The Armchair Economist

Most people associate economics with larg-scale wonders like the stock-market, big business, and international trade. Most people also assume that economists are dismally technical. Stephen Landsburg attempts to prove them wrong. He shows how the laws of economics can reveal themselves in surprising and humorous ways. He demonstrates that, no matter what the endeavour, people respond to incentives in understandable, if not always predictable ways. By illustrating how economists think about daily experience, he lays the basis for a richer appreciation of the full range of economic activity. In this guided tour of the familiar, through an unfamiliar lens, Landsburg explains many of the key issues of economics in chapters that read more like detective stories than textbook lessons.

From The Publisher:

Witty economists are about as easy to find as anorexic mezzo-sopranos, natty mujahedeen, and cheerful Philadelphians. But Steven E. Landsburg...is one economist who fits the bill. In a wide-ranging, easily digested, unbelievably contrarian survey of everything from why popcorn at movie houses costs so much to why recycling may actually reduce the number of trees on the planet, the University of Rochester professor valiantly turns the discussion of vexing economic questions into an activity that ordinary people might enjoy.

-- Joe Queenan, "The Wall Street Journal"

"The Armchair Economist" is a wonderful little book, written by someone for whom English is a first (and beloved) language, and it contains not a single graph or equation...Landsburg presents fascinating concepts in a form easily accessible to noneconomists.

-- Erik M. Jensen, "The Cleveland Plain Dealer"

...enormous fun from its opening page...Landsburg has done something extraordinary: He has expounded basic economic principles with wit and verve.

-- Dan Seligman, "Fortune"