Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life

The guy plays mind games with the reader to sound like he's saying something insightful. There is no wisdom found here

A very fun, quick read. Slaughters many sacred cows, including the litany of ideas on the environment, deficits, illiteracy, unemployment, dollar-cost averaging, and the use of statistics. Many reviewers have criticized the last chapter of his book, which is about environmentalism. It is true to some extent that he is building straw men and tearing them down (though he does asknowledge he is referring to "naive environmentalism"). It is hard to disagree with his conclusion that much of environmentalism has little to do with science and more to do with religious ritualism.

If you're remotely interested in economics, you should read this book; it's a hoot.Not too many books on economics could be described as a "hoot." But Steven Landsburg, an economics professor at the University of Chicago when he wrote this book (now he's at the University of Rochester), has a delightfully sharp sense of humor and a gift for clear, logical exposition. He also doesn't in the least mind naming names when it comes to egregious economic fallacies and the people who commit them: he keeps a "Sound and Fury file" consisting of economic gaffes from the op-ed pages and he devotes a chapter to exposing the culprits.His theme is easily stated, and he states it on the first page: the substance of economic science is that people respond to incentives. "The rest," he writes in deliberate imitation of Rabbi Hillel, "is commentary."Landsburg fills the rest of the book with such commentary. His witty and occasionally sarcastic exposition deals neatly with such topics as why recycling paper doesn't really save trees; why certain statistics are not reliable measures of the "income gap" between rich and poor; why the GNP is not an especially accurate measure of national wealth; why unemployment isn't necessarily a bad thing; why taxes _are_ a bad thing; why real economists don't care about what's "good for the economy" or endorse the pursuit of monetary profit apart from personal happiness; and lots of other points that will no doubt be profoundly irritating to people who just _know_ he _can't possibly_ be right.For example, Landsburg is delightfully allergic to the claims of the "environmental" movement and recognizes it quite clearly as a strongly moralistic religion. And contrary to the opinions of some not terribly careful readers, he does distinguish firmly between the actual harm caused by pollution and the psychic harm caused by (e.g.) the use of automobiles to people who object in principle to such technology.Interestingly, Landsburg recognizes a problem here for his own cost-benefit approach: if economic efficiency with regard to utilitarian/consequentialist goods and bads were really the whole story, he notes, he should care about _both_ the physical harm and the psychic harm, and yet he doesn't.Which leads neatly into the other notable feature of this volume: Landsburg is stunningly forthright about the nature -- and the limits -- of cost-benefit analysis. Unlike some economists who like to pretend such analysis is value-free and involves no commitment to any particular view of morality, Landsburg is clear that cost-benefit analysis is quite unambiguously committed to one particular moral outlook (which he characterizes and describes very neatly). And he is keenly aware of its limitations, though he is not at all confident about what should replace it.The problem, roughly, is this (the following characterization is mine, not his). As Landsburg notes several times, cost-benefit analysis does not regard "theft" as a cost, since it merely tra

Landsburg hits the nail on the head with this book. I was looking for a short and to the point explanation of economics for the benefit of my 17 year old daughter when I picked up this book and found that and more. His premise is that "people respond to incentives and the rest is just commentary." Landsburg takes off from there and explains economic concepts with simple but apt examples and deflates quite a few myths in the process(using no formulas or complicated math in his presentation but including endnotes with references for readers inclined to look behind the words). College students would do well to read through this book before plunging into macro- or micro- economics because it puts the theory into perspective with real world examples and stories. Everyone else can benefit from having a better understanding of how our economy works.I highly recommend this book as informative, thoughtfully written, and thoroughly entertaining.

Steven Landsburg's book, The Armchair Economist, is a simply written but deeply effective primer on the economic way of thinking. I my own self am a free-market radical, and, while I don't agree with everything Mr. Langsburg writes, his views are overwhelmingly on target. Want to know why movie popcorn costs so much? The "obvious" answer is wrong. Are you happy when your senator provides your area with a road project? You really shouldn't be that excited about it. Even the most absurd notions (Unemployment is good! Recycling is bad!) are hard to refute once you get the basics of economics down. Mr. Landsburg writes that economics can be largely defined in one terse sentence: people respond to incentives. If everyone in America knew how much that makes sense, I can guarantee 90% of our nation's (and world's) social ills would be eliminated.I used to tell people that if everyone read the first few chapters of a standard economics textbook, the world would be better off. The same holds true for this book.

I love this book and use it to teach my undergraduate students in political economy. It shows how a few simple economic concepts can be used to explain more social behavior than any other social scientific perspective. I can't wait for Steven't new book! True to the heritage of Gary Becker, this book extends economic reasoning beyond the traditional substantive boundaries of economics. Check out related titles by Tomassi and Ierulli, THE NEW ECONOMICS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR, Rod Stark, THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY, and Anthony Gill, RENDERING UNTO CAESAR, all of which use this type of economic reasoning to explain supposedly "non-economic" behavior.