Reddit Reddit reviews The Undercover Economist

We found 14 Reddit comments about The Undercover Economist. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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14 Reddit comments about The Undercover Economist:

u/Ho66es · 18 pointsr/books

Off the top of my head, in no particular order:

The Undercover Economist: Easily the best of those "Economics in everyday life - books"

The Blank Slate: Steven Pinker on the nature/nurture debate. This really opened my eyes on questions like "Why are the same people who fight against abortion for the death penalty", for example.

Complications: This and his second book, Better, gave me an incredible insight into medicine.

Why we get sick: Very good explanation of the defence mechanisms our bodies have and why treating symptoms can be a very bad idea.

How to read a book: An absolute classic. Turns out I've been doing it wrong all those years.

The Art of Strategy: Game Theory, applied to everyday situations. Always treats a topic like Nash equilibrium, Brinkmanship etc. theoretically and then goes into many examples.

A Random Walk Down Wall-Street: Made me see the stock market completely differently.

The Myth of the Rational Voter: The shortcomings of democracy.

The White Man's Burden: Fantastic account of the problems faced by the third world today, and why it is so hard to change them.

u/jambarama · 12 pointsr/Economics

My two favorite books which introduce economic thinking are Armchair Economist and The Undercover Economist. They're quick reads, they're jargon free, and actually teach some of the thinking. Unlike the pop-econ books (Freakonomics and its ilk), which are simply about strange results from research (some of Landsburg's later books suffer from this problem). For an introduction to behavioral economics, you can't do better than Predictably Irrational.

For substance, textbooks are probably best unless you have a carefully chosen list of academic articles. Wooldridge for Econometrics, Mankiw for introductory macro, and Nicholson for introductory micro (Krugman's micro book is fine too). Mankiw writes my favorite econ textbooks. For game theory, I used an older version of Watson's textbook, and it was fine, but I don't know how other game theory books stack up.

If textbooks are a bit much, but you still want a substantive book, the first chapter of Thomas Sowell's introduction is very good, the rest is decent repetition. If you want a some discussion of discredited economic theories that are still trotted out regularly (like trickle down), Zombie Economics is a really fun read.

u/TubePanic · 7 pointsr/italy

> Come da titolo, se siete esperti di economia ditemi un po' dove posso trovare una trattazione divulgativa della materia o un qualche corso online.

Dunque: IEA e' abbastanza tecnico e te lo sconsiglio, ma Undercover Economist e' divertente, e puo' valer la pena di leggerlo anche solo per intrattenimento; sulla stessa riga c'e' anche Freakonomics che pero' a me e' piaciuto molto meno.

Se poi ti viene la voglia, io inizierei con un po' di microeconomia, ci sono ottimi testi universitari che pero' costano un botto; pero' in genere si trovano usati a poco. Quello di Krugmann e' molto 'easy/pop' e con poca matematica (l'ho solo sbirciato, pero'); io ne avevo uno di Perloff e non mi sembrava male (ma parlo di un bel po' di anni fa; probabilmente c'e' qualcosa di piu' aggiornato).


Per i corsi online: una mia conoscenza ha seguito un corso su Coursera di un tipo indiano (non mi ricordo), ma era orripilante: un mio amico lo seguiva, mi ha chiesto di dargli una mano, ho provato a guardare uno dei video e non ho mai visto spiegazioni cosi' vaghe e confuse. Evitalo come la peste..

Credo che qualcosa di migliore sia su Khan Academy; vale la pena di guardare. (EDIT: ho guardato ed e' un po' stringato, ti servira' un supplemento. Krugmann, Perloff o qualunque altra cosa sia disponibile usata a prezzo ragionevole; evita le traduzioni italiane, pero').

Dopo aver guardato un po' di microeconomia, potrai decidere su cosa buttarti.


Se ti interessa la finanza e ti piacciono i romanzi, leggi Liar's poker, che mi e' sembrato spettacolare. E se a questo punto ti prende l'idea di capire cosa sono mai questi misteriosi bond e derivati, c'e' un ottimo e chiarissimo (ma un po' pesante) libro di finanza di Ivo Welch disponibile online; richiede un po' di matematica ma e' chiarissimo.

