Download or read book How We Misunderstand Economics and Why it Matters written by David Leiser and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-21 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to explain why people misunderstand economics. From the cognitive shortcuts we use to make sense of complex information, to the metaphors we rely on and their effect on our thinking, this important book lays bare not only the psychological traits that distort our ability to understand such a vital topic, but also what this means for policy makers and civil society more widely. Accessibly written, the book explores the mismatch between the complexities of economics and the constraints of human cognition that lie at the root of our misconceptions. The authors document and explain the gamut of cognitive strategies laypeople employ as they grapple with such complex topics as inflation, unemployment, economic crises, finance, and money in the modern economy. The book examines sources of misconceptions ranging from the intentionality fallacy, whereby economic phenomena are assumed to have been caused deliberately rather than to have come about by an interplay of many agents and causal factors, to the role of ideology in framing economic thinking. Exposing the underlying biases and assumptions that undermine financial and economic literacy, and concluding with recommendations for how policies and ideas should be framed to enable a clearer understanding, this will be essential reading not only for students and researchers across psychology and economics, but also anyone interested in progressive public policy. Visit the associated website for the book here: http://www.misunderstandeconomics.com/

Download or read book Misunderstanding Financial Crises written by Gary B. Gorton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-02 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before 2007, economists thought that financial crises would never happen again in the United States, that such upheavals were a thing of the past. Gary B. Gorton, a prominent expert on financial crises, argues that economists fundamentally misunderstand what they are, why they occur, and why there were none in the U.S. from 1934 to 2007. Misunderstanding Financial Crises offers a back-to-basics overview of financial crises, and shows that they are not rare, idiosyncratic events caused by a perfect storm of unconnected factors. Instead, Gorton shows how financial crises are, indeed, inherent to our financial system. Economists, Gorton writes, looked from a certain point of view and missed everything that was important: the evolution of capital markets and the banking system, the existence of new financial instruments, and the size of certain money markets like the sale and repurchase market. Comparing the so-called "Quiet Period" of 1934 to 2007, when there were no systemic crises, to the "Panic of 2007-2008," Gorton ties together key issues like bank debt and liquidity, credit booms and manias, moral hazard, and too-big-too-fail--all to illustrate the true causes of financial collapse. He argues that the successful regulation that prevented crises since 1934 did not adequately keep pace with innovation in the financial sector, due in part to the misunderstandings of economists, who assured regulators that all was well. Gorton also looks forward to offer both a better way for economists to think about markets and a description of the regulation necessary to address the future threat of financial disaster.

Download or read book Cogs and Monsters written by Diane Coyle and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How economics needs to change to keep pace with the twenty-first century and the digital economy Digital technology, big data, big tech, machine learning, and AI are revolutionizing both the tools of economics and the phenomena it seeks to measure, understand, and shape. In Cogs and Monsters, Diane Coyle explores the enormous problems—but also opportunities—facing economics today and examines what it must do to help policymakers solve the world’s crises, from pandemic recovery and inequality to slow growth and the climate emergency. Mainstream economics, Coyle says, still assumes people are “cogs”—self-interested, calculating, independent agents interacting in defined contexts. But the digital economy is much more characterized by “monsters”—untethered, snowballing, and socially influenced unknowns. What is worse, by treating people as cogs, economics is creating its own monsters, leaving itself without the tools to understand the new problems it faces. In response, Coyle asks whether economic individualism is still valid in the digital economy, whether we need to measure growth and progress in new ways, and whether economics can ever be objective, since it influences what it analyzes. Just as important, the discipline needs to correct its striking lack of diversity and inclusion if it is to be able to offer new solutions to new problems. Filled with original insights, Cogs and Monsters offers a road map for how economics can adapt to the rewiring of society, including by digital technologies, and realize its potential to play a hugely positive role in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book Making Economics Public written by Vicki Macknight and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-05-22 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics – macro, micro and mysterious – is integral to everyday life. But despite its importance for personal and collective decision making, it is a discipline often viewed as technical, arcane and inaccessible and thus overlooked in public discourse. This book is a call to arms to bring the discipline of economics more into the public domain. It calls on economists to think about how to make their knowledge of the economics public. And it calls on those who specialise in communicating expert knowledge to help us learn to communicate about economics. The book brings together scholars and practitioners working at the early stages of an emerging field: the public communication of, and public engagement with, economics. Through a series of short essays from academics and practitioners, the book has two key goals: first and foremost, it will make a case for why we need to make economics public and for the importance of having a clear vision of what it means to make economics public. Secondly, it suggests some ways that this can be done featuring contributions from practitioners, including economists, who are engaging audiences in newspapers, museums and beyond. This book is essential reading for those in economics with an interest in making economics public and those already in the many fields dedicated to communicating expert knowledge in public spaces who have an interest in where economics can fit. More information about the book can be found here: https://www.makingeconomicspublic.org/

