents Harding and Coolidge to take a more active role in managing the economy. Coolidge, a genuine minimalist in government [emphasis added]“For six years that man has given me unsolicited advice—all of it bad.”

Some bad and ugly all per Rothbard:

Coolidge and low discount rate and inflationary policy (121):

An inflationary, low-discount-rate policy was a prominent and important feature of the Harding and Coolidge administrations. Even before taking office, President Harding had urged reduction of interest rates, and he repeatedly announced his intention of reducing discount rates after he became President. And President Coolidge, in a famous pre-election speech on October 22, 1924, declared that “It has been the policy of this administration to reduce discount rates,” and promised to keep them low. Both Presidents appointed FRB members who favored this policy.

As a cheerleader for the stock market boom (125):

Another important means of encouraging the stock market boom was a rash of cheering public statements, designed to spur on the boom whenever it showed signs of flagging. President Coolidge and Secretary of Treasury Mellon in this way acted as the leading “capeadores of Wall Street.

And:

The boom again began to weaken in the latter part of March, whereupon Mellon once more promised continued low rediscount rates and pictured a primrose path of easy money. He said, “There is an abundant supply of easy money which should take care of any contingencies that might arise.” Stocks continued upward again, but slumped slightly during June. This time President Coolidge came to the rescue, urging optimism upon one and all. Again the market rallied strongly, only to react badly in August when Coolidge announced he did not choose to run again. After a further rally and subsequent recession in October, Coolidge once more stepped into the breach with a highly optimistic statement. Further optimistic statements by Mellon and Coolidge trumpeting the “new era” of permanent prosperity repeatedly injected tonics into the market.

As an advocate of a polically induced business cycle (153):

 The motives for the American inflation of 1924, then, were to aid Great Britain, the farmers, and, in passing, the investment bankers, and finally, to help reelect the Administration in the 1924 elections. President Coolidge’s famous assurance to the country about low discount rates typified the political end in view. And certainly the inflation was spurred by the existence of a mild recession in 1923–1924, during which time the economy was trying to adjust to the previous inflation of 1922. At first, the 1924 expansion accomplished what it had intended—gold inflow into the United States was replaced by a gold drain, American prices rose, foreign lending was stimulated, interest rates were lowered, and President Coolidge was triumphantly reelected.

Steadfast inflationist (163):

 The proper monetary policy, even after a depression is underway, is to deflate or at the least to refrain from further inflation. Since the stock market continued to boom until October, the proper moderating policy would have been positive deflation. But President Coolidge  ontinued to perform his “capeadore” role until the very end. A few days before leaving office in March he called American prosperity “absolutely sound” and stocks “cheap at current prices.”

As an advocate of pubic works to combat recession (197):

 In January, 1925, Hoover had the satisfaction of seeing President Coolidge adopt his position. Addressing the Associated General Contractors of America (a group that stood to gain by a government building program), Coolidge called for public works planning to stabilize depressions.

Agricultural socialism (226):

 Coolidge firmly believed that government “must encourage orderly and centralized marketing” in agriculture

The prosperity of the 1920s appears much like prosperity of the “Great Moderation” where a supply-side focused fiscal policy enhanced productivity was combined with a loose monetary policy guided by an emphasis on price level stability provideda toxic mx leading to a significant boom-bust cycle. Should be a cautionary tale for those enamored by  the promise of nominal gnp targeting.

Mises’s Liberalism coupled with Rothbard’s wisdom is a better guide to truly free and prosperous commonwealth than the policies of either Reagan or Coolidge.

My introduction to Austrian economics began over 30 years ago when my mentor Fred R. Glahe handed me a couple of pages of handwritten notes on the Hayek-Keynes debate which he had prepared for commentary at a Mont Pelerin Society meeting sometime in the late 1970s and suggested I turn the notes into a dissertation. The ultimate result was the publication (with Fred) of The Hayek-Keynes Debate: Lessons for Current Business Cycle Research, a 200 page attempt to make Hayek-Keynes and ABCT intelligible to a traditional trained neoclassical who in the process became a self-taught Austrian. I recently revisited the debate when Chris Coyne asked me to complete a chapter (40 more pages) on Keynes and the Austrians for a forthcoming handbook on Austrian economics. Roger Garrison in Time and Money does a masterful multiple chapter comparison of Hayek-Keynes (and an excellent power point as well). More recently David Sanz Bas provides a new look at the debate in a QJAE article “Hayek’s Critique of The General Theory: A New View of the Debate between Hayek and Keynes.” Videos, “Fear the Boom and the Bust”and “Fight of the Century”, by John Papola and economist Russell Roberts  popu­larized the idea that Hayek and Keynes (and their differing views on the virtues of markets and individual planning versus government intervention and more centralized planning) are crucial for understanding the current economic stagnation and policy debates. All are useful but lengthy. For those with limited time, Rotbard, in AGD, was able to capture the essence of the debate in a single paragraph (note 1 page 37):

Hayek subjected J.M. Keynes’s early Treatise on Money (now relatively forgotten amid the glow of his later General Theory) to a sound and searching critique, much of which applies to the later volume. Thus, Hayek pointed out that Keynes simply assumed that zero aggregate profit was just sufficient to maintain capital, whereas profits in the lower stages combined with equal losses in the higher stages would reduce the capital structure; Keynes ignored the various stages of production; ignored changes in capital value and neglected the identity between entrepreneurs and capitalists; took replacement of the capital structure for granted; neglected price differentials in the stages of production as the source of interest; and did not realize that, ultimately, the question faced by businessmen is not whether to invest in consumer goods or capital goods, but whether to invest in capital goods that will yield consumer goods at a nearer or later date. In general, Hayek found Keynes ignorant of capital theory and real-interest theory, particularly that of Böhm-Bawerk, a criticism borne out in Keynes’s remarks on Mises’s theory of interest. See John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936), pp. 192–93; F.A. Hayek, “Reflections on the Pure Theory of Money of Mr. J.M. Keynes,” Economica (August, 1931): 270–95; and idem, “A Rejoinder to Mr. Keynes,” Economica (November, 1931): 400–02.

If I had read that right after Fred handed me his notes, I might still be looking for a dissertation topic and world would have been spared an overpriced under read academic book.