Ah, visto che ora va di moda la 'behavioral economy', puoi anche leggere qualunque cosa di Dan Ariely (tipo Predictably Irrational), ed e' sempre divertentissimo (e ha fatto pure lui un corso su Coursera con cui mi sono diverito un sacco). Ma se ti interessano poi gli aspetti seri, leggi lo spettacolare Thinking fast and slow di Kahneman (premio nobel, a ragione).

u/gerop30 · 4 pointsr/slatestarcodex

I've heard a lot of good things about Tim Harford's The Undercover Economist and The Undercover Economist Strikes Back.

The new textbook by the CORE team is all the rage right now, it's available online for free. It's supposed to be less boring and more up-to-date than regular textbooks.

If you want something more analytical, there's The Applied Theory of Price by McCloskey, it's microeconomics without the pointless formalism that you'll find in newer textbooks.

u/RoseOfSharonCassidy · 4 pointsr/Frugal

It's sometimes intentional. They're trying to encourage you to buy the more expensive product by intentionally making the cheaper version lower in quality. There's a chapter about this in the book The Undercover Economist.

u/khalido · 3 pointsr/AusFinance

I liked the Undercover Economist by Tim Harford and the follow up. Simple and very clear.

https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Tim-Harford/dp/0345494016

u/IClogToilets · 2 pointsr/books

If you like Freakonomics, check out The Underground Economist

u/Trapper777_ · 2 pointsr/askscience

Cool. I would recommend checking out Freakonomics*, The Undercover Economist*, and 30-Second Economics. These are some (relatively) fun books that give a little insight into economics. ^*The ^sequels ^are ^great ^too.

And back to the experiment thing: remember that the decisions that people make when confronted with a choice is also economics, just like studying how a single photon moves is still physics, even though both are part of something much bigger.

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/politics

Do you think that the current ones in control of most of the healthcare spending in the US right now are being nice? Do you think that there's any self correction happening in the market right now? All I see in the current system is a market failure, and no amount of efficient market orthodoxy wish that away.

As much as I dislike trusting the government, if the choices are the mediocrity of a bureaucracy or the venality of the current oligopoly, I'll take the bureaucracy.

There are a number of systems out there, some of which aren’t even in the current dialog (referring specifically to Singapore’s system, as described in The Undercover Economist). I think, based on the failures of the current system and the success of the Canadian plan, that a Canadian like single payer system may be sub-optimal, but will be a significant improvement over the current system. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good. The innovation argument is pretty much moot, as currently most fundamental research is done through NSF and NIH grants, so they are already publicly funded (ref: The $800 Million Dollar Pill)

u/makealldigital · 1 pointr/changemyview

oh that guy i hate how that guy writes - http://timharford.com/articles/

but a couple of the stories in his videos was pretty good/interesting

funny how his recent piece implies how slow progress is -- http://timharford.com/2017/07/we-are-still-waiting-for-the-robot-revolution/

but it's just about nothing new

yea all the general stuff in econ or anything is too general

i wanna know where the good stuff is, maybe they're in journals

i wish someone summarised those stuff so all the info was consumed and society woud be more intellgient -- instead of doing nothing which leads to the problems said and unsaid in the main

seems like a pop book but worst -- https://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Tim-Harford/product-reviews/0345494016/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_sr?&filterByStar=critical&pageNumber=1

hate outdated stuff also

u/eduardo_cunha · 1 pointr/brasil

O melhor é o Undercover Economist.

u/wellmanicuredman · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

Yes for Varian, no for Freakonomics. For pop economics that actually has economic content, try the Undercover Economist

u/maxdrive · 1 pointr/SandersForPresident

For anyone that wants to learn more about this, I recommend reading The Undercover Economist

u/Archontes · -2 pointsr/magicTCG

Rider:

  • They're not readily accessible yet.

    Edit: downvotes don't make me wrong. You guys should check out an awesome book on economics, and realize that you're not about to beat the laws of economics with moral brigading.