The Undercover Economist Strikes Back: How to Run - or Ruin - an Economy Hardcover – January 16, 2014

Following the author on his blog now switching to his books: a decision I’m not regretting at all. His books are fun to read and not only informative: you learn a lot. What’s the difference between macro and microeconomics? If you are totally in the dark about a subject like me, this is a great book to start. Or maybe because I was in the dark you’ve better not follow my recommendation. The author mentions that Keynes defined an economist as someone closer to Da Vinci more than to a grey technocrat. The economist literally has to be curious on anything around humans, be a mathematician, admite art, know history, understand humans and also have an instinct for fixing things closer to an engineer... (I’m just paraphrasing so please read the book!). The author in this book shows exactly that looking back in time, bringing stories alive and writing with an amazing prose to bring down closer to your mind and hearts a topic that the same author confesses had taken a very abstract road. It also helped me a lot to understand is our understanding of what makes whole human systems work economically: we started to learn this very very recently and however we advanced a lot yet we do not know so much. Also it makes a fair description of all the voices there on economists: where we are, where we are moving, and you get a better idea where politicians and quoting out of context depending on their political allegiances... clearly some things do not work, some work, and the low level detail yet is not fully understood: there is a lot to apply differently and create different societies however there are already some sound macroeconomics concepts that apply you like or not. Not physics but getting closer maybe...

Tim Harford is a terrific expositor of modern economics. I teach economics and have read all of his books and always learn something new and useful to incorporate in my classes. Most of Harford's books deal with microeconomic issues or economic development. This book focuses on macroeconomics, which is the study of the whole economy - the average level of employment and unemployment, the aggregate level of production (GDP), changes in the average level of prices (inflation) and policies to influence these variables. Excellent discussion of the controversies in macroeconomics. Harford is a very good writer and does a good job of explaining complex material. Very highly recommended.

For what this is, you'd do just as well to pick up something a bit meatier.This book is only suitable for people who have not taken a semester long course in Macroeconomics. If you have, then you can skip this.As far as picking up something meatier, the books that I have in mind are any of three:1. Basic Economics2. Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One3. Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic EconomicsThis book comes across as a bit too breezy and working a bit too hard to be funny/ approachable.For people who have already read on this topic a bit (like the present reader), the book comes across as a shill for Keynesian economics. And even after all that, the author does a lot of hemming and hawing about how stable and predictable is the Keynesian multiplier. He spends the first third of the book building up the idea of inflation and nominal growth and real growth and then finishes by saying that "We don't really know what the multiplier is." Give me a break.Later, he does actually get around to discussing some classical economics, but only after he has built up Keynes first.Harford also spends time blowtorching James Rickards (whose books I have read/ am reading) and people who like the idea of the gold standard. In doing so, he goes over the same arguments that Krugman and other anti-gold people have been repeating against the gold standard camp. (He says that gold has nothing to do with the amount of goods and services produced in an economy, when the point that they were making was that gold is a way to constrain the amount of money that can be printed.)For the record, a 4th book that is worth reading in addition to this is: Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis.Verdict: Qualified recommendation. This book can be useful for someone who has ZERO understanding of Economics, since if they know a little bit then it is better than nothing at all. (A copy of this for every member of Congress would not be bad.) But for people who study Economics as serious hobbyists, then this book is just not that useful.

I had previously read Tim Harford's Undercover Economist and this is a great follow up. I don't know if you could pass a Economy 101 course with this book, but for the rest of us this gives a great explanation of how the economy works from the consumer's point of view. Of all the things in this book the one thing that stood out was the short discussion of education in the United States. Some great universities but the education of the masses is a total disaster. It's like the vast majority of Americans is being kept ignorant and stupid. The average American is being fed pablum on Television and they live in fear with the never ending portrait of crime and cops.

Tim Harford is a good author and an entertaining read. Unfortunately, this book is exactly what it says on the tin: A macro economics primer. For someone used to reading his more entertaining micro books, it was less than thrilling.I'd heartily recommend this to anyone who wants a macro primer or a light and entertaining way to refresh their memory. If you're 'into' economics, you can safely give this one a pass for the content, although you'll still like it for the writing and stories.