Download or read book Economical Writing Third Edition written by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-05-17 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Write clearly about any subject: “Writers should check out Economical Writing, and editors should recommend it. Your future readers will be thankful.” —Journal of Scholarly Publishing Economics is not a field known for good writing. Charts, yes. Sparkling prose, no. Except, that is, when it comes to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey. Her conversational and witty yet always clear style is a hallmark of her classic works of economic history, enlivening the dismal science and engaging readers well beyond the discipline. And now she’s here to share the secrets of how it’s done, no matter what your field. Economical Writing is itself economical: a collection of thirty-five pithy rules for making your writing clear, concise, and effective. Proceeding from big-picture ideas to concrete strategies for improvement at the level of the paragraph, sentence, or word, McCloskey shows us that good writing, after all, is not just a matter of taste—it’s a product of adept intuition and a rigorous revision process. Debunking stale rules, warning us that “footnotes are nests for pedants,” and offering an arsenal of readily applicable tools and methods, she shows writers of all levels of experience how to rethink the way they approach their work, and gives them the knowledge to turn mediocre prose into magic. At once efficient and digestible, hilarious and provocative, Economical Writing lives up to its promise. With McCloskey as our guide, we discover how any piece of writing—on economics or any other subject—can be a pleasure to read.

Download or read book The Misunderstood Economy written by Robert Eisner and published by Harvard Business Review Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In clear, easy-to-understand language, The Misunderstood Economy explains how economic and social progress is and should be measured, confronting widespread misconceptions about debt and deficit, government spending and taxes, unemployment and inflation, foreign investment, and foreign trade.

Download or read book Doughnut Economics written by Kate Raworth and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economics is the mother tongue of public policy. It dominates our decision-making for the future, guides multi-billion-dollar investments, and shapes our responses to climate change, inequality, and other environmental and social challenges that define our times. Pity then, or more like disaster, that its fundamental ideas are centuries out of date yet are still taught in college courses worldwide and still used to address critical issues in government and business alike. That’s why it is time, says renegade economist Kate Raworth, to revise our economic thinking for the 21st century. In Doughnut Economics, she sets out seven key ways to fundamentally reframe our understanding of what economics is and does. Along the way, she points out how we can break our addiction to growth; redesign money, finance, and business to be in service to people; and create economies that are regenerative and distributive by design. Named after the now-iconic “doughnut” image that Raworth first drew to depict a sweet spot of human prosperity (an image that appealed to the Occupy Movement, the United Nations, eco-activists, and business leaders alike), Doughnut Economics offers a radically new compass for guiding global development, government policy, and corporate strategy, and sets new standards for what economic success looks like. Raworth handpicks the best emergent ideas—from ecological, behavioral, feminist, and institutional economics to complexity thinking and Earth-systems science—to address this question: How can we turn economies that need to grow, whether or not they make us thrive, into economies that make us thrive, whether or not they grow? Simple, playful, and eloquent, Doughnut Economics offers game-changing analysis and inspiration for a new generation of economic thinkers.

