Superfreakonomics : global cooling, patriotic prostitutes, and why suicide bombers should buy life insurance by
Here at last is the sequel to the international bestselling phenomenon, 'Freakonomics'. Steven Levitt, the original rogue economist, and Stephen Dubner have been working hard, uncovering the hidden side of even more controversial subjects, from charity to terrorism and prostitution
The Undercover Economist by
With over one million copies sold, The Undercover Economist has been hailed worldwide as a fantastic guide to the fundamental principles of economics. An economist's version of The Way Things Work, this engaging volume is part Economics 101 and part expose of the economic principles lurkingbehind daily events, explaining everything from traffic jams to high coffee prices.This revised edition, newly updated to consider the banking crisis and economic turbulence of the last four years, is essential for anyone who has wondered why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, or why they can't seem to find a decent second-hand car, or how to outwit Starbucks.Senior columnist for the Financial Times Tim Harford brings his experience and insight to bear as he ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, and coffee chains - to name just a few - are vacuuming money from our wallets.Harford punctures the myths surrounding some of today's biggest controversies, including the high cost of health-care; he reveals why certain environmental laws can put a smile on a landlord's face; and he explains why some industries can have high profits for innocent reasons, while in otherindustries something sinister is going on. Covering an array of economic concepts including scarce resources, market power, efficiency, price gouging, market failure, inside information, and game theory, Harford sheds light on how these forces shape our day-to-day lives, often without our knowingit.Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. Written with a light touch and sly wit, The Undercover Economist turns "the dismal science" into a true delight.
Logic of life by
THE LOGIC OF LIFE introduces you to engaging stories and characters linked together in a bold narrative sweep. The book starts with the most intimate decisions - to have sex, to take drugs, to lead an honest life - then zooms out to discuss the logic of the family, of neighbourhoods, large corporations, cities themselves. This is the new economics of everything you never thought was economics, and it will help you see the world in a new way.
Poor economics : barefoot hedge-fund managers, DIY doctors and the surprising truth about life on less than 1 dollar a day by
Why would a man in morocco who doesn't have enough to eat buy a television? Why do the poorest people in India spend 7 per cent of their food budget on sugar? Does having lots of children actually make you poorer? This eye-opening books overturns tihe myths about what it is like to live on very little, revealing the unexpected decisions that millionsof people make every day
Gdp: a brief but affectionate history by
How GDP came to rule our lives--and why it needs to change Why did the size of the U.S. economy increase by 3 percent on one day in mid-2013--or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the U.K. financial industry show its fastest expansion ever at the end of 2008--just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives--but that hardly anyone actually understands. Diane Coyle traces the history of this artificial, abstract, complex, but exceedingly important statistic from its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century precursors through its invention in the 1940s and its postwar golden age, and then through the Great Crash up to today. The reader learns why this standard measure of the size of a country's economy was invented, how it has changed over the decades, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. The book explains why even small changes in GDP can decide elections, influence major political decisions, and determine whether countries can keep borrowing or be thrown into recession. The book ends by making the case that GDP was a good measure for the twentieth century but is increasingly inappropriate for a twenty-first-century economy driven by innovation, services, and intangible goods.
Microeconomics of Market Failures by
Bernard Salanié studies situations where competitive markets fail to achieve a collective optimum and the interventions used to remedy these so-called market failures. In this book Bernard Salanié studies situations where competitive markets fail to achieve a collective optimum and the interventions used to remedy these so-called market failures. He includes discussions of theories of collective decision making, as well as elementary models of public economics and industrial organization. Although public economics is traditionally defined as the positive and normative study of government action over the economy, Salanié confines himself to microeconomic aspects of welfare economics; he considers taxation and the effects of public spending only as potential remedies for market failures. He concludes with a discussion of the theory of general equilibrium in incomplete markets.
Multinational Enterprises and Government Intervention (RLE International Business) by
Government intervention can reduce the profits of multinational enterprises. These interventions also increase uncertainty and risk and distort trading and intra-firm sourcing patterns. The focus of this book is a corporate survival plan that describes how a multinational can monitor its exposure to intervention and then seek to reduce it. It reports on the successes and failures of firms as they implement various global management systems and recommends a general strategy. Such a strategy will allow multinationals to continue foreign investment with the longer term horizons that will benefit both the firms and their host countries.
Government Failure Versus Market Failure by
A Brookings Institution Press and American Enterprise Institute publication When should government intervene in market activity and when is it best to let market forces take their natural course? How does the existing empirical evidence about government performance guide our answers to these questions? In this clear, concise book, Clifford Winston offers his innovative analysis--shaped by thirty years of evidence--to assess the efficacy of government interventions. Markets fail when it is possible to make one person better off without making someone else worse off, thus indicating inefficiency. Governments fail when an intervention is unwarranted because markets are performing well or when the intervention fails to correct a market problem efficiently. Winston concludes from existing research that the cost of government failure may actually be considerably greater than the cost of market failure: "My search of the evidence is not limited to policy failures. I will report success stories, but few of them emerged from my search." The prevalence of market failure is due to a lack of conviction in favor of markets, the inflexibility of intervening government agencies, and political forces that enable certain interest groups to benefit at the expense of society as a whole. Winston suggests that government policy can be improved by making greater use of market-oriented solutions that have already produced benefits in certain situations.
