Analyzes 50 paradoxes that challenge or have challenged both economists and others. Among them are the fairness of market wages, the alleged gold absurdity, the Irish potato famine, the paradox of thrift, the perversity of Wall Street, why the best crops are shipped out of state, whether teachers are underpaid, whether studying economics makes people immoral, and whether war is good for the economy. References are provided to each. Assumes no special knowledge of economics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Economics is full of puzzles and paradoxes that often frustrate and challenge everyone, including economists. This engaging book includes fifty puzzles and focuses on three types of paradox. First, everyday observations that appear to belie common sense (such as why some supermarket items sell for more per ounce in larger sizes). Secondly, those paradoxes which have perplexed economists in the past but have since been fairly resolved (such as the diamond–water paradox). Finally, empirical or conceptual anomalies that remain unresolved and present a challenge to today’s economists (such as the voting paradox).
In this wide-ranging collection of essays first published between 2007 and 2014, Charles Wolf Jr. shares his insights on the world's economies, including those of China, the United States, Japan, Korea, India, and others. First appearing in such periodicals as in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard, among others, these chapters take on a range of questions about the global economy. Wolf discusses the paradoxes and puzzles within China's political economy and in its interactions with the United States. He analyzes the shortcomings of Keynesian economics as a response to the 2008 recession, as well as the weaknesses of policies and actions inferred from the theory, and compares those weaknesses with those of austerity policies intended to limit government spending and indebtedness. He also offers his views on economic inequality and where its principal sources may truly lay, China's currency and the continuing controversy about whether and when it may become a major international reserve currency, and many more insights on key economic issues affecting the global economy. Bringing these essays together for the first time in a single volume, including two essays not yet published elsewhere, this book enables the reader to absorb the author's expert perspective during the years in a collection in which the whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts. Each chapter includes a brief "postaudit" in which the author attempts to grade how well or ill the essay seems in retrospect.
Dieses Buch nimmt den Leser mit auf eine anregende Reise rund um die Welt der Statistik. Auf eine ganz andere Art werden Theorie und Praxis Dozenten, Studenten und Praktikern nahe gebracht. Auf jeder Etappe dieser Reise untersuchen die Autoren ungewöhnliche und skurille Aspekte der Statistik, stellen historische, biographische und philosophische Dimensionen heraus. Die einzelnen Kapitel beginnen mit einem Ausblick auf das Thema, oftmals aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln. Darauf folgen fünf Fragen, die zum Nachdenken anregen. Ziel ist es, die Kenntnisse der Leser zu erweitern und zu vertiefen. Zu den Fragen gibt es auch immer wieder unterhaltsame Rätsel, mit denen spannende Paradoxa aufgelöst werden. Die Leser können ihre eigenen Entdeckungen in der Welt der Statistik mit den ausführlichen Antworten der Autoren auf die jeweiligen Fragen vergleichen.
The author argues that a logical paradox lies at the root of a number of persistent puzzles in game theory, in particular those concerning rational agents who seek to establish some kind of reputation. This analysis provides an understanding of how the rational agent model can account for the emergence of rules, practices and institutions.
Games are played everywhere: from economics to evolutionary biology, and from social interactions to online auctions. This title shows how to play such games in a rational way, and how to maximize their outcomes.
The "quality of life" concept of quality of life is a broad one. It incorporates basic needs but also extends beyond them to include capabilities, the "livability" of the environment, and life appreciation and happiness. Latin America's diversity in culture and levels of development provide a laboratory for studying how quality of life varies with a number of objective and subjective measures. These measures range from income levels to job insecurity and satisfaction, to schooling attainment and satisfaction, to measured and self-assessed health, among others. Paradox and Perception greatly improves our understanding of the determinants of well-being in Latin America based on a broad "quality of life" concept that challenges some standard assumptions in economics, including those about the relationship between happiness and income. The authors' analysis builds upon a number of new approaches in economics, particularly those related to the study of happiness and finds a number of paradoxes as the region's respondents evaluate their well-being. These include the paradox of unhappy growth at the macroeconomic level, happy peasants and frustrated achievers at the microlevel, and surprisingly high levels of satisfaction with public services among the region's poorest. They also have important substantive links with several of the region's realities, such as high levels of income inequality, volatile macroeconomic performance, and low expectations of public institutions and faith in the capacity of the state to deliver. Identifying these perceptions, paradoxes, and their causes will contribute to the crafting of better public policies, as well as to our understanding of why "populist" politics still pervade in much of the region.
Winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Richard Thaler challenges the received economic wisdom by revealing many of the paradoxes that abound even in the most painstakingly constructed transactions. He presents literate, challenging, and often funny examples of such anomalies as why the winners at auctions are often the real losers—they pay too much and suffer the "winner's curse"—why gamblers bet on long shots at the end of a losing day, why shoppers will save on one appliance only to pass up the identical savings on another, and why sports fans who wouldn't pay more than $200 for a Super Bowl ticket wouldn't sell one they own for less than $400. He also demonstrates that markets do not always operate with the traplike efficiency we impute to them.
In this fascinating book, Imad A. Moosa challenges existing preconceptions surrounding normative economics, arguing that what some economists see as undisputed facts of life may be myths caused by dogmatic thinking. Plausible explanations are suggested for puzzles in various areas of economics and finance, such as the home bias puzzle, the PPP puzzle and the presidential puzzle. Controversies in Economics and Finance is a thought-provoking and stimulating read that exposes common flaws in economic analysis. It will be of great benefit to academics, graduate students and policy-makers looking to understand the limits of economic analysis.
