The office of Professor of Economics Gilbert Skillman is a swirl of paper and books that would make any bibliophile envious. Although he is a busy man, between the two courses he is teaching this semester and his faculty rock band, Busted Roses, Skillman is a self-described avid reader. Two books he is currently reading are “A Thousand Recordings to Hear Before You Die” by Tom Moon and “Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes” by Donald G. Saari.

Hannah Berkman: How many books are you currently reading?

Gilbert Skillman: Multiple, of different contexts. One is for politics, one or two are for class, I’d have to think about what’s on my bedside now for pleasure. I think I remember that one. Let’s start with that one. It’s called “A Thousand Recordings to Hear Before You Die.”

HB: What genre is that book?

GS: Music. Suppose you love music of potentially any kind, but you wanted to know what to go look for—the recordings that kind of distinguish themselves from the pack because they open your eyes or get into something, in some fundamental way. And what this guy has done, the author is Tom Moon and he’s a music critic, he has just gone out and said, “Okay, here you go, from classical to rap, to rock, to country, to gospel, here’s definitive recordings.”

HB: And are you actually listening to these recordings?

GS: I am actually making a list. I mean I have a lot of them already as it turns out. I’ve got a whole bunch of old CDs and albums. I’m pleased to see he has the same opinion as I do on some of these sometimes obscure things. And other times I’m like, “Oh, how about that?” You know, I’ve gotta make a list and have started going looking for them.

HB: So does he provide a little blurb about each recording? What’s the format like?

GS: There’s a blurb about what makes this a qualifier for the list of a thousand, he talks about what are the key tracks, he talks about what are related things by the artist that are also good, and what other artists are similar for this kind of experience.

HB: Do you read a lot of books like this?

GS: Yes. I’m into music, a lot. I mean, we have a campus band. Busted Roses; we played at Rocktoberfest.

HB: When you’re reading a book, if you don’t like it halfway through, do you stop reading?

GS: Oh, hell yeah. Are you kidding? I’ve got a million half-finished books lying around. The professional book that I’ve been reading is eye-opening. It’s like one of these, “Oh, wow! It changes the way we think about the world books.” It’s called, “Disposing Dictators, Demystifying Voting Paradoxes,” by Donald G. Saari.

HB: Is this book related to your work?

GS: Yes. Both to my CSS class and my research.

HB: What is your research on?

GS: It’s in applied microeconomic theory, basically, because I have a lot of research on the distinction between the public and private spheres of social life. So it’s basically providing a game theoretic foundation for the distinction between private and public.

HB: So how does the book relate to your research?

GS: It informs my research. In the public sphere, the defining characteristic is we’re all in it. We all have a stake in it. When you take an action, it affects me. That raises the possibility or suggestion that we should all have a stake in the outcome. How? Through voice, let’s say, voting. Does voting accomplish anything meaningful? For instance, is there any special justification for democracy as opposed to, let’s say, a constitutional monarchy?

Well, one line of research that’s critical of that idea says that if you start with the notion of individual preferences and then ask the question, “Can you arrive at a social preference by compiling all the individual preferences? Can you do that in a meaningful and coherent way?” And there’s an important line of research in welfare economics that says you can’t. You end up going around in circles, literally. To speak of the public good or the public will is just gibberish. And then that throws democracy into question.

This book exposes the limitations in that set of theorems or that set of results that speak to that. It says, “Let’s go a little deeper.” There’s some common feature going on in all these impossibility results that while intriguing, is not as fatal as you might think it would be. And then, if you relax the key condition just a little bit, suddenly you don’t get these paradoxical results. And then it’s meaningful to speak about perhaps the social welfare. So now that revives the importance of voice, collective voice, for the public domain. And that’s how it relates to what I’m doing.

HB: Would you recommend this book to someone who’s not doing the same research as you?

GS: Sure, if you were in the area of economics called public choice or public finance, yes.

HB: Obviously you’re reading a lot of books like this for your research. How does this book compare with some of the other ones you’ve been reading?

GS: This guy is out to enlighten. That is, he’s out to say, “Other literature has been very obscure and technical, in a way that obscures what’s really going on. And I want to clear the underbrush, and show you what’s going on.” So his goal is explanatory. Clearing things up. That’s different from a lot of the other works I’ve read.

HB: Would you say this is more of a philosophical approach to what you’re looking at?

GS: It certainly has a philosophical aspect in the sense that welfare economics is a type of philosophy. But it also has to do with just the theory of how you think about economic relations.

HB: What are qualities that you look for in books that you use for your research?

GS: It has to be relevant of course, and useful as a tool. I mean these are tools. The purpose is to take my understanding and take it to a new and more embracing kind of place. And it has to do that. Otherwise, what’s the point?