Economics Books

"How We Choose" offers readers an engaging and insightful look at the complex world of human decision-making. Sheena Iyengar brilliantly explores the psychology of choice, examining how our personal biases, cultural backgrounds, and other factors influence the decisions we make. Through numerous examples and thought-provoking anecdotes, readers will gain a new understanding of how and why we make the choices we do. This book is an excellent choice for anyone interested in learning more about their own decision-making process and the biases that affect us all.

Most anti-smoking campaigns inadvertently encourage people to smoke. The scent of melons helps sell electronic products. Subliminal advertising may have been banned, but it's being used all the time. Product placement in films rarely works. Many multi-million pound advertising campaigns are a complete waste of time. These are just a few of the findings of Martin Lindstrom's groundbreaking study of what really makes consumers tick. Convinced that there is a gulf between what we believe influences us and what actually does, he set up a highly ambitious research project that employed the very latest in brain-scanning technology and called on the services of some 2000 volunteers. Buyology shares the fruits of this research, revealing for the first time what actually goes on inside our heads when we see an advertisement, hear a marketing slogan, taste two rival brands of drink, or watch a programme sponsored by a major company. The conclusions are both startling and groundbreaking, showing the extent to which we deceive ourselves when we think we are making considered decisions, and revealing factors as varied as childhood memories and religious belief that come together to influence our decisions and shape our tastes.

Nudge could be a good read for those interested in understanding the science behind decision-making. It provides numerous examples of how small nudges can impact our choices for the better. The book is praised for its practicality and humor, making it an entertaining and informative read for anyone looking to improve their decision-making skills.

Brandwashed Not since the 1957 bestselling classic The Hidden Persuaders has a book so nakedly exposed the the best-kept secrets of how companies manipulate, seduce, and dupe us into buying their brands and products. Here, bestselling author and marketing guru Martin Lindstrom pulls back the curtain on all the psychological tricks and machinations companies employ today to obscure the truth, manipulate our mi... Full description

"Thinking In Bets" is a must-read for anyone who wants to improve their decision-making skills. Annie Duke shares valuable tools for embracing uncertainty and making better decisions, drawing examples from business, sports, politics, and poker. By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll become more confident, calm, compassionate, and successful in the long run. This book encourages readers to embrace uncertainty, consider different outcomes, and make the best decision based on the available information.

The 100-Year Life could be a good read for users who are seeking guidance on how to navigate the changing landscape of work and retirement. This book offers practical solutions for rethinking their finances, career, education, and relationships in a world where people are living longer and facing multiple careers. The most unique and distinctive feature is its focus on experimenting with new ways of living, working, and learning to create a shifting balance between work and leisure. This book is a wake-up call that describes what to expect and considers the choices and options that users will face, offering a hopeful and inspiring message for individuals, businesses, and governments alike.

This book is ideal for anyone interested in understanding the intricacies of strategic thinking and conflict resolution. Schelling proposes a new way of looking at negotiations, war, and criminal deterrence, showing enlightening similarities between these seemingly disparate situations. This book offers insights into human psychology and helps readers understand why we behave the way we do in certain situations, making it a must-read for anyone looking to improve their negotiation skills or enhance their knowledge of game theory.