According to John Maynard Keynes "The master economist ... must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher-in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man's nature or his institutions must lie entirely outside his regard. He must be purposeful and disinterested in a simultaneous mood; as aloof and incorruptible as an artist, yet sometimes as near the earth as a politician."So even a very bright fifteen year old is not going to be able to understand macroeconomics - it will need half a lifetime of professional training and experience to get him to a point where he can grasp even the basics. Unless, that is, he has Tim Harford as his guide. Using the Q&A Socratic debate format Tim leads the reader towards an understanding of why macroeconomics is so hard, why no solutions have yet been found and maps out potential sources of hope for future solutions. Along the way we encounter some of the latest thinking on behavioural economics, on why economics growth can continue forever, on why happiness economics is just plain weird and on how the Euro is like Dr Strangelove's doomsday device with Greece playing the role of Major Kong.Although this book could be read on its own I feel it is better to read The Undercover Economist first so that the reader has a basic understanding of microeconomic concepts before embarking on "The UE-SB". The takeaway from this book is different from his earlier works. Reading it has persuaded me that we need a long term inflation rate of more than 2% to get us out of this depression but I believe that the 4% rate that Tim suggests is too high. Let's see what Mark Carney does over 2014.Buy it - Read it - Enjoy it The Undercover Economist

I am a big fan of the original "Undercover Economist" but was not so impressed with "The Logic of Life", which I found a bit same-y (and I'm afraid I didn't bother with "Adapt" at all). However, this book enters new territory - macroeconomics - and does it well. For me as a lay reader, there was a lot of new information, well-explained and backed up by interesting and illustrative examples. I think I will have to re-read it to fully digest everything, but I'm looking forward to it! The only slight sticking point for me was the question and answer format. Harford has clearly come to like writing this way from his columns in the FT but although the format (usually) works well at column length, I wasn't convinced for a whole book. Sometimes the "questions" were so few and far between that he might as well just have written normal prose and even in the parts that were more conversational I didn't think the format added much. Still, it worked for Plato so you can't blame Harford for giving it a go.

When it comes to pop economics books, Tim Harford's 'The Undercover Economist' is a classic of the genre, selling over a million copies around the world. Having read and enjoyed it, I was curious to see whether its successor 'The Undercover Economist Strikes Back' (named after the Star Wars' 'The Empire Strikes Back') would live up to the illustrious first volume.The answer is that it is does, building and improving upon its predecessor. While The Undercover Economist was mainly if not exclusively focused on microeconomics, Strikes Back focuses on macroeconomics only and therefore covers plenty of content that the original didn't. Another change from the original that is immediately obvious is that Harford has implemented a new 'Socratic dialogue' style in which the whole book is written like an extended Q and A session between Harford and a notional reader. This hasn't pleased all reviewers and some readers may find it irritating, however I felt it made more explicit the precise questions Harford was addressing in each paragraph.Harford covers the key issues of macroeconomics, starting from the role of money, the money supply and inflation to recessions, the labour market, game theory as well as some of the more normative questions over economic policy, such as whether it should be geared towards growth in GNP or other ends. Microeconomics is sometimes thought of as the 'good' economics, and therefore by implication macroeconomics as the 'bad'. This is because macroeconomics is seen as having far more ambiguity over its central questions than microeconomics. Therefore Harford's task is defining for a lay reader a debate as much as a settled discipline. He does this well, giving due attention to the arguments from a Keynesian and Neoclassical perspectives as well as key turning points in economic debate, such as the Lucas critique. However, what Harford does that some other introductions have missed is explain why there is ambiguity, i.e. the genuine difficulty in determining which way the lines of causation run in a complex system like the economy.Therefore 'The Undercover Economist Strikes Back' is a very good introduction to macroeconomics that is just as crisply written and illuminating as Harford's original introduction to microeconomics.

A brilliant book on the big, governmental-level of economics. It occasionally hints at preferred solutions, but the book is mainly concerned with explaining how things work, how things go work and how economic theorists have struggled to understand the underlying processes. It always tries to be fair-minded, careful to explain both a "Keynesian" and a "Classical" approach to the problems. There are no maths or equations, the book uses quotes and (true) stories to illuminate the author's points.It covers all the hot topics: recessions, "austerity", when balanced budgets are a good idea and when they are not, how running a government budget isn't like running a household budget, printing money, rising inequality (or not), job protection and so on.The book is brilliantly written - the tone of it is almost exactly like that he adopts in his radio show "More Or Less", which is simple without being patronizing and with a gently ironic sense of fun. The explanations are very clear - an inquisitive older child could happily follow this book without problems and it is short enough to read in an afternoon, but without leaving you feeling short-changed. I'd recommend this to any reader interested in the subject without qualification.

