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50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
Not Dismal anymore
This is a really good introduction to Economics.
As someone who's picked up Economics mostly by reading the business pages of the Independent it's been very useful.
The chatty style belies the fact there's lots of information to be learned from this book.
His central two points are that scarcity dictates price (supply and demand) and that prices are set...
Published on 2 May 2006 by A. I. Mackenzie
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86 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
not bad
I picked this up at the airport and nearly finished in two flights. It's an easy reading explanation of an economist's take on some everyday things and some big issues (like globalisation).
Some of the early stuff (about coffee shops etc) is really good fun. You might not be shocked by it but it is a very effective way of explaining some key economic theories...
Published on 20 Jul 2006 by tomsk77
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50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
Not Dismal anymore, 2 May 2006
This is a really good introduction to Economics.
As someone who's picked up Economics mostly by reading the business pages of the Independent it's been very useful.
The chatty style belies the fact there's lots of information to be learned from this book.
His central two points are that scarcity dictates price (supply and demand) and that prices are set according to the information available to both buyer and seller.
Along the way you'll find out why your morning coffee is priced the way it is and why it's hard to get a decent second hand car.
Although it's hard to believe in a book about economics, I found this to be a bit of a page turner and finished it in a bank holiday weekend.
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62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
Worth the wait - fun and packed with insight, 19 Mar 2006
This book has been out in the USA for a couple of months so I am not sure why we have to wait so long for the British edition - but it is worth the wait. Harford manages to write a fun book with a very light touch and bags of everyday insight, while still packing it with serious economic ideas. If you're an interested reader looking to understand how economists see the world, you couldn't pick up a better book. If you are a student you will learn more from this book than any of the standard textbooks and you will enjoy it so much more.
Harford covers subjects which include: why there is a Starbucks on every corner; how supermarkets get the most out of you; why traffic jams exist and what we can do about it; healthcare and why it's so hard to make it work; the stock market bubble and how to spot the next one; globalisation and the environment; how China grew so quickly; why Africa is poor. Towards the end it is almost a piece of travel writing alongside all these economic ideas. No maths, no supply and demand curves, but good stories and even a few tips as to how to buy a better cup of coffee...
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109 of 117 people found the following review helpful:
A lighter side of economics?, 6 April 2006
It is because of the success of Amazon that high street booksellers need to provide that little bit more to entice their customers. So we now have bookshops full of stationary, furniture and coffee. When you're next out shopping and want to grab a coffee, head over to the bookshop. Whilst you are there with your Lotsamoccacaféchino, take this book from the shelf and begin to read it. You will find it connects with you immediately. I don't know much about economics, at least I didn't when I picked this up. But I have wondered what all the fuss is about, especially when I try to keep up with the Budget, camapigns against poverty, and what's happeneing to my pension. The Undercover Economist not only makes economics easier to understand but it is doesn't clutter my mind with macroeconomic theory, fiscal rules and all that stuff. So as you read the book, soon you will find yourself ordering more coffee, but you'll have a much better understanding of the sophisticated system that you are engaging in, and how you're being ripped off. The book covers economics in ten interesting chapters - each with a different theme through which it introduces the reader to new understandings of the world of economics. This book will unveil to you a host of neat little theories that explain how every day life works, from why bookshops sell coffee, to world poverty with plenty in between. What really marks this book from the rest is its humour. There are very few funny economic books and the Undercover Economist is one of them. It reveals that the grey subject matter, so long understood as the dismal science, can really be a lot of fun - if only economics lecturers would be a little less serious about it.
So read this book whilst you enjoy your second coffee: this is OK for Amazon because you can still order the book online. It's a book you'll want to keep. Is there a sequel on the way? Because whilst I learnt alot, and was pleasently surprised at times when I laughed out loud, it didn't cover pensions.
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86 of 93 people found the following review helpful:
not bad, 20 Jul 2006
I picked this up at the airport and nearly finished in two flights. It's an easy reading explanation of an economist's take on some everyday things and some big issues (like globalisation).
Some of the early stuff (about coffee shops etc) is really good fun. You might not be shocked by it but it is a very effective way of explaining some key economic theories in a very accessible and interesting way.
I was also quite impressed by his explanation and perception of the stockmarket. This is something that I have read quite a bit about and deal with through work and I found myself nodding in agreement with him - that share prices are largely random but sometimes there is a brief opportunity to do something logical and make money, therefore fund managers spend a lot of time money and effort trying to find that 1 in 100 chance. (I still think active fund management is on balance a waste of money but that's another argument). I also liked (though I've heard a version of this before) his comparison of arbitrage in markets to picking a supermarket queue - if one is obviously shorter people join it very quickly.
I thought the section on second-hand car dealers, which goes on to discuss firms marketing insurance products, was also very interesting. Especially the way that providers try and communicate their trustworthiness through marketing etc. Again that confirms to me my perception of how the fund management industry pitches itself to clients.