“A fresh perspective on business practices or working lives…and a snappy introduction to a new way of thinking” (Financial Times), The Misfit Economy shows how lessons in innovation, salesmanship, and entrepreneurship can come from surprising places: pirates, bootleggers, counterfeiters, hustlers, and others living on the fringe of society.Who are the greatest innovators in the world? You’re probably thinking Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford. The usual suspects. Well, The Misfit Economy isn’t about them. It’s about people you’ve never heard of. It’s about people who are just as innovative, entrepreneurial, and visionary as the Jobses, Edisons, and Fords of the world, except they’re not operating out of Silicon Valley. They’re in the street markets of Sao Paulo and Guangzhou, the rubbish dumps of Lagos, the flooded coastal towns of Thailand. They are pirates, slum dwellers, computer hackers, dissidents, and inner city gang members.Across the globe, diverse innovators are working in the black, grey, and informal economies to develop solutions to myriad challenges. Far from being “deviant entrepreneurs” that pose threats to our social and economic stability, these innovators display remarkable ingenuity, pioneering original methods and best practices that we can learn from and apply to formal markets in urgent need of change.In their “well-paced read about a unique perspective on supply and demand and those who create it” (Library Journal), Alexa Clay and Kyra Maya Phillips investigate the stories of underground innovation that make up the Misfit Economy. They examine the teeming genius of the underground and ask: Who are these unknown visionaries? How do they work? How do they organize themselves? How do they catalyze and execute upon innovation? And ultimately, how can you take these lessons into your own world? The Misfit Economy tells you how.

“The Undercover Economist” is a great read for anyone interested in understanding how the economy works. Tim Harford uses real-world scenarios to explain economic principles in an engaging and easy-to-understand manner. His unique perspective on economics is refreshing and thought-provoking.

Predictably Irrational is an engaging and thought-provoking read that sheds light on why we make irrational decisions. Ariely provides practical applications for the insights gained from the illuminating experiments he conducted. The book is a great choice for readers interested in behavioral economics, psychology, or anyone looking to improve their decision-making skills in personal or professional settings.

Why do our headaches persist after taking a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a 50-cent aspirin?Why does recalling the Ten Commandments reduce our tendency to lie, even when we couldn't possibly be caught?Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?Why do we go back for second helpings at the unlimited buffet, even when our stomachs are already full?And how did we ever start spending $4.15 on a cup of coffee when, just a few years ago, we used to pay less than a dollar?When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we're in control. We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.

Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.The Freakquel is here. In Superfreakonomics Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner look deeper, question harder and uncover even more hidden truths about our world, from terrorism to shark attacks, cable TV to hurricanes. They ask, among other things: ~What's a sure-fire way to catch a terrorist? ~Are people hard-wired for altruism or selfishness? ~Which cancer does chemotherapy work best for? ~Why is combating global warming easier than we think? Sometimes, the most superfreaky solution is the simplest.~from the back cover

No Contest stands as the definitive critique of competition. Contrary to accepted wisdom, competition is not basic to human nature; it poisons our relationships and holds us back from doing our best. In this new edition, Alfie Kohn argues that the race to win turns all of us into losers.

The Barnes & Noble Review Who is the average millionaire? Does he eat gourmet or fast food? Does he drive fancy cars, take chic vacations, and indulge wherever and whenever he can? Or does he resole his shoes, turn off the air conditioning when he leaves the house, and spend a lot of time at home with close friends and family? Through his surveys of over 1,000 millionaires, Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., answers these questions and provides us with further insight into the thoughts and lives of this wealthy segment of the population in The Millionaire Mind. A follow-up to Stanley's New York Times bestseller, The Millionaire Next Door, The Millionaire Mind may surprise readers with its findings about the kinds of people that millionaires really are. Interestingly, many millionaires were not straight-A students in high school, nor did they attend prestigious colleges. Instead, they were often told when they were younger that they were not bright and that they would not be successful. These challenges taught them how to surmount obstacles and motivated them to try harder and to take risks to get ahead financially. The major risks that these millionaires have taken and continue to take are financial ones. They must overcome the fear of taking risks, and they must maintain this courage throughout their adult careers. Stanley discovered that many millionaires share similarities in techniques to allay their anxieties and stay on track financially. Some of these include: Believing in myself Counting my blessings every day Countering negativethoughtswith positive ones Sharing concerns with spouse Visualizing success Outworking, outthinking, out-toughing the competition Hiring talented advisors Constantly upgrading my knowledge about my occupation Spending considerable time planning my success Exercising regularly Having strong religious faith Stanley also reveals that millionaires are very often successful in marriage as well as in work (the typical millionaire has been married to the same spouse for over twenty-five years) and that they usually lead relatively frugal, economically productive lifestyles. Perhaps most interesting to readers will be the section that Stanley devotes to how millionaires chose the career in which they would be most likely to succeed. So don't miss out on picking apart and analyzing the thoughts and habits of millionaires with Thomas Stanley and The Millionaire Mind, a book sure to be as brilliantly revealing and fascinating as his previous bestseller on millionaires. Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D., is a researcher, author, and lecturer. He has studied the wealthy for more than 25 years. The Millionaire Next Door, published in 1996, has sold more than one million copies in hardcover and nearly one million in paperback. The book has been on The New York Times Best Sellers list for more than 150 combined weeks. His previous books include Marketing to the Affluent, which Best of Business Quarterly named one of 10 outstanding business books, Selling to the Affluent, and Networking with the Affluent. Dr. Stanley lives in Atlanta. He was a professor of marketing at Georgia State University, where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa Outstanding Professor. He holds his doctorate from the University of Georgia in Athens.

