Name: The Undercover Economist
ISBN: 9780199926510

Tim Harford

Harford ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and of course the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, health care providers, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets.

The Undercover Economist

This book is an economist's version of 'The Way Things Work'. It's part field guide to economics and part expose of the economic principles lurking behind daily events like traffic jams and high coffee prices.

Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!

Insightful and fun. Definitely gives you new ways to think about information.

Matthew Serrano

Who makes most money from the demand for cappuccinos early in the morning at Waterloo Station? Why is it impossible to get a foot on the property ladder? How does the Mafia make money from laundries when street gangs pushing drugs don't? Who really benefits from immigration? How can China, in just fifty years, go from the world's worst famine to one of the greatest economic revolutions of all time, lifting a million people out of poverty a month? Looking at familiar situations in unfamiliar ways, THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST is a fresh explanation of the fundamental principles of the modern economy, illuminated by examples from the streets of London to the booming skyscrapers of Shanghai to the sleepy canals of Bruges. Leaving behind textbook jargon and equations, Tim Harford will reveal the games of signals and negotiations, contests of strength and battles of wit that drive not only the economy at large but the everyday choices we make.

Nick Nikolov

Bilal Catakoglu

Steffen Fagerström Christensen

Johanna Kenrick

Anna Pinto

Oana Pop

A noted economist furnishes an entertaining introduction to the key principles and fundamental concepts of economics, as well as their influence on the history of the modern world, accompanied by real-life examples of economics at work. Reprint.