Download or read book Can You Outsmart an Economist written by Steven E. Landsburg and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This entertaining way to learn economics “will delight and inform anyone who enjoys rigorous thinking and the unexpected conclusions it delivers” (Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic). Can you outsmart an economist? Steven Landsburg, acclaimed author of The Armchair Economist and professor of economics, dares you to try. In this whip-smart, entertaining, and entirely unconventional economics primer, he brings together over one hundred puzzles and brain teasers that illustrate the subject’s key concepts and pitfalls. From warm-up exercises to get your brain working, to logic and probability problems, to puzzles covering more complex topics like inferences, strategy, and irrationality, Can You Outsmart an Economist? will show you how to do just that by expanding the way you think about decision making and problem solving. Let the games begin! “Ingenious…enables you to think like an economist without incurring a Keynesian headache or a huge student loan.” —George Gilder, author of Life After Google “Entertaining as well as edifying. Read it, expand your mind, and have fun!” —N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Download or read book The Armchair Economist written by Steven E. Landsburg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Air bags cause accidents, because well-protected drivers take more risks. This well-documented truth comes as a surprise to most people, but not to economists, who have learned to take seriously the proposition that people respond to incentives. In The Armchair Economist, Steven E. Landsburg shows how the laws of economics reveal themselves in everyday experience and illuminate the entire range of human behavior. Why does popcorn cost so much at the cinema? The 'obvious' answer is that the owner has a monopoly, but if that were the whole story, there would also be a monopoly price to use the toilet. When a sudden frost destroys much of the Florida orange crop and prices skyrocket, journalists point to the 'obvious' exercise of monopoly power. Economists see just the opposite: If growers had monopoly power, they'd have raised prices before the frost. Why don't concert promoters raise ticket prices even when they are sure they will sell out months in advance? Why are some goods sold at auction and others at pre-announced prices? Why do boxes at the football sell out before the standard seats do? Why are bank buildings fancier than supermarkets? Why do corporations confer huge pensions on failed executives? Why don't firms require workers to buy their jobs? Landsburg explains why the obvious answers are wrong, reveals better answers, and illuminates the fundamental laws of human behavior along the way. This is a book of surprises: a guided tour of the familiar, filtered through a decidedly unfamiliar lens. This is economics for the sheer intellectual joy of it.

Download or read book More Sex is Safer Sex written by Steven E. Landsburg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his long-running 'Everyday Economics' column in Slate and his popular book, The Armchair Economist, Steven Landsburg has been leading the pack of economists who are transforming their science from a drab meditation on graphs and charts into a fascinating window on human nature. Now he's back and more provocative than ever with surprises on virtually every page. In More Sex is Safer Sex, Professor Landsburg offers readers a series of stimulating discussions that all flow from one unsettling fact. Combining the rational decisions of each of us often produces an irrational result for all of us. Avoiding casual sex can actually encourage the spread of diseases. To solve population pressures, we need more people. In his tantalizing, entertaining narrative, Landsburg guides us through these shocking notions by the light of compelling logic and evidence and makes suggestions along the way: Why not charge juries if a convicted felon is exonerated? Why not let firemen keep the property they rescue? As entertaining as it is inflammatory, More Sex is Safer Sexwill make readers think about their decisions in unforgettable ways -- and spark debate over much that we all take for granted.

Download or read book Can You Outsmart an Economist written by Steven E. Landsburg and published by Harper Business. This book was released on 2018 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of The Armchair Economist, a delightful, informative collection of puzzles and brain teasers for novices and experts alike.

Download or read book The Big Questions written by Steven E. Landsburg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-02 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's wrong with stealing? What's the best way to blood test a pot-bellied pig? Should we tolerate intolerance? In the wake of his enormously popular books, The Armchair Economistand More Sex is Safer Sex, Steven Landsburg uses concepts from maths, economics and physics to address the big questions in philosophy: Where does knowledge come from? What's the difference between right and wrong? Do our beliefs matter? Is it possible to know everything? Provocative, utterly entertaining and always surprising, The Big Questions challenges readers to re-evaluate their most fundamental beliefs and reveals the relationship between the loftiest philosophical quests and our everyday lives.

Download or read book Economists written by Robert M. Solow and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-13 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A unique and illuminating portrait of economists and their work Providing illuminating profiles of ninety of the world's most prominent economists--from Nobel Prize winners and former Federal Reserve chairs to young scholars charting the future of the field--this stunning volume pairs full-page portraits by acclaimed photographer Mariana Cook with short essays written by the sitters in response to questions posed by Nobel Laureate Robert M. Solow about their work. Together, the words and photographs offer a unique look into the world of economists and serve as an accessible entry point into the views shaping policy and research decisions by such luminaries as Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, Mario Draghi, Steven Levitt, Robert Shiller, Esther Duflo, Paul Krugman, and Susan Athey, among many others.