Download or read book Reclaiming economics for future generations written by Lucy Ambler and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today’s economies fail to recognise that we are in a rapidly worsening crisis, reproducing and often worsening vast and harmful inequalities between people and countries. The current models are unsustainable, and at a time when global temperatures are rising and divides are deepening, humanity is left in a rapidly worsening situation of its own making, the destruction of the living world, which will make large parts of the earth uninhabitable. Without access to the knowledge, skills or tools to build a better future, local, national and global economies will continue to fail to address the interlinked challenges of systemic racism, inequalities faced by women, the Covid-19 pandemic and the nature and climate emergency. Across the world, economics students are coming together under the banner of the student movement, Rethinking Economics, to create a better economics – one which can help to create a world where all our children can flourish regardless of their gender, background or birthplace. Drawing on over sixty interviews with students and professionals from identities and backgrounds marginalised in economics and a wide range of global and historical research, this book illustrates the ways in which the discipline is currently not fit for purpose and sets out a vision for how it can be diversified, decolonised and democratised. The struggle to reclaim economics could not be more crucial - our futures depend on it. This book explains how it can be done.

Download or read book What Environmentalists Need to Know About Economics written by J. Scorse and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-10-25 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Easy-to-read and filled with real-world examples of the most complex environmental challenges, this book demonstrates that sound economic analysis and reasoning can be one of the environmental community's strongest allies. This is sure to become an invaluable resource for students, environmental organizations, and policymakers.

Download or read book Economic Psychology written by Rob Ranyard and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive overview of contemporary economic psychology Economic Psychology presents an accessible overview of contemporary economic psychology. The science of economic mental life and behavior is increasingly relevant as people are expected to take more responsibility for their household and personal economic decisions. The text will, in addition to reviewing current knowledge on each topic presented, consider the practical and policy implications for supporting economic decision making. Economic Psychology examines the central aspects of adult decision making in everyday life and includes the theories of economic decision making based on risk, value and affect, and theories of intertemporal choice. The text reviews the nature and behavioral consequences of economic mental representations about such things as material possessions, money and the economy. The editor Robert Ranyard—a noted expert on economic psychology—presents a life-span developmental approach, from childhood to old age. He also reviews the important societal issues such as charitable giving and economic sustainability. This vital resource: Reviews the economic psychology in everyday life including financial behaviour such as saving and tax-paying and matters such as entrepreneurial activity Offers an introduction to the field and traces the emergence of the discipline, from Adam Smith to George Katona and Herbert Simon Includes information on societal issues such as charitable giving and pro-environmental behaviour Considers broader perspectives on economic psychology: life-span psychological development from childhood to old age Written for students of psychology, Economic Psychology reviews the most important information on contemporary economic psychology with a focus on individual and household economic decision making, ranging widely across financial matters such as borrowing and saving, and economic activities such as buying, trading, and working.

Download or read book Financial Education and Risk Literacy written by Riccardo Viale and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative book explores how the design of financial education programmes could benefit from the findings of behavioural economics and finance and cognitive sciences. It covers the social, cultural and technological determinants of financial education, the role of the banking system in promoting financial literacy, and how governments and regulatory authorities are dealing with financial education and risk literacy programmes in schools.

Download or read book A Research Agenda for Economic Psychology written by Katharina Gangl and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2019 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents state of the art reviews on classical and novel research fields in economic psychology. Internationally acknowledged experts and the next generation of younger researchers summarize the knowledge in their fields and outline promising avenues of future research. Chapters include fundamental as well as applied research topics such as the psychology of money, experience-based product design and the enhancement of financial capabilities. The book is targeted particularly towards researchers and advanced students looking to update their knowledge and refresh their thinking on future research developments.