This book dives deep into why we sometimes skirt the edges of truth, explaining that the causes of dishonesty are often more complex than simple immorality. It's an insightful read for anyone fascinated by psychology and human behavior, offering a scientific yet accessible understanding of why we lie. By understanding our weaknesses, the book implicitly suggests ways to foster honesty in ourselves and our society.

This is a collection of some of the most important ideas of Eastern and Western culture — drawn from the works of those philosophers, political theorists, sociologists, artists and novelists whom we believe have the most to offer to us today. We've worked hard to make the thinkers in this book clear, relevant and charming, mining the history of knowledge to bring you the ideas we think have the greatest important to our times. This book contains the canon of The School of Life, the gallery of individuals across the millennia who help to frame our intellectual project — and we will have succeeded if, in the days and years ahead, you find yourself turning to our thinkers to illuminate the multiple dilemmas, joys and griefs of daily life.

The Signal and the Noise is a must-read for individuals interested in understanding the art and science of predictions. Nate Silver draws from his experience as a blogger, political forecaster, and founder of website FiveThirtyEight to explore the importance of probability and uncertainty in making predictions. Beyond the importance of probability, Silver emphasizes the importance of humility and hard work in prediction. Silver's unique style of presenting his findings, including an analysis of the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, makes the book an informative and entertaining read.

Nobel laureate Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans—predictable, error-prone individuals. Misbehaving is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth—and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world.Traditional economics assumes rational actors. Early in his research, Thaler realized these Spock-like automatons were nothing like real people. Whether buying a clock radio, selling basketball tickets, or applying for a mortgage, we all succumb to biases and make decisions that deviate from the standards of rationality assumed by economists. In other words, we misbehave. More importantly, our misbehavior has serious consequences. Dismissed at first by economists as an amusing sideshow, the study of human miscalculations and their effects on markets now drives efforts to make better decisions in our lives, our businesses, and our governments.Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world. He reveals how behavioral economic analysis opens up new ways to look at everything from household finance to assigning faculty offices in a new building, to TV game shows, the NFL draft, and businesses like Uber.Laced with antic stories of Thaler’s spirited battles with the bastions of traditional economic thinking, Misbehaving is a singular look into profound human foibles. When economics meets psychology, the implications for individuals, managers, and policy makers are both profound and entertaining.

