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From Publishers Weekly
Financial Times and Slate.com columnist Harford (The Undercover Economist) provides an entertaining and provocative look at the logic behind the seemingly irrational. Arguing that rational behavior is more widespread than most people expect, Harford uses economic principles to draw forth the rational elements of gambling, the teenage oral sex craze, crime and other supposedly illogical behaviors to illustrate his larger point. Utilizing John von Neumann and Thomas Schelling's conceptions of game theory, Harford applies their approach to a multitude of arenas, including marriage, the workplace and racism. Contrarily, he also shows that individual rational behavior doesn't always lead to socially desired outcomes. Harford concludes with how to apply this thinking on an even bigger scale, showing how rational behavior shapes cities, politics and the entire history of human civilization. Well-written with highly engaging stories and examples, this book will be of great interest to Freakonomics and Blink fans as well as anyone interested in the psychology of human behavior. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
Praise for The Undercover Economist:
“A rare specimen: a book on economics that will enthrall.… Beautifully written and argued, it brings the power of economics to life.”
—Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics
“Harford is smart. Scary smart. So smart he can illuminate, in clear, entertaining English, ideas and forces of mind-boggling complexity.”
—The Sunday Tribune
“A playful guide to the economics of everyday life [that] succeeds in taking the chalkdust out of the subject.”
—The Economist
“A tour de force.… If you need to be convinced of the ever-relevant and fascinating nature of economics, read this insightful and witty book.”
—Jagdish Bhagwati, author of In Defense of Globalization
“This is a book to savor.”
—The New York Times
“Harford writes like a dream.… Reading The Undercover Economist is like spending an ordinary day wearing X-ray goggles.”
—David Bodanis, author of E=mc2
From the Hardcover edition.
“A rare specimen: a book on economics that will enthrall.… Beautifully written and argued, it brings the power of economics to life.”
—Steven D. Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics
“Harford is smart. Scary smart. So smart he can illuminate, in clear, entertaining English, ideas and forces of mind-boggling complexity.”
—The Sunday Tribune
“A playful guide to the economics of everyday life [that] succeeds in taking the chalkdust out of the subject.”
—The Economist
“A tour de force.… If you need to be convinced of the ever-relevant and fascinating nature of economics, read this insightful and witty book.”
—Jagdish Bhagwati, author of In Defense of Globalization
“This is a book to savor.”
—The New York Times
“Harford writes like a dream.… Reading The Undercover Economist is like spending an ordinary day wearing X-ray goggles.”
—David Bodanis, author of E=mc2
From the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Math Applied to Common Decisions,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World (Hardcover)
Many of the popular books about economics seek to convince you that human beings are wildly illogical. Why? Because the dollars and sense of what people say and do don't always match up well. Tim Harford gets past that problem by mostly ignoring the academic studies that seem far removed from reality by emphasizing what people do when they are new to something.The book is at its best when he's explaining how systemic biases can create large shifts in human behavior. For instance, a slight preference for having neighbors who are like oneself can lead to quite substantial segregation along race, religion, education, and economic lines. For me, the book lacked any big "gotcha" like the finding that abortions may have contributed to lowering crime. In almost every section, I thought that Mr. Harford was arguing (or at least haranguing) beyond the limits of his evidence. When he moves beyond being an observer into someone trying to convince you what people are like, I found he was often offensive. There's a section about how those who aren't native to Africa "solved" the problem of dying from malaria by transferring slaves from Africa to milder climates that's insensitive at best. To Mr. Harford's eye, we are so much creatures of economics, comfort, and the pursuit of gain that there's no role for any other human motives. That's a too limited view of people . . . and hardly an uplifting one. Unless you are addicted to Mr. Harford's writing, skip this book. It won't tell you much that you need to know.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A worthwhile, challenging read for the non-economist,
By
This review is from: The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World (Hardcover)
I became interested in this title after hearing an interview about the book with Tim Harford on CBC radio. During the radio interview he did a splendid job of explaining in layperson terms how economics affects decisions in our daily lives and causes people to do seemingly irrational things that are indeed rational given their circumstances. The book carries the ideas communicated in this radio interview much further or course.Harford delves into a number of different topics such as why teens in the US are more likely to have casual oral sex than they were in the past and why this behaviour is actually perfectly rational. He looks at why voters put up with business subsidies that benefits a small minority of wealthy individuals and companies rather than mounting a lobbying campaign to remove such subsidies and why the apathy of the masses on this matter is perfectly rational. Harford does an excellent job of covering topics that many of us will come across on a regular basis and question if we take the time. The rational behaviour behind things such as rampant teenage oral sex or prostitutes having unprotected sex will seem blatantly irrational to most of us at first glance, but Harford does a great job of peeling away a few layers and explaining the impetus behind such unconventional decisions/behaviour. What seems like a recent trend for younger economists to study everyday goings-on in life rather than the ebb and flow of capital markets is certainly time well spent for one of the more broad social sciences that people study. Harford is one of a number of young economists who have put their mathematical skills and knowledge of economic principles to work to figure out why we do what we do. Many readers will likely be familiar with Freakonomics by Steven Levitt & Stephen J Dubner. The Logic of Life doesn't read quite as easily as Freakonomics does (it wasn't cowritten by a New Yorks Times Journalist after all) but it does do a great job at getting behind some of the things people do that seem strange to many of us. This book is a worthwhile read for anyone who's interested in why we humans do what we do and isn't satisfied with merely chalking it up to "That person is an ignorant fool" or "He doesn't know any better" or "It's human greed and selfishness." If only the world were as simple a place as many of us would like to think, then we wouldn't need economists like Harford.
3.0 out of 5 stars
freakonomics lite,
By
This review is from: The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World (Paperback)
When a book starts off discussing why the recent rise of teenage oral sex is a rational "economic" decision, you know the author is either throwing salaciousness in to hook us all in or is onto something. In many ways it's both.Like Stephen Levitt's Freakonomics, this book focuses on similar analysis with fun yet relevant twists--why there are more single women than men in New York and other big cities or why when more young blacks end up in jail, more black women go off to college. It's a fun read but the latter chapters I found the whole thing kind of tailed off especially as he got into some historical analysis of Dutch and English trade. Enjoyable but no Freakonomics.
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