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Economics, Business and Finance books

Francesca R

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Francesca R
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Recommendations and/or reviews? There is a literature sub-forum but this subject is a minority sport there.

I could recommend/write about quite a lot of economics books. I dislike most management books, biographies or stuff like "29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch" or "The Starbucks Story" or "House Flipping for Dummies" (not that I have read any of those). I like books that bring economics to popular readership, and several which mix economics with other social sciences. I've read some great texts that use game theory to discuss cultural, or even biological evolution. Specifics if the thread takes off. . .
 
The Financial Times Guide to Investing
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0273663097

Financial Market Analysis
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Financial-M...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232652958&sr=8-1

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done About it
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bottom-Bill...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232653046&sr=1-1

in order, A great beginner's introduction to investing, a comprehensive introduction to financial mathematics, and a really interesting examination of the economics of poverty.
 
I don't care much for Paul Krugman the political commentator, but Paul Krugman the economics writer is quite good. He wrote several books in the 90s (The Accidental Theorist, some other titles that elude me at the moment) that are perhaps a little dated but deal with concepts that are still relevant.
 
More Sex Is Safer Sex, The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, by Steven Landsburg

I just read that. It's great. Sort of like Freakonomics, if there's a comparison. Mostly, he talks abut his own very unconventional solutions to a ton of social and economic problems through the use of incentive and disincentive. And it plays on the notion that the rule of large numbers produces counterintuitive results.

It's a fun read.
 
kevinquinnyo said:
More Sex Is Safer Sex, The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics, by Steven Landsburg
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Landsburg is great. I have that book and his previous, and similar one "The Armchair Economist" (1992ish), which I summarised as follows:

I don't know if it was the first of its genre, but this is the oldest book I have of the "everyday economics" ilk, predating Steven Levitt and Tim Harford by more than a decade. And its as good as those if not better, and it's a shame it took Landsburg so long to write another ("More Sex is Safer Sex") but that does not disappoint either.

What might come over as harcore free-market libertarianism (sometimes) is--I think--more like refreshing intellectual honesty about costs, benefits and incentives (the rest being commentary as per the book's first line). At least most of the time. The last chapter, "Why I am not an environmentalist" is one that seems likely to polarise the opinions of readers about whether Landsburg is insightful or a clueless idealogue.

My review of what's in between the first line and last chapter is hard to write without it sounding like trite cover-quotese . . . so it's "packed with thought provoking, often controversial and counter-intuitive observations on everyday human-interest issues, problems and situations" and so on, like the cover quotes probably say.

Landburg sticks the closest of any author I know to the concept of incentives, and repeatedly says that he does so as well. This is a defining marker, if there is one. His writing style is very non-academic and non-technical too, as those familiar with his (too infrequent) "Slate" articles will know
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Francesca R said:
Recommendations and/or reviews? There is a literature sub-forum but this subject is a minority sport there.

I could recommend/write about quite a lot of economics books. I dislike most management books, biographies or stuff like "29 Leadership Secrets from Jack Welch" or "The Starbucks Story" or "House Flipping for Dummies" (not that I have read any of those). I like books that bring economics to popular readership, and several which mix economics with other social sciences. I've read some great texts that use game theory to discuss cultural, or even biological evolution. Specifics if the thread takes off. . .
Click to expand...
..
 
Thanks for your query. I make judgements that some books I have read (and not liked) are "stuff like" the titles I mentioned.

Have a nice afternoon in Forum Management and Community.
 
In Japan they have recently made a manga out of Marx' Kapital. Don't know if it could be helpful but it is reported that it's selling like sliced bread.
 
Well, I did enjoy Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist.

I suppose that means that I should also check out More Sex Is Safer Sex.
 
Here's what I think of "The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else", by Hernando de Soto:

The premise is deceptively simple yet apparently a groundbreaking piece of thought in development economics. The failure of the convergence hypothesis is here blamed on the failure of developing and ex-communist nations to convert their private assets into fungible capital, and in that regard, development policies and advice from the west have missed out on barking up one all-important tree. De Soto and team survey the inadequately-emerging world and tot up the staggering total of USD 9.3 trillion in "dead capital"--assets which are owned locally and managed as best they can be, but without proper title and therefore without the fungibility necessary to access trust, credit and the wherewithal to leverage into capital goods--goods which provide the means to generate cash flows, claims on the same, and investment growth.

The legal routes to doing this are revealed in a few case studies for all their insurmountable obstacles: legally registering a small (one employee) garment workshop in Lima takes almost a year and 31 months of minimum wage earnings; obtaining title to an urban dwelling in the Phillippines would take 13-25 years, and so on. Faced with this, citizens have no choice but to opt for "extralegal" ownership, critically damaging the prospects for expanding out of subsistence and spontaneous local trade.

Why is this so? Apparently because smart lawmaking has been overlooked, and few people know how to do it, or have any idea of how it was done in the convoluted histories of developed countries. Thus begins an examination of how this "bell jar" of formal legality within extralegality was lifted in the post-colonial United States, semi-conscoiusly and over many decades. Through this tale, the author highlights the implicit social contracts between people on the ground, and the observation that legitimate property rights and contract laws only gained traction and served the emerging US society and economy where they embraced and encoded social norms. Not when they were crafted on the entitlements of foregoing English law, or otherwise made up on ivory tower drawing boards for the purpose of imposition. The political awareness of this development is severly lacking because it was not documented and is not in the history books--at least not concisely. The globalisation brigade thereby completely misses this mark in its stabilisation and adjustment recommendations. And that is precarious too--not too long ago, we are reminded, the edifice of capitalism was looking tenuous, with perhaps the US and England its sole adherents, and it could have fallen away for good.

De Soto eschews failed attempted reforms from both right (private property rights through mandatory laws) and left (pooling poor citizen's land in government collectives) as both failing to give the people they try to help what they want, or need. "Property" is not "assets"--it is a construct for fixing assets as fungible (tradeable) items--encouraging investment, repelling theft, and transmitting accountability.

Brilliantly illuminating. This reviewer had not had these ideas outlined in any coherent way before, and she very much hopes to discover more about this
 
Nasim Taleeb - "The Black Swan - The impact of the Highly Improbable"

Tom Peters = "Re-Imagine - Business Excellence ina Disruptive Age"

Both are, I think, highly relevant to current times.

All the best

Steve
 
The Myth of the Rational Voter, by Bryan Caplan was awesome.

Economic and political I suppose, but it's hard to divorce the two.
 
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