|
 |
All orders
shipped by
airmail!
Click here for our
Shipping Policies!
| |
|
ZIN Product Number: 10002699
| eBay (last 12 months) | | Auctions: | | 54 | | Price Range: | | $0.07 - 0.06 | | | | Craigslist (last 12 months) | | Classifieds: | | 23 | | Price Range: | | $0.07 - 0.06 | | | | Amazon Used (last 12 months) | | Auctions: | | 65 | | Price Range: | | $0.06 - 0.07 | | | | ZooScape (last 12 months) | | Auctions: | | 0 | | Price Range: | | N/A | | | | | | Google listings (non-affiliate) | | 89 | | MSN listings (non-affiliate) | | 37 | | Yahoo listings (non-affiliate) | | 67 | | |
| | 
| | | |  | | | Product Details
 Format: Paperback, 241 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0029177766
Release Date: Jan 7, 2001
| |  | | | In Brief
The author aims to demonstrate "the economist's way of thinking about everyday occurrences. . . . {This} compilation of questions {ranges} from why popcorn costs so much at movie theaters and why rock concerts sell out to why laws against polygamy are detrimental to women." (Libr J) Index.
| | | | From The Publisher
Seat belts cause accidents because well-protected drivers take more risks. This widely documented fact comes as a surprise to most people, but not to economists, who have learned, perhaps better than most, to take seriously the proposition that people respond to incentives in complicated ways. In The Armchair Economist, Steven E. Landsburg shows how economic thinking illuminates the entire range of human behavior. But instead of focusing on the workings of financial markets, international trade, and other topics distant from the experience of most readers, Landsburg mines the details of daily life to reveal what the laws of economics tell us about ourselves. As Landsburg shows, some behavior that strikes most people as utterly unremarkable is quite extraordinary when seen through economists' eyes. Why, for example, does popcorn cost so much at the movie theater? The "obvious" answer is that the theater owner has a monopoly. But if that were the whole story then he would charge a monopoly price for use of the restrooms as well. When a sudden frost destroys much of the Florida orange crop and prices skyrocket, journalists often point to "obvious" evidence of monopoly power. Economists see just the opposite: If growers had monopoly power, they wouldn't have to wait for a frost to raise prices. Why do restaurants earn higher profits on liquor than on food? Why are some goods sold at auction and others at pre-announced prices? Why don't concert promoters raise ticket prices even when they sell out months in advance? Why do box seats at the ballpark sell out before bleachers do? Why do corporations confer huge pensions on failed executives? Landsburg wields the tools of the economist's trade to solve these puzzles, often reaching conclusions that are at odds with our intuition. After revealing economic principles in readily apparent phenomena of everyday life, Landsburg applies these same principles to newspaper and media accounts of public issues. Contesting the wid
| | | | Annotation
Most people associate economics with large-scale wonders like the stock market, big business, and international trade. The Armchair Economist shows how the laws of economics reveal themselves in the details of everyday life. Landsburg explains many key ideas in chapters that read more like detective stories than textbook lessons.
| |  | | |
 | | | | | Be the first to rate this book! Number of Reviews: 0
| | | |  | | | | Introduction | | | I | What Life is All About | | | 1 | The Power of Incentives: How Seat Belts Kill | 3 | | 2 | Rational Riddles: Why the Rolling Stones Sell Out | 10 | | 3 | Truth or Consequences: How to Split a Check or Choose a Movie | 20 | | 4 | The Indifference Principle: Who Cares If the Air Is Clean? | 31 | | 5 | The Computer Game of Life: Learning What It's All About | 42 | | II | Good and Evil | | | 6 | Telling Right from Wrong: The Pitfalls of Democracy | 49 | | 7 | Why Taxes Are Bad: The Logic of Efficiency | 60 | | 8 | Why Prices Are Good: Smith Versus Darwin | 73 | | 9 | Of Medicine and Candy, Trains and Sparks: Economics in the Courtroom | 83 | | III | How to Read the News | | | 10 | Choosing Sides in the Drug War: How the Atlantic Monthly Got It Wrong | 95 | | 11 | The Mythology of Deficits | 106 | | 12 | Sound and Fury: Spurious Wisdom from the Op-Ed Pages | 116 | | 13 | How Statistics Lie: Unemployment Can Be Good for You | 127 | | 14 | The Policy Vice: Do We Need More Illiterates? | 138 | | 15 | Some Modest Proposals: The End of Bipartisanship | 146 | | IV | How Markets Work | | | 16 | Why Popcorn Costs More at the Movies and Why the Obvious Answer Is Wrong | 157 | | 17 | Courtship and Collusion: The Mating Game | 168 | | 18 | Cursed Winners and Glum Losers: Why Life Is Full of Disappointments | 174 | | 19 | Ideas of Interest: Armchair Forecasting | 181 | | 20 | Random Walks and Stock Market Prices: A Primer for Investors | 188 | | 21 | The Iowa Car Crop | 197 | | V | The Pitfalls of Science | | | 22 | Was Einstein Credible? The Economics of Scientific Method | 203 | | 23 | New, Improved Football: How Economists Go Wrong | 211 | | VI | The Pitfalls of Religion | | | 24 | Why I Am Not an Environmentalist: The Science of Economics Versus the Religion of Ecology | 223 | | Appendix: Notes on Sources | 233 | | Index | 237 |
| |  | | | Find similiar books in these subject areas:
All Topics > Business & Investing > Economics > General
All Topics > Business & Investing > General
All Topics > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Anthropology > Cultural
| | | | People like you also bought:
Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life, by David D. Friedman
Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You about Economics, Values, and the meaning of Life, by Stephen E. Landsburg
Microeconomics and Behavior 5TH, by Robert H. Frank
New Ideas from Dead Economists, by Todd G. Buchholz
The Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance, by Russell D. Roberts
From Here to Economy: A Shortcut to Economic Literacy, by Todd G. Buchholz
The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affermative Action to Immigration,how Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life, by Gary Stanley Becker
Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt
| | | | | | Keywords
Business/Economics, Business / Economics / Finance, Economics - General, Anthropology - Cultural, Economics, Sociological aspects
| |
| |
| | | |
Make $1 per sale -
Link to ZooScape.com! | |