Download or read book Birth of Modern Facts written by James W. Cortada and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-01-09 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over twenty years, James W. Cortada has pioneered research into how information shapes society. In this book he tells the story of how information evolved since the mid-nineteenth century. Cortada argues that information increased in quantity, became more specialized by discipline (e.g., mathematics, science, political science), and more organized. Information increased in volume due to a series of innovations, such as the electrification of communications and the development of computers, but also due to the organization of facts and knowledge by discipline, making it easier to manage and access. He looks at what major disciplines have done to shape the nature of modern information, devoting chapters to the most obvious ones. Cortada argues that understanding how some features of information evolved is useful for those who work in subjects that deal with their very construct and application, such as computer scientists and those exploring social media and, most recently, history. The Birth of Modern Facts builds on Cortada’s prior books examining how information became a central feature of modern society, most notably as a sequel to All the Facts: A History of Information in the United States since 1870 (OUP, 2016) and Building Blocks of Society: History, Information Ecosystems, and Infrastructures (R&L, 2021).

Download or read book Handbook of Research Methods in Behavioural Economics written by Morris Altman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive Handbook addresses a wide variety of methodological approaches adopted and developed by behavioural economists, exploring the implications of such innovations for analysis and policy.

Download or read book Economics in One Virus written by Ryan A. Bourne and published by Cato Institute. This book was released on 2021-04-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A truly excellent book that explains where our pandemic response went wrong, and how we can understand those failings using the tools of economics." —Tyler Cowen, Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and coauthor of the blog Marginal Revolution Have you ever stopped to wonder why hand sanitizer was missing from your pharmacy for months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Why some employers and employees were arguing over workers being re-hired during the first COVID-19 lockdown? Why passenger airlines were able to get their own ring-fenced bailout from Congress? Economics in One Virus answers all these pandemic-related questions and many more, drawing on the dramatic events of 2020 to bring to life some of the most important principles of economic thought. Packed with supporting data and the best new academic evidence, those uninitiated in economics will be given a crash-course in the subject through the applied case-study of the COVID-19 pandemic, to help explain everything from why the U.S. was underprepared for the pandemic to how economists go about valuing the lives saved from lockdowns. After digesting this highly readable, fast-paced, and provocative virus-themed economic tour, readers will be able to make much better sense of the events that they've lived through. Perhaps more importantly, the insights on everything from the role of the price mechanism to trade and specialization will grant even those wholly new to economics the skills to think like an economist in their own lives and when evaluating the choices of their political leaders.

Download or read book Foundations of Economic Psychology written by Kazuhisa Takemura and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-07-26 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an overview of the concept of economic psychology from behavioral and mathematical perspectives and related theoretical and empirical findings. Economic psychology is defined briefly as a general term for descriptive theories to explain the psychological processes of microeconomic behaviors and macroeconomic phenomena. However, the psychological methodology and knowledge of economic psychology have also been applied widely in such fields as economics, business administration, and engineering, and they are expected to become increasingly useful in the future—a trend suggested in several eminent scholars’ studies. The book explains the numerous behavioral and mathematical models of economic psychology related to micro- and macroeconomic phenomena that have been proposed in the past, and introduces new models that are useful to explain human economic behaviors. It concludes with speculations about the future of modern economic psychology, referring to its connection with fields related to neuroscience, such as neuroeconomics, which have been developed in recent years. Readers require no advanced expertise; nonetheless, an introductory understanding of psychology, business administration, and economics, and a high- school-graduate level of mathematics are useful. To aid readers, each chapter includes a bibliography, which can be referred for more details related to economic psychology.

Download or read book Psychological Perspectives on Financial Decision Making written by Tomasz Zaleskiewicz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews the latest research from psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics evaluating how people make financial choices in real-life circumstances. The volume is divided into three sections investigating financial decision making at the level of the brain, the level of an individual decision maker, and the level of the society, concluding with a discussion of the implications for further research. Among the topics discussed: Neural and hormonal bases of financial decision making Personality, cognitive abilities, emotions, and financial decisions Aging and financial decision making Coping methods for making financial choices under uncertainty Stock market crashes and market bubbles Psychological perspectives on borrowing, paying taxes, gambling, and charitable giving Psychological Perspectives on Financial Decision Making is a useful reference for researchers both in and outside of psychology, including decision-making experts, consumer psychologists, and behavioral economists.