基本信息·出版社：Little, Brown ·页码：288 页 ·出版日期：2008年01月 ·ISBN：031602757X ·条形码：9780316027571 ·装帧：平装 ·正文语种：英语 ...
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The Logic of Life: Uncovering the New Economics of Everything |
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The Logic of Life: Uncovering the New Economics of Everything |
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基本信息·出版社：Little, Brown
·页码：288 页
·出版日期：2008年01月
·ISBN：031602757X
·条形码：9780316027571
·装帧：平装
·正文语种：英语
内容简介 THE UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST showed how ordinary economics explained everyday curiosities, such as the price of a cup of coffee and the traffic jam on the way to the supermarket. THE LOGIC OF LIFE shows how the new economics of rational choice theory explains much, much more. Drug addicts and teenage muggers can be rational. Suburban sprawl and inner city decay are rational. Endless meetings at the office and the injustices of working life? Rational. Economics explains why your boss is overpaid, whether we should build more prisons, and whether a city like New Orleans can recover from disaster. THE LOGIC OF LIFE introduces you to engaging stories and characters linked together in a bold narrative sweep. The book starts with the most intimate decisions - to have sex, to take drugs, to lead an honest life - then zooms out to discuss the logic of the family, of neighbourhoods, large corporations, cities themselves. This is the new economics of everything you never thought was economics, and it will help you see the world in a new way.
作者简介 Tim Harford writes the 'Dear Economist' column for the FT Saturday magazine. An award winning public speaker, Tim has been an economist for a major oil company and an economics tutor at Oxford University.
编辑推荐 Review 'The chapter "Why is Your Boss Overpaid?" is in itself worth the price of this book' - Sunday Telegraph 'This is no minor thesis . . . If you loved [The Tipping Point and Freakonomics] you'll love this' - Financial Times
Or, the things people will do for money - and for good reason.Contrary to pop economists who have examined the stranger moments of human behavior vis-a-vis the benjamins (Freakonomics, etc.), Financial Times and Slate columnist Harford (The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, Why the Poor Are Poor - And Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!, 2005) centers on the predictability of much of it. Criminals, for instance, "can be brutal and remorseless, but many of them are far from indifferent to the 'pains of imprisonment,' " because they know that in the calculus of life crime literally doesn't pay. That calculus comes into play when Mexican prostitutes (Harford picks many examples from the demimonde) determine whether or not the john must use a condom, charging more if not; and when soldiers decide whether to risk their lives by re-enlisting in exchange for the healthcare and other benefits offered by the military. "Even a coward like me will risk his life for money," writes the author, and risk is omnipresent, in various degrees, whenever money enters the discussion. Harford occasionally gets caught up in the inevitable abstractions of economics, but for the most part his narrative is refreshingly down-to-earth and even useful. The reader learns here, for instance, why he or she should damn the torpedoes and bet with a handful of bad cards: "Your opponent will have to call you a little more often. Because he knows that your bets are sometimes very weak, he can't afford to fold too easily." Would that the rest of life operated so predictably. But then, at least in a way, it does, so that, as Harford explains, it becomes apparent why Detroit is a third-rate city and New York a first-rate one, why New Orleans should not be rebuilt and why agribusiness contributes to political campaigns while real-estate agents do not.Chock-full of numbers and money talk, but oddly entertaining - of a piece with Dan Ariely's superior Predictably Irrational (2007) and other recent popularizing works in behavioral economics. (Kirkus Reviews)
FINANCIAL TIMES `This is no minor thesis . . . If you loved [The Tipping Point and Freakonomics] you'll love this'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. METRO `Always thought-provoking'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. SUNDAY TIMES `An enjoyable read . . . Harford presents complex arguments with unfailing clarity and wit'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. MANAGEMENT TODAY `An excellent debunker of myths and misunderstandings'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. THE TIMES `In Harford's hand, the dismal science of economics becomes cool'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Metro Economics, as Tim Harford show so brilliantly... is not the dull topic of popular misconception. Harford is always thought-provoking.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
