The Economic Naturalist

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

具体描述

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

作者简介

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.

读后感

博物经济学，就是用经济学的概念去理解日常生活中的某些现象的一种思维方式。这种思维方式建立在经济学的简单常识上，试图通过基本的推理去理解并解释事物的本质。这种方法所得的结论不在于对错，而在于发现事物的合理性，增加理解和预判。经常性地运用这种思维方式，会是非常...  

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《...  

前些天和一位朋友被雨困进落成不久的某购物广场，那里劳力士、卡迪亚等等大牌荟萃独缺超市，买不到伞，于是两个穷学生不得不硬着头皮从一楼window shopping到四楼，再从四楼逛到一楼，借以打发时间。一番东张西望之后，我发现一个有趣的现象：KFC位于购物广场一楼临近街边...  

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...  

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

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

Reading now. It seems pretty interesting.

日常的有趣经济现象

配合Microeconomics课程看的闲书，刚开始挺有趣的，到后来有些例子分析的感觉千篇一律，再加上有点文化差异，三星半吧。