Interesting book which raises various psychological issues in its exploration of rational decision making. Some of the issues raised are set in context with geographical examples, which I like.



The author, Tim Harford, is a self proclaimed economist and he has a website:

http://www.timharford.com



I thought the book was calling for a closer integration of economics into social science research to develop a clearer understanding of the way things work. Maybe this is happening, but nevertheless, I won More...

I've been trying to increase my understanding of economics lately, and have found myself reading a lot of books like this one. From 'The Undercover Economist' to 'Freakonomics' I feel a lot more informed about the world, but also better equipped to view my surroundings from new perspectives.

This book is no exception. Harford has a knack for delivering complex information to the everyday reader in an entertaining way. Most importantly, he deals with issues that are relevant to the average person More...

The explanatory ambition of this book is stunning--Harford offers rational actor explanations of changes in sexual activity, racial segregation in cities, professional poker, the number of people in parks at different times of day, the productivity of cities, the industrial revolution, colonization, and even why human beings eventually triumphed over neanderthals!

Along the way you get informative sketches of major 20th century economists and game theorists and their theories.

I was most impress More...

I've been reading books on behavioral economics recently and I read this book in the midst. It's fantastic. Tim describes in detail how while irrational behaviors can be seen by amateurs and in isolated incidents, in aggregate and in general an expert's behavior tends to approximate the most rational. He also goes on to describe that this does not necessarily mean that what's rational at individual level translate to what's rational for a group or a society. Recommended.

An economist proves that people are more rational than we think

Economists no longer just propose fiscal policies, forecast business growth, investigate interest rates and assign value to financial assets. Now they also conduct lab experiments, research teenagers’ sexual activities, analyze prostitutes’ condom usage, hypothesize about what happened to the Neanderthals, explain crime waves and develop winning poker strategies. Look under the bed or out the window, and you will probably find an eco More...

Review for The Logic of Life
Author Tim Harford
ISBN: 978-1-58836-682-5

“The logic of life: the rational economics of an irrational world”

My chief beef with economics has always been based on 2 simple observations:
(1)Men and women are not rational creatures
(2)Economics is horrible at forecasting future events because of irrational behavior

My conclusion then is that economics as a field of study is flawed and there are no “laws of economics” because the field is so full of potholes there can’t be. More...

Тим Харфорд шашка с “Нещата от живота и тяхната логика”
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/11/b...

Този текст трябваше да бъде ревю на друга книга – “Икономист под прикритие” от същия автор, която току-що излезе на пазара с фантастичната корица от Петър Станимиров, чийто албум “Вдъхновен от Стивън Кинг” май ще си подаря за Коледа, защото още не мога да се добера до копие.
“Икономист”-ът ме преследва в работата от известно време и само ме изкушава да бъде прочетена. Но аз съм принципен читател и в More...

Ever since Stevens, Levitt and Dubner broke into the scene with their enormously popular Freakonomics, there has been a multitude of popular economics books. Books that uses the tools of economics -- the study of incentives, laws of supply and demand, trade-offs -- and apply them to everyday life. The result is often a fun, counterintuitive explanation of how the world works. Dubner and Levitt's most memorable contribution being attributing the decreasing crime rates in the U.S. to legalizing ab More...

This is an educational and entertaining dissertation on "rational economics," a newer branch of the "dismal science." It purports to show that much of what we often judge as irrational behavior is not, at least not from the actor's perspective. Which is not to say that it is good for the larger society. The book is a non-technical in that it has no equations or charts, but it delves into some subtle concepts in economics and game theory. A real pean to Thomas Schelling, the Nobel Prize winning e More...

Of all the pop economics books I've read (at least 3!) in the last few years, this is my current favorite. Asserting that people act rationally -- conventional economic wisdom for 300 years -- is unconventional again, and this book does a nice job of putting that in some perspective.

It's most notable for its survey of economic work that identifies off-beat, or less-visible "incentives" that cause people to behave as they do. It also provides a useful contrast to the economics laboratory studies More...

I like this type of book, but sometimes it feels like pseudoscience. What the heck! It was insightful to be introduced to Kahneman and Tversky in a book like say Against the Gods, and then to have it rebutted in the first few chapters of this book.

While I may enjoy it, it is going to leave me a little like freakonomics, i.e., a good book but not quite a classic.

After reading it, I must say it is looking like a lesser book than freakonomics. Afterall, freakonomics was the first in this genre. A More...

Questo secondo volume Harford mantiene le aspettative sollevate dal precedente. Altri comportamenti apparentemente paradossali vengono spiegati e fatti comprendere alla luce di un comportamento economico "logico", addirittura spesso inevitabile. L'accento si sposta sulle applicazioni della teoria dei giochi (all'ombra dei contrapposti giganti del campo, Von Neuman e Schelling) ancor piu' che nel precedente volume: speed dating, inurbazione, progresso delle popolazioni, promozioni e stipendi esag More...

A grandiose title that tells you this book is a little more ambitious than "The Undercover Economist". Harford writes with passion and urgency, defending rational choice theory as a useful framework for predicting in the majority of cases how the majority of people behave. Because people change their behaviours in response to incentives (and these include non-financial ones), rational choice theory also lends itself well to policymaking.

Someone needs to write about how those incentives can or s More...

Great book where Harford releases economic views on marriage, single status, democracy and its failings, development countries and more. He relies heavily on a multitude of other (economic) researchers, and uses plain understandble, sometimes humoristic, language.

LESSONS from the book.
1. Wealth of western countries is not the reasons we have institutions (democracy, laws, regulations), the wealth comes BECAUSE we have institutions. The trust that is generated by the rules and regulations allows More...