An updated edition of the blockbuster bestselling leadership book that took America and the world by storm, two U.S. Navy SEAL officers who led the most highly decorated special operations unit of the Iraq War demonstrate how to apply powerful leadership principles from the battlefield to business and life.Combat, the most intense and dynamic environment imaginable, teaches the toughest leadership lessons, with absolutely everything at stake. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin learned this reality first-hand on the most violent and dangerous battlefield in Iraq. As leaders of SEAL Team Three's Task Unit Bruiser, their mission was one many thought impossible: help U.S. forces secure Ramadi, a violent, insurgent-held city deemed "all but lost." In gripping, firsthand accounts of heroism, tragic loss, and hard-won victories, they learned that leadership--at every level--is the most important factor in whether a team succeeds or fails.Willink and Babin returned home from deployment and instituted SEAL leadership training to pass on their harsh lessons learned in combat to help forge the next generation of SEAL leaders. After leaving the SEAL Teams, they launched a company, Echelon Front, to teach those same leadership principles to leaders in businesses, companies, and organizations across the civilian sector. Since that time, they have trained countless leaders and worked with hundreds of companies in virtually every industry across the U.S. and internationally, teaching them how to develop their own high-performance teams and most effectively lead those teams to dominate their battlefields.Since it's release in October 2015, Extreme Ownership has revolutionized leadership development and set a new standard for literature on the subject. Required reading for many of the most successful organizations, it has become an integral part of the official leadership training programs for scores of business teams, military units, and first responders. Detailing the mindset and principles that enable SEAL units to accomplish the most difficult combat missions, Extreme Ownership demonstrates how to apply them to any team or organization, in any leadership environment. A compelling narrative with powerful instruction and direct application, Extreme Ownership challenges leaders everywhere to fulfill their ultimate purpose: lead and win.

The Optimist's Telescope offers practical solutions for making better long-term decisions for individuals, businesses, and society as a whole. Venkataraman draws from her experience as a former climate adviser to the Obama administration and shares stories from around the world to showcase how we can adopt practices that benefit us over time. She highlights the importance of thinking ahead and dispels the myth that human nature is impossibly reckless. This book is recommended for anyone looking to make positive changes for themselves and the world around them.

Factfulness is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a clear understanding of our world's progress. The book debunks common misconceptions and provides evidence of a remarkable positive trend that is often overlooked. It is highly recommended for those who like to have a fact-based world view, and want to be inspired by the potential for human progress.

A Turing Award-winning computer scientist and statistician shows how understanding causality has revolutionized science and will revolutionize artificial intelligence"Correlation is not causation." This mantra, chanted by scientists for more than a century, has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. Today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, instigated by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and established causality -- the study of cause and effect -- on a firm scientific basis. His work explains how we can know easy things, like whether it was rain or a sprinkler that made a sidewalk wet; and how to answer hard questions, like whether a drug cured an illness. Pearl's work enables us to know not just whether one thing causes another: it lets us explore the world that is and the worlds that could have been. It shows us the essence of human thought and key to artificial intelligence. Anyone who wants to understand either needs The Book of Why .

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.From the Publisher (Hachette)

Seth Godin’s three essential questions for every marketer: “What’s your story?” “Will the people who need to hear this story believe it?” “Is it true?”  All marketers tell stories. And if they do it right, we believe them. We believe that wine tastes better in a $20 glass than a $1 glass. We believe that an $80,000 Porsche is vastly superior to a $36,000 Volkswagen that’s virtually the same car. We believe that $125 sneakers make our feet feel better—and look cooler—than a $25 brand. And believing it makes it true.   As Seth Godin showed in this controversial book, great marketers don’t talk about features or even benefits. Instead, they tell a story—a story we want to believe, whether it’s factual or not. In a world where most people have an infinite number of choices and no time to make them, every organization is a marketer, and all marketing is about telling stories.   Marketers succeed when they tell us a story that fits our worldview, a story that we intuitively embrace and then share with our friends. Think of the Dyson vacuum cleaner, or Fiji water, or the iPod.   But beware: If your stories are inauthentic, you cross the line from fib to fraud. Marketers fail when they are selfish and scurrilous, when they abuse the tools of their trade and make the world worse. That’s a lesson learned the hard way by telemarketers, cigarette companies, and sleazy politicians.   But for the rest of us, it’s time to embrace the power of the story. As Godin writes, “Stories make it easier to understand the world. Stories are the only way we know to spread an idea. Marketers didn’t invent storytelling. They just perfected it.”

