An original and entertaining introduction to economics. This collection of stories from around the world provides an overview of economics 101 in a simple and appealing way which can be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

The essential guide to managing money, saving and investing for kids...and parents! A fun and easy-to-understand guide to personal finance packed with real life examples and engaging activities. This collection of stories from around the world provides a hands-on introduction to the world of money, saving and investing for kids and parents. Boost your child's financial IQ and find out how to build sustainable wealth with this hands-on guide to financial independence. Discover the world and explore: How you can start building wealth at an early age How to earn, save and invest your money wisely What bonds and stocks are all about How to avoid the most common financial mistakes And much more!

A leading economist, “who may very well turn out to be this decade’s Thomas Friedman” (Wall Street Journal), illuminates the state of American food today. Tyler Cowen, one of the most influential economists of the last decade, wants you to know that just about everything you’ve heard about how to get good food is wrong. Drawing on a provocative range of examples from around the globe, Cowen reveals why airplane food is bad, but airport food is improving, why restaurants full of happy, attractive people usually serve mediocre meals, and why American food has improved as Americans drink more wine. At a time when obesity is on the rise and forty-four million Americans receive food stamps, An Economist Gets Lunch will revolutionize the way we eat today—and show us how we’re going to feed the world tomorrow.

Understanding economics in our everyday lives—simple explanations of complex ideas. Could the United States experience another Great Depression? Is the Social Security program doomed for future generations? What, exactly, do economists do anyway? Economics is not only for academics or Wall Street titans. If you’re curious about how the economy functions and don’t know where to start, Economics will guide you through the essentials, laying out the basic concepts and issues in the field of economics, from business cycles and free markets to social security and healthcare reform, and more. Packed with eye-opening information, key concepts, and need-to-know terms, this easy-to-read primer lets you explore economics at your own pace. Get a straightforward overview of the economy that’s stripped of overwhelming jargon, so you can gain a deeper understanding of economics as it applies to everyday life. You’ll review important background on differing economic schools of thought―from influential theories to the main thinkers driving them―so you can develop your own conclusions. Economics features: An overview of markets and how they operate A review of broad themes―like taxes, inequality, and jobs―as they apply to everyday life Explorations of business cycles covering what happens during a recession Useful timelines and real-world stories that help you travel the world of economics

"Impressive... This is an evidence-based bottom-up account of the realities of globalisation. It is more varied, more subtle, and more substantial than many of the popular works available on the subject." -- Financial Times Based on a five-year study by the MIT Industrial Performance Center, How We Compete goes into the trenches of over 500 international companies to discover which practices are succeeding in today’s global economy, which are failing –and why. There is a rising fear in America that no job is safe. In industry after industry, jobs seem to be moving to low-wage countries in Asia, Central America, and Eastern Europe. Production once handled entirely in U.S. factories is now broken into pieces and farmed out to locations around the world. To discover whether our current fears about globalization are justified, Suzanne Berger and a group of MIT researchers went to the front lines, visiting workplaces and factories around the world. They conducted interviews with managers at more than 500 companies, asking questions about which parts of the manufacturing process are carried out in their own plants and which are outsourced, who their biggest competitors are, and how they plan to grow their businesses. How We Compete presents their fascinating, and often surprising, conclusions. Berger and her team examined businesses where technology changes rapidly–such as electronics and software–as well as more traditional sectors, like the automobile industry, clothing, and textile industries. They compared the strategies and success of high-tech companies like Intel and Sony, who manufacture their products in their own plants, and Cisco and Dell, who rely primarily on outsourcing. They looked closely at textile and clothing to uncover why some companies, including the Gap and Liz Claiborne, choose to outsource production to foreign countries, while others, such as Zara and Benetton, base most operations at home. What emerged was far more complicated than the black-and-white picture presented by promoters and opponents of globalization. Contrary to popular belief, cheap labor is not the answer, and the world is not flat, as Thomas Friedman would have it. How We Compete shows that there are many different ways to win in the global economy, and that the avenues open to American companies are much wider than we ever imagined. SUZANNE BERGER is the Raphael Dorman and Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science at MIT and director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative. She was a member of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, whose report Made in America analyzed weaknesses and strengths in U.S. industry in the 1980s. She lives in Boston , Massachusetts.

A handbook for rebooting the world with a new economic narrative that combines ecological, philosophical and entrepreneurial wisdom. What if we could all become rich in Life Dollars , a currency that gives value to all the things that make life rich, sustainable and worth living. What if our economy measured success in terms of Gentle World Domination (GWD) instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), where clear blue skies, social harmony and spiritual and mental well-being were the measures of a nation’s true wealth. In Beautiful Economics: A guide to Gentle World Domination , author Howard Collinge challenges conventional economic theory while championing a new kind of cross-disciplinary economics that brings together anthropology, spirituality, science, philosophy, letter-writing, creativity and most importantly, the art of storytelling. A hybrid between a manifesto for a global economic reset and the most unusual Economics 101 book you'll ever read, Beautiful Economics: A guide to Gentle World Domination is a must-have for entrepreneurs, Corporate CEOs and the millions of Everyday Economists who want to shape a better world with a better economic story.

Air bags cause accidents, because well-protected drivers take more risks. This well-documented truth comes as a surprise to most people, but not to economists, who have learned to take seriously the proposition that people respond to incentives. In The Armchair Economist, Steven E. Landsburg shows how the laws of economics reveal themselves in everyday experience and illuminate the entire range of human behavior. Why does popcorn cost so much at the cinema? The 'obvious' answer is that the owner has a monopoly, but if that were the whole story, there would also be a monopoly price to use the toilet. When a sudden frost destroys much of the Florida orange crop and prices skyrocket, journalists point to the 'obvious' exercise of monopoly power. Economists see just the opposite: If growers had monopoly power, they'd have raised prices before the frost. Why don't concert promoters raise ticket prices even when they are sure they will sell out months in advance? Why are some goods sold at auction and others at pre-announced prices? Why do boxes at the football sell out before the standard seats do? Why are bank buildings fancier than supermarkets? Why do corporations confer huge pensions on failed executives? Why don't firms require workers to buy their jobs? Landsburg explains why the obvious answers are wrong, reveals better answers, and illuminates the fundamental laws of human behavior along the way. This is a book of surprises: a guided tour of the familiar, filtered through a decidedly unfamiliar lens. This is economics for the sheer intellectual joy of it.