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Our media is filled with stories of economics and policymaking. This book helps you to keep your head above water in this sea of information by empowering you to spot naive and spurious economic arguments. In short, this book will help you become a critical consumer of economic arguments. Accordingly, the book provides many examples of these arguments, and explains why they are wrong.
It is not, however, just an exercise in negation; it does present some economic theory, though not in a formal and rigorous way. Instead of stressing a well-explicated theory, it inculcates an intuitive 'feel' for economics, which economics courses often overlook due to their strong emphasis on the technical apparatus of economics. Even those who have taken some economics courses, therefore, will still find much to learn from this book.
List of contents
List of Boxes.
Preface.
1. Introduction.
PART I: The Subject of Economics:.
2. What Economists Do.
3. How Well Do They Do It?.
PART II: Some Infrastructure:.
4. Beguiling Words.
5. Some Important Economic Ideas Often Misunderstood.
PART III: Economic Theory and Policy:.
6. The Crown Jewel of Economics: The Price Mechanism.
7. Risk Taking and Incentives.
8. Looking Around Corners.
9. Natural Resources and Environmental Economics.
PART IV: Looking at Data:.
10. Empirical Economics.
11. Some Simple (?) Ways of Presenting Data: Percentages, Figures and Graphs.
12. Samples and their Problems.
13. Regressions: The Workhorse of Empirical Economics.
14. The Workhorse in Action: Some Examples of Empirical Economics.
Epilogue.
Index
Report
"This well-written, clearly organized book presents a nontechnical, overarching view of economic theory and how it gets applied and interpreted" ( Choice Reviews , June 2009)
