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The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
Random House
January 2008
On Sale: January 15, 2008
272 pages
ISBN: 1400066425
EAN: 9781400066421
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Life sometimes seems illogical. Individuals do strange
things: take drugs, have unprotected sex, mug each other.
Love seems irrational, and so does divorce. On a larger
scale, life seems no fairer or easier to fathom: Why do some
neighborhoods thrive and others become ghettos? Why is
racism so persistent? Why is your idiot boss paid a fortune
for sitting behind a mahogany altar? Thorny questions–and
you might be surprised to hear the answers coming from an
economist. But Tim Harford, award-winning journalist and author of the
bestseller The Undercover Economist, likes to spring
surprises. In this deftly reasoned book, Harford argues that
life is logical after all. Under the surface of everyday
insanity, hidden incentives are at work, and Harford shows
these incentives emerging in the most unlikely places. Using tools ranging from animal experiments to supercomputer
simulations, an ambitious new breed of economist is trying
to unlock the secrets of society. The Logic of Life is the
first book to map out the astonishing insights and
frustrating blind spots of this new economics in a way that
anyone can enjoy. The Logic of Life presents an X-ray image of human life,
stripping away the surface to show us a picture that is
revealing, enthralling, and sometimes disturbing. The
stories that emerge are not about data or equations but
about people: the athlete who survived a shocking murder
attempt, the computer geek who beat the hard-bitten poker
pros, the economist who defied Henry Kissinger and faked an
invasion of Berlin, the king who tried to buy off a revolution.
Once you’ve read this quotable and addictive book, life will
never look the same again.
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