|
Title: The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas
Purchase
Item
Manufacturer: Basic Books
List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $9.02
|
|
| Customer Reviews: |
| The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books A good complement for any introductory economics course | | This book, in contrast to Freakonomics, the Undercover Economist, or other book of that sort, actually explains all basic economics principles and tools that you use both implicitly and explicitly in economics, such as the cost-benefit principle, supply and demand, working with marginal terms, etc. So it really can be used as a good complement to any introductory course in economics, mainly because it helps connecting all the models, graphical and mathematical explanations with the effects they produce in real life. | | The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books Fun, flawed, and informative | This weekend I finished reading The Economic Naturalist, the latest book from renowned economist and professor Robert H. Frank. Presented in a question and answer format, the book aims to explain enigmas from everyday life in easy-to-understand economic terms. It covers a diverse array of topics, from arms races and the tragedy of the commons to the meshing of psychology and economics. The non-mathematical nature of the book makes it easily accessible to the general public. In addition, Frank's relaxed, conversational style of writing is both engaging and fun to read.
My favorite aspect of Frank's book is the unique, interesting questions it poses. One of the more savvy questions, for example, asks "Why do independent musicians, especially the most talented ones, favor free music-sharing programs, while established star performers tend to oppose them?" Frank posits that established musicians work to protect their market (CD sales) while indie musicians attempt to expand theirs (fan base). In the music industry, as in many other markets, maintaining the status quo most benefits those at the top.
Another stellar question the book asks is "Why does the rookie of the year in baseball often have a less successful second season?" Frank claims that the so-called sophomore slump is a statistical illusion since, by definition, "only players who have an exceptional season win the rookie of the year award." Rather than experiencing a decline in productivity, players merely are returning to their more normal output, i.e., regressing to their mean.
For all its interesting questions, Frank's book still has its fair share of faults. Firstly, many answers contain little data to support their conclusions. For example, one question asks "Why do many schools require students to wear school uniforms?" Frank surmises that schools implement uniform policies to "reduce costs, both monetary and emotional, of clothing arms races." Although his claim sounds plausible, Frank does not provide any data, original or otherwise, to support it.
Secondly, a few answers make sense in economic terms but are simply incorrect. Frank himself addresses this shortcoming when discussing why drive-up ATMs have Braille dots. He states that ATM producers put Braille dots on all ATMs because it is cheaper to make a single set of buttons than stock two separate inventories. Yet Frank later acknowledges that "the real reason for [Braille dots on ATM machines] is that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires them." These errors are forgivable considering the grand scheme of the book, but failing to properly address these shortcomings does weaken Frank's arguments.
I rate The Economic Naturalist at 8 out of 10 stars. Frank's work is both fun and informative at the same time. My quibbles with the book are relatively minor and do not damper my enthusiasm for the subject matter. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys uncommon thinking about common topics. The Economic Naturalist makes a great companion to Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's better-known (and more thoroughly researched) book, Freakonomics. | | The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books Too much speculation | | While some examples are interesting demonstrations of how past practice and economics come together, too much of this book attempts to force fit economic principles into "most likely explanations" by the author of the articles. This becomes quite repetitive and the explanation being not too convincing. | | The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books Warning: Contains no economics | | This book needs a new title, "Answers to Stuff You've Wondered About Without Economics". The book presents interesting questions, such as "Why are taxis in NYC yellow?", but the explanations have nothing to do with economics. For example, the answer to the above is that there were some illegal cabs operating, so NYC forced all cabs to be the same color and yellow was the common color at the time of the new law. Hey, that's neat to know but no economics involved. Each question is given slightly under one (small) page for a response and so this is more of a history/trivia lesson than anything to do with economics. I ended up reading the first 5-10 explanations and then flipping though the rest of the book, putting it down after about 90 minutes total. | | The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books Fun speculation, but no more than that | I'd hoped this book would be a collection of enlightening economic explanations of puzzling phenomena. That is in fact what it purports to be, and while reading it it sometimes feels like that, but mostly it's too shallow to be really satisfying.
The book is organized as a bunch of questions about Stuff in the Marketplace (Why does X cost more here than there? Why do Zs come in round containers while Ws come in hexagonal ones?), each with clever economically-based answers.
The problem is that the answers, while clever and facile, are pretty much entirely speculative, just-so stories without any real evaluation of whether or not they're the right explanation. "It might be because C!" Well, okay, but is it?
While it's fun to see smart people make up plausible economic explanations for puzzling things, I find it ultimately unsatisfying that the book stops there. It would of course take more work to try to verify the armchair guesses, but without that verification the whole thing ends up feeling sort of pointless. I'd much rather read about clever economic explanations that turned out to be *correct* than ones that are merely cute and/or plausible.
| | The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Basic Books Product Description | Why do the keypads on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? Why are round-trip fares from Orlando to Kansas City higher than those from Kansas City to Orlando? For decades, Robert Frank has been asking his economics students to pose and answer questions like these as a way of learning how economic principles operate in the real world-which they do everywhere, all the time. Once you learn to think like an economist, all kinds of puzzling observations start to make sense. Drive-up ATM keypads have Braille dots because it’s cheaper to make the same machine for both drive-up and walk-up locations. Travelers from Kansas City to Orlando pay less because they are usually price-sensitive tourists with many choices of destination, whereas travelers originating from Orlando typically choose Kansas City for specific family or business reasons. The Economic Naturalist employs basic economic principles to answer scores of intriguing questions from everyday life, and, along the way, introduces key ideas such as the cost-benefit principle, the “no cash on the table” principle, and the law of one price. This is as delightful and painless a way to learn fundamental economics as there is. |
No item elements found in rss feed.
|
