Steven Landsburg

The Armchair Economist (revised and updated May 2012): Economics & Everyday Life

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The extensively revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, The Armchair Economist—“a delightful compendium of quotidian examples illustrating important economic and financial theories” (The Journal of Finance).
In this revised and updated edition of Steven Landsburg’s hugely popular book, he applies economic theory to today’s most pressing concerns, answering a diverse range of daring questions, such as:
Why are seat belts deadly?
Why do celebrity endorsements sell products?
Why are failed executives paid so much?
Who should bear the cost of oil spills?
Do government deficits matter?
How is workplace safety bad for workers?
What’s wrong with the local foods movement?
Which rich people can’t be taxed?
Why is rising unemployment sometimes good?
Why do women pay more at the dry cleaner?
Why is life full of disappointments?
Whether these are nagging questions you’ve always had, or ones you never even thought to ask, this new edition of The Armchair Economist turns the eternal ideas of economic theory into concrete answers that you can use to navigate the challenges of contemporary life.
This book is currently unavailable
358 printed pages
Original publication
2007
Publication year
2007
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Impressions

  • Довран Одаевshared an impression4 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    💡Learnt A Lot
    🎯Worthwhile

Quotes

  • Довран Одаевhas quoted4 years ago
    In fact the whole point of prices is that they adjust quickly to market conditions, and that’s a good thing. Even a purely altruistic convenience store owner who refuses to profit from a crisis would be well advised to raise the price of water and donate the proceeds to charity, rather than allowing all the water to be snapped up by whoever happens to arrive first or manages to elbow everybody else out of the way.
  • Довран Одаевhas quoted4 years ago
    Most of economics can be summarized in four words: “People respond to incentives.” The rest is commentary.
  • Довран Одаевhas quoted4 years ago
    An economist who understands why teams punt knows what will happen if you change the rules; an economist who understands why people buy cereal knows what will happen if you give out free cornflakes; and an economist who understands why people accept certain job offers knows what will happen if you manipulate the inflation rate. That’s why we need stories—ideally, stories that are simple enough to understand, but complicated enough to bear some relation to the true story of the world we inhabit.

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