Make us homepage
Add to Favorites
FAIL (the browser should render some flash content, not this).

Main page » Non-Fiction » Economics and Management » The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works


The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works

 

This review is being written from the perspective of someone who has studied economics for a lifetime and taught it to college students. I have come to realize that when an introduction to economics is presented as if it were designed to be the first course among many for economics majors, it is invariably deemed by most people to be quite boring. However, when economics is presented and explained as the study of how people make decisions in life, all of a sudden it becomes much more interesting. This book takes the second approach, and the author does a good job summarizing a variety of key concepts in short chapters of about eight pages each. You can read the chapters in any order (or even skip some) and still gain a lot of useful information.

Importantly, this book is not written using either an academic or overly simplistic approach. With a minimum of work, the average person can understand the material and not feel insulted. Almost equally importantly, the book is written in a blessedly non-partisan style.

Before I opened the book, I very quickly sketched out the most important topics I thought it should address: scarcity, opportunity costs, the role of prices, "marginal" analysis, monetary and fiscal policies, specialization and trade, and externalities. Upon reading the book, I found all of these topics addressed and many more: the interplay of supply and demand in market equilibrium, elasticity, the Federal Reserve, international exchange rates, personal finance, etc.

Would I give this book to someone with an interest in economics if they had precious little background in the subject? Absolutely yes. And I'd bet they would enjoy it.



Purchase The Instant Economist: Everything You Need to Know About How the Economy Works from Amazon.com
Dear user! You need to be registered and logged in to fully enjoy Englishtips.org. We recommend registering or logging in.


Tags: economics, people, presented, author, approach