Download or read book An Economist Goes to the Game written by Paul Oyer and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engaging look at the ways economic thinking can help us understand how sports work both on and off the field "Mr. Oyer writes clearly and ranges across all sorts of sports as well as across the globe, introducing fascinating observations."--Henry D. Fetter, Wall Street Journal Are ticket scalpers good for teams? Should parents push their kids to excel at sports? Why do Koreans dominate women's golf, while Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate marathon racing? Why would Michael Jordan, the greatest player in basketball, pass to Steve Kerr for the game-winning shot? Paul Oyer shows the many ways economics permeates the world of sports. His topics range from the business of sport to how great athletes use economic thinking to outsmart their opponents to why the world's greatest sports powerhouse (at least per capita) is not America or China but the principality of Liechtenstein. Economics explains why some sports cannot stop the use of performance-enhancing drugs while others can, why hundred-million-dollar player contracts are guaranteed in baseball but not in football, how one man was able to set the world of sports betting on its ear--and why it will probably never happen again. This book is an entertaining guide to how a bit of economics can make you a better athlete and a more informed fan.

Download or read book Foundations of Economics written by Yanis Varoufakis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-08 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Foundations of Economics breathes life into the discipline by linking key economic concepts with wider debates and issues. By bringing to light delightful mind-teasers, philosophical questions and intriguing politics in mainstream economics, it promises to enliven an otherwise dry course whilst inspiring students to do well. The book covers all the main economic concepts and addresses in detail three main areas: * consumption and choice * production and markets * government and the State. Each is discussed in terms of what the conventional textbook says, how these ideas developed in historical and philosophical terms and whether or not they make sense. Assumptions about economics as a discipline are challenged, and several pertinent students' anxieties ('Should I be studying economics?') are discussed.

Download or read book Willful written by Richard Robb and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory alternative to the standard economic models of human behavior that proposes an exciting new way to understand decision-making Why do we do the things we do? The classical view of economics is that we are rational individuals, making decisions with the intention of maximizing our preferences. Behaviorists, on the other hand, see us as relying on mental shortcuts and conforming to preexisting biases. Richard Robb argues that neither explanation accounts for those things that we do for their own sake, and without understanding these sorts of actions, our picture of decision†‘making is at best incomplete. Robb explains how these choices made seemingly without reason belong to a realm of behavior he identifies as “for†‘itself.” A provocative combination of philosophy and economics that offers a key to many of our quixotic choices, this groundbreaking volume provides a new way to understand everything from investing to how hard we work to how we manage daily interactions.

Download or read book Lectures on Microeconomics written by Romans Pancs and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-20 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic concepts and techniques presented through a series of "big questions," models that show how to pose a questions rigorously and work toward an answer. This book helps readers master economic concepts and techniques by tackling fundamental economic and political questions through a series of models. It is organized around a sequence of “big questions,” among them: When do markets help translate individuals' uncoordinated, selfish actions into outcomes that are best for all? Do markets change people, and, if so, for worse or better? Translated into the language of modern economics, do Marx's ideas have merit? Why is there so much income inequality? Or is there too little? The arguments are in the theorem-proof format, distinguishing results derived in the context of fully specified models from educated speculation. Readers will learn how to pose a question rigorously and how to work toward an answer, and to appreciate that even (especially!) the broadest and most ambitious questions call for a model. The goal of the book is not to indoctrinate but to show readers how to reason toward their own conclusions. The first chapter, on the Walrasian model of general equilibrium, serves as the prerequisite for the rest of the book. The remaining chapters cover less conventional topics, including the morality of markets; matching theory; Marxism, socialism, and the resilience of markets; a formalization of Kant's categorical imperative; unintended consequences of policy design; and theories of justice. The book can be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate or graduate students or as a resource for researchers in disciplines that draw on normative economics.

Download or read book Around the World Matching Game written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market written by John Allen Paulos and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-10-11 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can a renowned mathematician successfully outwit the stock market? Not when his biggest investment is WorldCom. In A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market , best-selling author John Allen Paulos employs his trademark stories, vignettes, paradoxes, and puzzles to address every thinking reader's curiosity about the market -- Is it efficient? Is it random? Is there anything to technical analysis, fundamental analysis, and other supposedly time-tested methods of picking stocks? How can one quantify risk? What are the most common scams? Are there any approaches to investing that truly outperform the major indexes? But Paulos's tour through the irrational exuberance of market mathematics doesn't end there. An unrequited (and financially disastrous) love affair with WorldCom leads Paulos to question some cherished ideas of personal finance. He explains why "data mining" is a self-fulfilling belief, why "momentum investing" is nothing more than herd behavior with a lot of mathematical jargon added, why the ever-popular Elliot Wave Theory cannot be correct, and why you should take Warren Buffet's "fundamental analysis" with a grain of salt. Like Burton Malkiel's A Random Walk Down Wall Street , this clever and illuminating book is for anyone, investor or not, who follows the markets -- or knows someone who does.