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If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science.Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature–tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking–which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

This book is a great read for individuals who struggle with making decisions. It highlights the problems that arise when faced with an abundance of choices and how this can impact our well-being. The author offers practical steps to simplify our decision-making process and ultimately live a more satisfying life. Users who have found themselves overwhelmed with choices and struggling with decision-making have found this book to be a helpful tool.

Recommendation: Who is a must-read for anyone who wants to learn the art of successful hiring. This book provides a practical, easy-to-follow solution to the biggest problem in business today: unsuccessful hiring. The A Method for Hiring is refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken and has a 90 percent success rate. The book emphasizes fundamental elements that anyone can implement to avoid common "voodoo hiring" methods, define the outcomes you seek, generate a flow of A Players to your team and ask the right interview questions. It is a must-read for managers, business owners, and anyone who wants to attract the right people to their team.

“A cutting edge dissection—and ultimate destruction—of the myth of innate talent in the pursuit of excellence. Syed synthesizes his evidence with the precision of an academic, writes with the fluidity of a journalist, and persuades with the drive of a sportsman. Read this book now—before its too late. There are no excuses!” — Mark Thomas, Professor of Evolutionary Genetics, University College London In the vein of the international bestselling Freakonomics , award-winning journalist Matthew Syed reveals the hidden clues to success—in sports, business, school, and just about anything else that you’d want to be great at. Fans of Predictably Irrational and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point will find many interesting and helpful insights in Bounce .

Dan Ariely, behavioral economist and the New York Times bestselling author of The Upside of Irrationality and Predictably Irrational, examines the contradictory forces that drive us to cheat and keep us honest, in this groundbreaking look at the way we behave: The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty.From ticket-fixing in our police departments to test-score scandals in our schools, from our elected leaders’ extra-marital affairs to the Ponzi schemes undermining our economy, cheating and dishonesty are ubiquitous parts of our national news cycle—and inescapable parts of the human condition.Drawing on original experiments and research, in the vein of Freakonomics, The Tipping Point, and Survival of the Sickest, Ariely reveals—honestly—what motivates these irrational, but entirely human, behaviors.

This book is a captivating sequel to the international bestseller, Freakonomics. With their unique style and wit, the authors delve into controversial subjects like terrorism, charity, and prostitution. Prepare to be amazed as Superfreakonomics uncovers hidden truths and transforms the way you see the world. It's a thought-provoking read that will challenge your perspectives and leave you wanting more.

"Misbehaving is a fascinating read for anyone curious about the intersection of economics and psychology. Thaler offers a compelling argument for why traditional economic models don't work when applied to real humans, and provides practical advice for making better decisions. His witty anecdotes and engaging writing style make this book highly entertaining, while still providing valuable insights for individuals, businesses, and policymakers."

The Science of Getting Rich is a classic book on the principles of attracting wealth. The author, Wallace D. Wattles, outlines the steps necessary to achieve financial abundance with "mathematical certainty". This book is recommended for those seeking to gain financial security and learn the principles of creative thinking. The book's unique and distinctive feature is the emphasis on the practical, imaginative, and non-competitive ways to attain wealth, while maintaining a harmonious relationship with life.

Since it was first published in 1936, Dale Carnegie's all-time classic has helped millions of readers get along with people. How to Win Friends and Influence People provides advice on: Discovering new ambitions Making friends quickly and easily Increasing your popularity Handling complaints and avoiding arguments

Freakonomics is a fascinating exploration of the hidden side of the world we live in. Levitt and Dubner use their unique analytical perspective to unveil the truth about things we thought we understood but don't. Their unconventional approach to analyzing data leads to surprising and thought-provoking insights on everything from cheating teachers to bizarre baby names. This book is a must-read for anyone looking for unconventional and intriguing perspectives on complex phenomena.