The author is back undercover, with another brilliantly written well researched book of analysis of everything all around us. Fascinating analysis of incentives and realities in our every day life, ranging from neighborhood issues, teen sexuality and gambling through racism, real estate and big scale social changes. Fascinating stuff. Even knowing about this very interesting way of making sense of seemingly random life elements I'm again blown away by how many things he's able to explain and rea More...

The best (and only) economics book I have read since Freakanomics. Harford looks at a variety of society's problems and tries to explain them using rational economics. I was especially intrigued by the way he compared the decision to start using heroin with the decision to get married. Interesting perspective.

I also liked his take on how contraception pills changed the world and did more for female empowerment than almost anything else in history.

He also does a great job answering the question o More...

Just as good as the undercover economist in exposing many hidden facts of how people use economic logic even though it might not seem so.

Very disappointing. Very shallow and simplistic.
Fairly early in the book I reached the statement that the author's morning coffee habit and an addition to heroin are basically the same thing, just different in a matter of degree.
If I had the book from the library I would have given up at that point, but having paid for the book I soldiered on, unfortunately, hoping for something better to turn up. No such luck. The book ends with a ridiculous speculation about why the Neanderthals went extinct 3 More...

Another entry in the Freakonomics genre. Harford writes an economics column for the Guardian newspaper in England. His book has more of a consistent theme than many popular econ books. The idea that he returns to in each chapter are that all decisions are rational at some level and that only by understanding the underlying reason for ultimately counterproductive actions can we develop effective countermeasures. His case studies include gambling, segregation, school drop-outs, disproportionate ex More...

Harford books are well-written, engaging, and funny. If you loved the Freakonomics books, are a Malcolm Gladwell fan, and want more, I wholeheartedly recommend these.

The Logic of Life is a great read, with a thesis that I like, although it isn't breaking news. Basically, Harford points out that, even when people seem crazy and stupid, they're usually acting rationally and responding to incentives.

It definitely reads a bit like a collection of articles that was tweaked to make into a book. The l More...

This is one of those books written by an economist who longs to be a sociologist. The subtitle of this book; "Rational economics in an irrational world," more accurately reflects the content than the main title does. Two chapters particularly interesting to me are "The dangers of rational racism" and "Is divorce underrated?" The chapter on rational racism makes sense as to why racism is so difficult to change and the chapter on divorce points out how the self-reinforcing loop leading to divorce More...

Un libro fantástico y sorprendente.

Tim Harford me sorprendió aún mas con este segundo libro de lo que ya me sorprendió en su momento con el primero (Pregúntale al economista camuflado). Este se lee fácilmente y no necesita de compresión económica previa, ni grandes conocimientos matemáticos.

Este libro hace una descripción clara de la sociedad moderna actual desde un punto de vista psicológico y antropológico, pero lo describe desde el punto de vista económico. Como las personas reaccionan, actúa More...

Through the audible version of this book, I found it a quick and easy read. It does contain several interesting stories about various esoteric aspects of life that rarely discussed in economics terms. It does provide some food for thought and a good beach reading (if the detective stories and romantic tales not your kind of thing there) as it does not require deep concentration or active thinking. Sort of intellectual spoon-feeding; the best kind for summer vacations without the guilt of complet More...

The first book I read by Tim Harford.

He has a way of telling stories based on economic and statistics. Which is a good thing as we could really relate to them without doing the research or the math.

The discovery is surprising as it is the everything stuff that we are now more aware of, because of his explanation.

As his target audience is the average person, it is consider a fun and easy read.

It is important read, if you haven't read an econ book since wealth of nation, this is a must read.



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Just like economist Tim Harford’s first book (The Undercover Economist), this was a bit more academic than most pop economics books, but had enough real life in it to make it accessible. Though the book doesn’t say so explicitly, it’s a rebuttal to Dan Arielly’s thesis that people’s decisions are often irrational. This might not seem like big news to many people, but it’s significant to economists because the foundation of economics is that people make decisions based on rational self-interest. More...

A frequently fascinating, tightly reasoned entry in the gonzo economist movement which has become all the rage in the last ten years.

Now for the mandatory comparison to Freakonomics: Though not as hyped or flashy as Levitt & Dubner's growing franchise, like them Harford applies the methodology of economics in answering questions about social values and human nature. And in many instances, The Logic of Life is more challenging and meticulously researched than his genre's more popular counterp More...

This book looks to be interesting, in a similar vein to Freakonomics.

BUT: I'm on page 4 of chapter 1, and my hackles are already up. Why? Because of the term "regular sex" being used interchangeably with "penetrative sex," specifically excluding "oral sex" as being "regular". It's a little better than if the term "normal sex" was used... but not by much. It seems all the more strange since part of the author's point is that the performance of oral sex is increasing - making it even more "regular More...

Good book. It's a quick read. It argues that a lot of behavior that we might figure is irrational, like aspects of racism, often turns out to be a rational response to incentives. Sometimes it's a happy surprise, like imminent no-fault divorce laws causing domestic violence to drop by one third. Sometimes it's depressing, like the rationality of some racism. But his point I think is that the more one understands what is going on, the more able one is to fix it.

I heard Tim Harford on Start the Week a month or three back - I can't remember what he said now but it was interesting enough for me to order his book from the library. When the book turned up I wasn't convinced that I was going to find it that enthralling but I ended up loving it.

This is all about how the world is shaped by pretty much everyone making rational choices about the world around them and yet we end up with some things, like rough neighbourhoods or overpaid bosses, that don't appear

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According to Tim Harford, the world makes more sense than you might think. Economic rationale can be found in the strangest of places; the prostitute market in Mexico and the pay structure of your workplace are two such examples discussed in his book The Logic of Life.

In an entertaining way, Harford claims that we might just be more rational than behavioral economists give us credit for. We may in fact, then, jump the gun on labeling behavior "irrational". Harford writes: "If you believe that o More...