I love the intro to Paul Krugman’s The Accidental Theorist:
Imagine an economy that produces only two things: hot dogs and buns. Consumers in this economy insist that every hot dog come with a bun, and vice versa. And labor is the only input to production.OK, timeout. Before we go any further, I need to ask what you think of an essay that begins this way. Does it sound silly to you? Were you about to turn the virtual page, figuring that this couldn’t be about anything important?
Krugman’s point?
You can’t do serious economics unless you are willing to be playful. Economic theory is not a collection of dictums laid down by pompous authority figures. Mainly, it is a menagerie of thought experiments — parables, if you like — that are intended to capture the logic of economic processes in a simplified way. In the end, of course, ideas must be tested against the facts. But even to know what facts are relevant, you must play with those ideas in hypothetical settings.