A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist. Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does. Enter Financial Times columnist and bestselling author Tim Harford. In this new book that demystifies macroeconomics, Harford strips away the spin, the hype, and the jargon to reveal the truth about how the world’s economy actually works. With the wit of a raconteur and the clear grasp of an expert, Harford explains what’s really happening beyond today’s headlines, why all of us should care, and what we can do about it to understand it better.

A provocative and lively exploration of the increasingly important world of macroeconomics, by the author of the bestselling The Undercover Economist. Thanks to the worldwide financial upheaval, economics is no longer a topic we can ignore. From politicians to hedge fund managers to middle-class IRA holders, everyone must pay attention to how and why the global economy works the way it does. Enter Financial Times columnist and bestselling author Tim Harford. In this new book that demystifies macroeconomics, Harford strips away the spin, the hype, and the jargon to reveal the truth about how the world’s economy actually works. With the wit of a raconteur and the clear grasp of an expert, Harford explains what’s really happening beyond today’s headlines, why all of us should care, and what we can do about it to understand it better.

Harford ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and of course the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, health care providers, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets.

In Tim Harford's new book The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, he sets out to explain how the whole world economy works. In this, the first chapter from the book, Harford provides a user's manual to show the nuts and bolts of what makes an economy tick. Readers should note that this ebook is just one chapter from the new book. The full book will be released on August 29. A million readers bought The Undercover Economist to get the lowdown on how economics works on a small scale, in our everyday lives. Since then, economics has become big news. Crises, austerity, riots, bonuses - all are in the headlines all the time. But how does this large-scale economic world really work? Find out in The Undercover Economist Strikes Back.

In The Logic of Life, bestselling author Tim Harford quite simply makes sense of this world. Life often seems to defy logic. The receptionist is clearly smarter than the boss who earns fifty times her salary. Arbitrary lines starkly divide the desirable districts of the city from the dangerous ones. Voters flock to the polling booths to elect candidates who’ll rip them off to favour special interests. None of it makes logical sense — or does it? Economist and acclaimed author Tim Harford thinks it does. By weaving stories from locations as diverse as a Vegas casino to a barroom speed date, Harford aims to persuade you that people are, in fact, surprisingly logical. When a street prostitute agrees to unprotected sex, or a teenage criminal embarks on a burglary — perhaps especially when a racist employer disregards a black job applicant — we would seem to be a million miles from rational behaviour. Harford shows that, discomfitingly, we are not. It turns out that the unlikeliest of people are complying with the logic of economics and responding to future costs and benefits, often without realizing it; and socially tragic outcomes can have their roots in individually rational decisions. Brilliantly reasoned, always entertaining and often provocative, The Logic of Life is a book to help you understand yourself and the world around you.

From “one of the great (greatest?) contemporary popular writers on economics” (Tyler Cowen) comes a smart, lively, and encouraging rethinking of how to use statistics. Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.

In Tim Harford's new book The Undercover Economist Strikes Back, he sets out to explain how the whole world economy works. In this, the ninth chapter from the book, Harford looks at the importance of management in how economies function. Readers should note that this ebook is just one chapter from the new book. The full book will be released on August 29. A million readers bought The Undercover Economist to get the lowdown on how economics works on a small scale, in our everyday lives. Since then, economics has become big news. Crises, austerity, riots, bonuses - all are in the headlines all the time. But how does this large-scale economic world really work? Find out in The Undercover Economist Strikes Back.