Can You Outsmart an Economist?: 100+ Puzzles to Train Your Brain

by Steven E. Landsburg

Overview

“Will delight and inform anyone who enjoys rigorous thinking and the unexpected conclusions it delivers.” — Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic

“This ingenious gallop through the mind of Steven Landsburg enables you to think like an economist without incurring a Keynesian headache or a huge student loan. You may even end up ‘smarter than Google.’ But you will not readily put down this exhilarating adventure in ideas.” — George Gilder, author of Knowledge and Power and Life After Google
 
Can you outsmart an economist? Steven Landsburg, acclaimed author and professor of economics, dares you to try. In this whip-smart, entertaining, and entirely unconventional economics primer, he brings together over one hundred puzzles and brain teasers that illustrate the subject’s key concepts and pitfalls. From warm-up exercises to get your brain working, to logic and probability problems, to puzzles covering more complex topics like inferences, strategy, and irrationality, Can You Outsmart an Economist? will show you how to do just that by expanding the way you think about decision making and problem solving. Let the games begin!
 
“Entertaining as well as edifying. Read it, expand your mind, and have fun!”— N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328489869
Publisher:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication date:	09/25/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	98,096
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

STEVEN E. LANDSBURG is the author of More Sex Is Safer Sex, The Big Questions, and the hugely popular The Armchair Economist, among others. He has written for Forbes, Slate, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.  

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

1 Warm-Ups 1

2 Inferences 19

3 Predictions 45

4 Explanations 69

5 Strategy 93

6 How Irrational Are You? 119

7 Law School Admissions Test 143

8 Are You Smarter Than Google? 157

9 Backward Reasoning 173

10 Knowledge 185

11 Now Are You Smarter Than Google? 199

12 How to Make Decisions 207

13 Matters of Life and Death 225

14 The Coin Flipper's Dilemma 237

15 Albert and the Dinosaurs 249

16 Money, Trade, and Finance 259

Appendix 275

Editorial Reviews

“No one has taught me more surprising truths about the world we live in than Steven Landsburg, if only because he asks surprising questions. Can You Outsmart an Economist? will delight and inform anyone who enjoys rigorous thinking and the unexpected conclusions it delivers.”
—Jamie Whyte, author of Crimes Against Logic

"From zero knowledge proofs to prisoner's dilemmas, from call options to comparative advantage, from price theory to game theory, this ingenious gallop through the mind of Steven Landsburg enables you to think like an economist without incurring a Keynesian headache or a huge student loan. You may even end up 'smarter than Google.' But you will not readily put down this exhilarating adventure in ideas."
—George Gilder, author of Knowledge and Power and Life After Google

"Steven E. Landsburg's Can You Outsmart an Economist? is entertaining as well as edifying. Read it, expand your mind, and have fun!”
—N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of Principles of Economics

From the Publisher