Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 352 pages
- Published by: Collins Business; 1st Pbk. Ed edition July 18, 1997
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0887308856
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0887308857
-
Book Dimensions:
8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
- Weighs: 9.9 ounces
Product Review
To David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman), economics explains everything. In a way, that's an odd thing for him to say: Friedman Jr. has never taken an economics course in his life (by training he's a physicist). Yet he defines economics broadly and uses it as a tool to understand all aspects of human behavior, from selecting a mate to picking a grocery store line to switching lanes in rush-hour traffic jams. If you like the economics-for-everyman approach of such writers as Steven E. Landsburg, then Friedman is for you.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Friedman puts the passion back into economics with this unconventional, demanding primer. A professor at Santa Clara University (and son of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman), he insists that economics is not primarily about money, but rather about needs, wants, choices, values?an imperfect science predicated on the assumption that people tend to rationally choose the best way to achieve their objectives. Using scores of everyday examples to steer the reader through complex concepts, he discusses consumer preferences, street crime, lotteries, plea bargains in trials, sharecropping, financial speculation, political campaign spending and much else. He demystifies international trade (e.g., there's nothing inherently terrible about a trade deficit) and deconstructs the economy as an interacting system all of whose elements are interdependent. A rewarding text for serious readers. Translation and U.K. rights: Writer's Representatives.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader ReviewsOn p. 174 and 175, David Friedman talks about misguided ways of "conserving" renewable resources, such as trees and elephants. He points out that if you ban the use of ivory, you reduce the incentive for people to raise elephants, and you could end up reducing the supply of elephants. I xeroxed those pages and gave them to my 5th-grader to give to her teacher. That teacher was happily indoctrinating her students into the politically correct view that banning the use of ivory is good policy. This is economics at its best--showing the fallacy of a common viewpoint with simple logic. There is much of that in this book. This book is "Chicago economics" through and through. You get the pragmatic justification for the assumption that people maximize their well being. You get the invasions of other territory, such as politics and marriage. And you get everything presented on diagrams with lines and curves. It's the diagrams that make me hesitant to recommend this book to a casual reader. I can see their usefulness in a classroom, where you draw them in front of a captive audience. But I think that Friedman should try a different approach if he wants to make the book accessible to someone who is not in an economics class.
Search for books at