Most popular economics books focus on microeconomics, answering questions such as 'Why does popcorn cost so much in cinemas?' These books are fun and accessible because the topics are all really about human nature and how people make choices. In this book, Tim Harford has tried to do something much harder. He has sought to answer the larger questions about recessions, unemployment and poverty.Although not as immediately entertaining as his other books, this is very thought-provoking. He makes a compelling case for politicians to take a counterintuitive approach to avoid boom and bust. Money should be saved when the economy is strong and spent on pre-planned projects during recessions. However, politicians have no incentive to think ahead because they may not be in power during the next recession.

Quite simply, I loved this book. Remember those books you used to read as a kid, that you couldn't put down or which you'd stay up reading, way past "lights out" - Well, here's an example... written about, of all things, economics!Tim Harford writes clearly, concisely and with gentle humour about macroeconomics, in a way that helped me (a science graduate) make sense of how a country's economy works on the grand scale. The tone is wonderfully conversational, but precise. It's logical - I lost count of the number of "light bulb" moments I had, reading it, where something I'd read in the financial press or saw on the news, suddenly made perfect sense :) I'm a big fan of "More or Less", Tim's radio 4 programme about numbers and statistics. That show is a perfect example of the Reith(ian) directive to "entertain, educate and inform". This book does just that :) Read it; you're certain to enjoy it :)

Tim Harford brings us some macro. For me, a less interesting topic than those of his previous books. Nevertheless, he's a great writer with a knack for simplifying tricky concepts and, as with his previous books, this is an enjoyable read. Harford only really dips his toe into the complexities of macroeconomics, but I was still able to gain a better perspective on the current debates; the different arguments being stripped - as far as possible - of the politics that envelop them. The book is exhaustively researched and the reader is treated to plenty of interesting factual and historical tidbits throughout.

It's wonderfully written as you would expect from Tim. He is one of my heroes despite my professional area of expertise being science and medicine. This book is great though just a little taster on the subject of macroeconomics. I was left wanting to know more. Tim, being incredibly in tune with his audience provides suggestions for further reading. A wonderful introduction into this important topic regardless of your place in this world.

a must read for anyone interested in the economy of Britain and therest of the World.the book makes it easier to understand so you dont need a degree to follow itexcellent read.

This is a great introduction to macroeconomics, making the subject both accessible and interesting. My main gripe is that I found the style of writing (Harford imagines a two-way conversation with the reader) a bit contrived--I much preferred the style of his original (most excellent) book, the Undercover Economist. I also felt that he skated over some issues such as whether economic growth can continue indefinitely, which left me feeling unconvinced. But don't let that put you off! Definitely worth reading.(I agree with the reviewer who complained about the Kindle formatting: whole sentences keep dropping off the ends of pages! The only way to make them visible is to keep changing the font size on your Kindle, which is extremely annoying. If e-publishing is the future of books as many claim, you would think they could sort this out.)

The content of the book is great, as usual, for Tim Harford, but it is incredibly annoying that the Kindle version does not fit properly on a page and words are missing. They reappear if you change the font size, only for other to disappear on another page. Very frustrating indeed!

If you do not like graphs and equations but do want to understand the basics of macroeconomics then this book is a good starting point. Real life examples make what might seem like incomprehensible macroeconomic ideas easier to understand. I would recommend this for 'A' level students.

Interestingly written as a conversation with the reader, it's a style that I thought would become annoying but actually kept me engaged in a manner akin to Socratic teaching. Great author, and the way forward into understanding macroeconomics.

The book covers things from sticky prices, money ilusion, efficency wages, poverty measurements as an absolute or in preportion to other incomes. The pros and cons of gdp and happeness indexes.It is simple and straighforward to read much like the authors other books nothing ground breaking or new but in a nice easy to read style.

This is the second Hartford book I've bought and is, considering the subject matter, an easy read. Executed in the style of a conversational 'question and answer' between reader and author is throws much illumination on the current 'state-of-the-nation'.Recommended.