The Undercover Economist

The Undercover Economist

Front cover
Author Tim Harford
Original title The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre Non-fiction, economics
Publisher Little, Brown
Publication date
November 3, 2005
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 288 pp (hardback)
ISBN 0-19-518977-9 (hardback)
OCLC 59098699
330.9/0511 22
LC Class HC59.15 .H35 2006

The Undercover Economist (ISBN 0-19-518977-9) (ISBN 0345494016) is a book by Tim Harford published in 2005 by Little, Brown.

The book provides an introduction to principles of economics, including demand-supply interactions, market failures, externalities, globalisation, international trade and comparative advantage. It explains in non-technical terms how Starbucks and other coffee providers price their products, why it is hard to buy a decent used car, why the health insurance system in the United States is failing, and why poor countries remain poor while the People's Republic of China has continuously grown rich in the last couple of decades.

Freakonomics author Steven Levitt called it "a rare specimen: a book on economics that will enthrall...Beautifully written and argued, it brings the power of economics to life."

See also


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 8/13/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.