Download or read book Knowledge and Power written by George Gilder and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2013-06-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ronald Reagan’s most-quoted living author—George Gilder—is back with an all-new paradigm-shifting theory of capitalism that will upturn conventional wisdom, just when our economy desperately needs a new direction. America’s struggling economy needs a better philosophy than the college student's lament: "I can't be out of money, I still have checks in my checkbook!" We’ve tried a government spending spree, and we’ve learned it doesn’t work. Now is the time to rededicate our country to the pursuit of free market capitalism, before we’re buried under a mound of debt and unfunded entitlements. But how do we navigate between government spending that's too big to sustain and financial institutions that are "too big to fail?" In Knowledge and Power, George Gilder proposes a bold new theory on how capitalism produces wealth and how our economy can regain its vitality and its growth. Gilder breaks away from the supply-side model of economics to present a new economic paradigm: the epic conflict between the knowledge of entrepreneurs on one side, and the blunt power of government on the other. The knowledge of entrepreneurs, and their freedom to share and use that knowledge, are the sparks that light up the economy and set its gears in motion. The power of government to regulate, stifle, manipulate, subsidize or suppress knowledge and ideas is the inertia that slows those gears down, or keeps them from turning at all. One of the twentieth century’s defining economic minds has returned with a new philosophy to carry us into the twenty-first. Knowledge and Power is a must-read for fiscal conservatives, business owners, CEOs, investors, and anyone interested in propelling America’s economy to future success.

Download or read book Modern Political Economics written by Yanis Varoufakis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once in a while the world astonishes itself. Anxious incredulity replaces intellectual torpor and a puzzled public strains its antennae in every possible direction, desperately seeking explanations for the causes and nature of what just hit it. 2008 was such a moment. Not only did the financial system collapse, and send the real economy into a tailspin, but it also revealed the great gulf separating economics from a very real capitalism. Modern Political Economics has a single aim: To help readers make sense of how 2008 came about and what the post-2008 world has in store. The book is divided into two parts. The first part delves into every major economic theory, from Aristotle to the present, with a determination to discover clues of what went wrong in 2008. The main finding is that all economic theory is inherently flawed. Any system of ideas whose purpose is to describe capitalism in mathematical or engineering terms leads to inevitable logical inconsistency; an inherent error that stands between us and a decent grasp of capitalist reality. The only scientific truth about capitalism is its radical indeterminacy, a condition which makes it impossible to use science's tools (e.g. calculus and statistics) to second-guess it. The second part casts an attentive eye on the post-war era; on the breeding ground of the Crash of 2008. It distinguishes between two major post-war phases: The Global Plan (1947-1971) and the Global Minotaur (1971-2008). This dynamic new book delves into every major economic theory and maps out meticulously the trajectory that global capitalism followed from post-war almost centrally planned stability, to designed disintegration in the 1970s, to an intentional magnification of unsustainable imbalances in the 1980s and, finally, to the most spectacular privatisation of money in the 1990s and beyond. Modern Political Economics is essential reading for Economics students and anyone seeking a better understanding of the 2008 economic crash.

Download or read book A Random Walk Down Wall Street The Time Tested Strategy for Successful Investing Ninth Edition written by Burton G. Malkiel and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2007-12-17 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with a new chapter that draws on behavioral finance, the field that studies the psychology of investment decisions, the bestselling guide to investing evaluates the full range of financial opportunities.

Download or read book Shtick to Business written by Peter McGraw and published by Lioncrest Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do comedians know about killing it in business? Just ask a behavioral economist who teaches MBAs by day and decodes comedy by night. Dr. Peter McGraw--a business school professor, professional speaker, and founder of the Humor Research Lab (aka HuRL)--translates the genius and madness of the world's funniest people into powerful prescriptions for professional success. Drawing on cutting-edge research, case studies, and his own comedy successes (and failures), Peter reveals surprising business lessons from the masters of comedy: What Bill Murray and Groucho Marx know about career management. Why Dave Chappelle and Joan Rivers are a blueprint for brand building. What Tina Fey and Amy Poehler can teach you about leadership and teamwork. How Jerry Seinfeld's daily rituals made him the wealthiest comic alive. The insights in Shtick to Business will help you improve innovation and outsmart the competition. You'll build new skills--enhanced creativity, better decision-making, and a marketing mindset--to launch a business, tackle tough management problems, and build a serious career. And you'll never have to tell a joke.

Download or read book Capital as Power written by Jonathan Nitzan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-06-02 with total page 853 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, their theories hang in suspension. They cannot explain the process that matters most – the accumulation of capital. This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape – or creorder – their society. Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power’ and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power’.