There were a couple of points where I diverged significantly from him. First on tax, where he suggests that sales and income taxes discourage effort. This is something I have argued back and forth many times and I just don't buy it. I don't think most people most of the time think about tax and therefore I don't think it influences their behaviour significantly.
Secondly I think he is a bit too starry-eyed about globalisation. I agree with the general proposition that trade is good (not bad) for developing nations. But it is not an unqualified good. Yes it provides income and employment, and yes for many people in these countries working in a trainer factory is preferable to a lifetime argicultural labour. But that is not always the case.
Similarly I found his defence of free trade against the arguments that it leads to enviromental damage pretty unconvincing. There are plenty of people with lots of business experience who are much less sanguine about the ability of markets to inherently deliver the right results. See Adair Turner's Just Capital for example.
Finally a point on the writing style. Generally this is very clear and readable. but I find the whole 'undercover economist' thing a bit annoying. either use it or don't use it. in the book he seems to forget that he has been using it and only drops it in every 30 pages or so. why bother?
those whinges aside it's worth a read.
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28 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
clarity is golden, 1 Sep 2006
I have read a number of these economics for the man in the street tomes over the last couple of years, and along with Landsburg's somewhat out of date and rather more complex Armchair Economist this one stands out head and shoulders above the rest.
Harford seems to have mastered the art of making somewhat complex considerations appear extremely natural. If all economists in the media could express themselves so clearly and with such a judicious choice of examples the public would surely be better informed and more engaged with the most important issues of the day.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
The Undercover Economist, 2 April 2006
This book is capable of performing a minor miracle: reforming the hopelessly economically disinterested. Embarrassing though it may be, I will confess to never having been able to develop the slightest interest in economics. It is always perfectly clear (well, almost always) what economists are talking about, but it is rarely clear to me why they are talking about it. When my son gave me a copy of The Undercover Economist, I was not looking forward to reading it, but Harford captured my attention immediately and kept me enthralled all of the way through the book. He chooses examples (and beautifully and compellingly explicates them) that reveal how economics work in your life; why it matters to understand it. He explained things that had always puzzled me, and stunned me by explaining why things that I had always believed were not actually true. I think about principles from this books surprisingly often. I have since given The Undercover Economist to many friends and students who are equally economically challenged, and they have all had the same experience. I cannot recommend the book highly enough.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Economics is the New Rock 'n Roll, 5 April 2008
With the release, and runaway success, of Freakonomics publishers were faced with an interesting new phenomenon: The possibility that a book on economics could be interesting and could connect with the "common man" and as a result that it could sell in large numbers. Overlooking that Freakonomics was a book about statistical analysis, the hunt was on for other accessible economic texts.
As a result, a book as tedious and confused as Tim Harford's Undercover Economist has been allowed to reach the public.
To be sure, the book starts well - the opening chapters make for an interesting and informing introduction to economics, and form a promising introduction to the book. But pretty soon things begin to go awry. The chapter that explains why it is impossible to purchase a good second-hand car seems to ignore the likelihood that very many readers will have purchased perfectly good second-hand cars. From here on, Harford's credibility is damaged, and when he goes on to explain why countries are poor, and why globalisation is good without any of the earlier chapters credible and transparent economical theory to back up these assertions, he becomes trite and boring.
The Undercover Economist has its moments, Harford is a likeable and easy-to-read author, and the section on the 3G Wavelength Spectrum auctions is fascinating, and goes some way to explaining what seemed like an impenetrably confusing fit of behaviour on the part of these companies. But overall, after the first 25% or so, the book begins to drag, and fails poorly to live up to the promise of the early chapters, or to the marketing blurb on the cover.
The heartless survival-of-the-fittest neo-cons among reviewers find his book insufferably 'leftist' while the socialists find its claims that unrestricted capitalism is good for everyone intolerable. I just found it increasingly dull, and quite prescriptive. It didn't educate me and leave me to draw my own conclusions, it harangued me and expected me to share its conclusions without explaining adequately to me why I should.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
An accessible yet rigorous investigation of the nature and causes of the wealth of people, 15 April 2007
It is occasionally admitted by education policy-makers that we would all benefit from an understanding of personal finance, our role as consumers and the workings of the market economy as much as we do from traditional areas of study. Tim Harford's "Undercover Economist" would make an excellent foundation for such a course. Like his engaging FT column of the same name, Harford's first book provides an erudite yet lucid view of how economics can be used to understand our day-to-day lives.
The book takes the now-familiar approach of examining quotidian phenomena through the lenses available to professional economists: game theory, statistical analysis, econometrics etc. A reliance on plain English rather than charts, tables or formulae make this perhaps the best popular introduction to how economics can be used to understand everyday life.
Comparisons with Freakonomics are therefore inevitable: suffice to say if you enjoyed one, you will almost certainly enjoy the other.
