The Economic Naturalist

Robert H. Frank is a professor of Management and Professor of Economics at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. His "Economic Scene" column appears monthly in The New York Times. He is the author of Choosing the Right Pond, The Winner-Take-All Society, and Luxury Fever, among others. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

出版者:Basic Books

作者:Robert H. Frank

页数:240

出版时间:2007-5-21

价格:USD 26.00

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780465002177

图书标签:经济学经济economic经济入门趣味书英文原版《经济学中的自然主义》RobertFrankEconomics

The fascinating and playful guide to how economics explains the simple but profound ideas that govern our world.

Why do the keypads on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? Why are round-trip fares from Orlando to Kansas City higher than those from Kansas City to Orlando?

For decades, Robert Frank has been asking his economics students to pose and answer questions like these as a way of learning how economic principles operate in the real world--which they do everywhere, all the time.

Once you learn to think like an economist, all kinds of puzzling observations start to make sense. Drive-up ATM keypads have Braille dots because it's cheaper to make the same machine for both drive-up and walk-up locations. Travelers from Kansas City to Orlando pay less because they are usually price-sensitive tourists with many choices of destination, whereas travelers originating from Orlando typically choose Kansas City for specific family or business reasons.

The Economic Naturalist employs basic economic principles to answer scores of intriguing questions from everyday life, and, along the way, introduces key ideas such as the cost benefit principle, the "no cash left on the table" principle, and the law of one price. There is no more delightful and painless way of learning these fundamental principles.

"Smart, snappy and delightful. Bob Frank is one of America's best writers on economics." -- Tyler Cowen, George Mason University, and author of In Praise of Commercial Culture and What Price Fame?

"Fascinating, mind-expanding, and lots of fun." -- Steven Pinker, Harvard University, and author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, and The Stuff of Thought

读后感

首先要说的是，这本90%以上都不是自己东西的书到底能不能归自己所有。也许是因为大部分使其学生写出的（或许经过了修改）但是全面调查这么多问题是不可能的，所以就出现了学生水平和作者不了解所局限出的看问题的不完备性，为了解决问题，总是强调问题的一个面而忽略其他方面，...  

高中的校长曾经在入学典礼上说，许多中国人都喜欢玄学，越是听不懂看不懂的，他越觉得深刻牛逼越觉得你有学问，你把事情给解释清楚了，他反倒不觉的你有知识了。真的学问在于能把一件复杂的事情简单化。 当年听到这番话时，好像被大锤子敲了一下完全懵住了，如此赤裸裸的撕去知...  

我这辈子最不会做的事情就是跟钱打交道（至少直到现在为止），所以让我读一本经济学书籍，实际上我是拒绝的，今年读过《冲突的战略》（讲博弈论的），结果剩了三分之二宣告失败，就连读过的三分之一都完全处在云里雾里。 偶然之间去朋友的书店，看到畅销书里排名前十的这本《...  

笔者想在这结合一些自己周遭的社会现象更深刻地理解本书的内容。 比如：为什么女士服装大多在换季时候打折呢？大多数人的第一反应便是“清仓呗”。没错，清仓是衣服打折的强烈动机，但它并没有解释为什么女士衣服较之男士衣服打折更加频繁？读了本书或许你就能得出一个合理解...  

用户评价

mind-expanding and eye-opener! 居然有一章用经济学分析marriage。。。

Reading now. It seems pretty interesting.

from 3/29/2016 to 4/11/2016 问题是有趣的问题，但回答里对经济学概念的融汇和解释常常不到位

The witty answers are as fun they are plausible.

The witty answers are as fun they are plausible.