UNDERCOVER ECONOMIST
Who actually pockets the most profit when you buy a morning cappuccino at Waterloo Station? Why does getting onto the property ladder feel practically impossible? How does the Mafia turn a tidy profit from laundries when street-level drug gangs can't manage it? And how did China pull off one of history's most extraordinary economic transformations, pulling a million people out of poverty every single month for decades? These are the kinds of questions Tim Harford asks, and his answers are consistently surprising. Rather than retreading the same dry theory you'd find in a university textbook, Harford strips economics back to its bones and shows you the raw mechanics at work in situations you encounter every day. The book traces these ideas across settings as varied as the busy streets of London, the booming skyline of Shanghai, and the quiet canals of Bruges, weaving a picture that's vivid rather than abstract. What you get, ultimately, is an eye-opening account of the signals people send, the negotiations they conduct, and the quiet battles of leverage and cunning that shape both national economies and the small choices ordinary people make before breakfast. It's sharp, accessible, and genuinely thought-provoking.
- Author: Tim Harford
- Publisher: Abacus
- Genre: Economics
- ISBN: 978-0349119854
- Pages: 384 pages