Critics at the extremes of the economic spectrum have either mooted that the author dismisses command economies out of hand or that he is an apologist for them. There is probably no greater testament to the book's moderation and plausibility than that economists on the far right and far left are united in misunderstanding it as a work of the other extreme.
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24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
Economics of Everyday Life Rediscovered, 19 April 2006
Harford does more than offer a professional's perspective on mundane details: He digs beneath the surface of what people often overlook to reveal the nuggets of wisdom waiting there to improve their lives. He also makes this unearthing of value and knowledge an exciting adventure into the vast expanse of economics and its applications.
This book is a pretty good read for those with little or no training in economics. It is mostly well written and thought provoking. For those looking for even better examples of how economics can be applied to everyday life, try Brown & Wilson's outstanding primer, THE BLACK BOOK OF OUTSOURCING. Its one of the most valuable business and career books available which incorporates the global economy.
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12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
ECONOMICS FOR EVERYMAN, 4 April 2006
Reading the popular press, one might be forgiven for thinking that economists are people who make forecasts which are of little relevance to most of us and almost always wrong, or who write about esoteric subjects using language and mathematics which we find impenetrable. This book is quite different. It shows, with great clarity and many examples, how economics can be used in our daily lives to understand what is happening and make better decisions. It shows why coffee bars charge such high prices for cappuccinos; they are on prime sites, which are scarce, and much of the profit goes to the owners of those sites. Scarcity is also created by planning restrictions, trade unions, professional bodies and immigration policies, which raise prices to the benefit of some but the detriment of others. It discusses how supermarkets seek to maximise revenue, differentiating customers who are sensitive to prices from those who are not by analysing purchasing habits, using special offers and 'value' lines, and by placing similar but differently priced products side by side or on different shelves. The chapter on free markets shows how they reveal what people are prepared to pay for something, and such markets adjust - often incrementally, invisibly and in myriad ways - to changes in supply and demand. In contrast, markets that are distorted by subsidies, taxes or controls, are inefficient and result in misallocation of resources. In many actions, what we do has a deleterious effect on other people or the environment, a so-called externality. For example, driving to work increases congestion on the roads and CO2 in the atmosphere. Alternatively, what we do can have a beneficial effect; installing energy efficiency measures reduces pollution. The book shows how economics can value externalities such as pollution and reduce them in the most economical manner, for example by auctioning pollution permits. Many transactions involve asymmetric information, where one party knows more than the other. If we buy a used car, the seller knows more about it than we do; it may be good car or it may be a 'lemon'. On the other hand, if we buy medical insurance, we know more about our health than the insurance company. The author explains why it can be impossible to buy a good used car, why the cost of health insurance is so high, and how the information gap between buyer and seller can be narrowed. In Rational Insanity, it explains why share prices behave erratically, why it is difficult to make money trading them without information or insights not available to others, and why fund managers often run with the herd. But sometimes, as in the 1990s boom, the herd can be wrongfooted. One of the more illuminating chapters is on Game Theory, which can be employed in poker, nuclear war and many other interactions. Particularly fascinating is the account of how this was used in the auction of UK third generation cell-phone licences to raise over £22 billion for the government, against an initial estimate of £3 billion. The economists who designed the auction certainly earned their fees, but may have been disappointed to see the proceeds used just to reduce the national debt. To illustrate why poor countries are poor, the author describes a visit to Cameroon. The country is racked by corruption, and the government and its acolytes are seen to be no better than bandits. However, in the example of Nepal, one of the problems is misallocation of aid, due to failure of agencies to understand the motivations of those being helped. The chapter on globalisation shows how much richer the world has become by trading in goods and services. It shows that in such a world we should stick to doing what are most efficient at, even if someone else can do it better. Barriers to trade, such as duties, import restrictions and subsidies, hinder this process, benefiting one part of the economy but damaging another. They can also have other undesirable consequences; subsidies to US sugar producers harm farmers in Colombia, who have turned to producing cocaine. How China Grew Rich describes the story of the remarkable transformation, as Deng Xiaoping slowly loosened the strings of a centrally-controlled economy in ways that encouraged entrepreneurship and wealth generation, without damaging those who were less able to change. This contrasts with Russia, where the relatively rapid changes after 1990 have made billionaires but left many people worse off. Tim Harford in not only an accomplished economist but a prolific writer. His book is enjoyable, easy to read and contains not a single equation. But, being written from the clearly-stated viewpoint of an economist, those with other perspectives may reach different diagnoses and prescriptions. It is perhaps unfortunate that his book was published in the US in the wake of Freakonomics, which has been widely praised. But whilst the latter describes some pathbreaking economic studies, not all of which are of practical application to most readers, The Undercover Economist contains numerous examples and ideas which show that economics, far from being a 'dismal science', can be applied by all of us in everyday activities. Read it and find out how.
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