Pre-Suasion is a must-read for anyone interested in mastering the art of persuasion. The book explores the concept of pre-suasion, which refers to the strategic groundwork that persuaders lay before delivering their message. Through a host of case studies and insights into human psychology, author Robert Cialdini shows readers how to effectively leverage pre-suasion techniques to influence and persuade others. This book is an essential guide for anyone seeking to improve their communication skills and ability to influence others.

"The Tipping Point" is a great read for those interested in understanding how the world can change so rapidly. Through Gladwell's brilliant writing, readers are taken on a journey that examines the volatility of social issues and how they can be addressed with the right intervention. This book will help readers develop new strategies and ways of viewing the world that can be applied to everyday life. Gladwell's unique perspective provides readers with an engaging and insightful look into the world around us.

Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients — or that two judges in the same court give different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different food inspectors give different ratings to indistinguishable restaurants — or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to be handling the particular complaint. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same inspector, or the same company official make different decisions, depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical. In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show how noise helps produce errors in many fields, including medicine, law, public health, economic forecasting, food safety, forensic science, bail verdicts, child protection, strategy, performance reviews and personnel selection. And although noise can be found wherever people make judgments and decisions, individuals and organizations alike commonly ignore to its role in their judgments and in their actions. They show “noise neglect.” With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions. Packed with new ideas, and drawing on the same kind of diligent, insightful research that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times and international bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment — and what we can do about it.

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a must-read for anyone looking to navigate our uncertain world. The book provides a revolutionary way to think about uncertainty and risk, proposing that the key to success is not resilience but antifragility, which thrives and gets stronger amidst chaos and disorder. Taleb's witty and erudite analysis stretches across a range of topics, from personal finance to political systems, and is backed by both ancient wisdom and modern research. Overall, Antifragile is an ambitious and thought-provoking read that may just change the way you see the world.

Everyone wants to succeed in life. But what causes some of us to be more successful than others? Is it really down to skill and strategy - or something altogether more unpredictable? This book is the word-of-mouth sensation that will change the way you think about business and the world. It is all about more precisely, how we perceive luck in our personal and professional experiences. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the markets - we hear an entrepreneur has 'vision' or a trader is 'talented', but all too often their performance is down to chance rather than skill. It is only because we fail to understand probability that we continue to believe events are non-random, finding reasons where none exist. This irreverent bestseller has shattered the illusions of people around the world by teaching them how to recognize randomness. Now it can do the same for you.

It's raining fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking (previously published as A Field Guide to Lies) that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like "fringe theories," "extreme views," "alt truth," and even "fake news" can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.

Fooled by Randomness is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are The Black Swan, Antifragile,and The Bed of Procrustes.

Bestselling author Michael Lewis examines how a Nobel Prize–winning theory of the mind altered our perception of reality.Forty years ago, Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred, systematically, when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made much of Michael Lewis’s own work possible. Kahneman and Tversky are more responsible than anybody for the powerful trend to mistrust human intuition and defer to algorithms.The Undoing Project is about the fascinating collaboration between two men who have the dimensions of great literary figures. They became heroes in the university and on the battlefield―both had important careers in the Israeli military―and their research was deeply linked to their extraordinary life experiences. In the process they may well have changed, for good, mankind’s view of its own mind.

A black swan is an event, positive or negative, that is deemed improbable yet causes massive consequences. In this groundbreaking and prophetic book, Taleb shows in a playful way that Black Swan events explain almost everything about our world, and yet we—especially the experts—are blind to them. In this second edition, Taleb has added a new essay, On Robustness and Fragility , which offers tools to navigate and exploit a Black Swan world.

A new, evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behaviorHalf of all Americans have money in the stock market, yet economists can't agree on whether investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern financial theory assumes, or irrational and inefficient, as behavioral economists believe--and as financial bubbles, crashes, and crises suggest. This is one of the biggest debates in economics and the value or futility of investment management and financial regulation hang on the outcome. In this groundbreaking book, Andrew Lo cuts through this debate with a new framework, the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis, in which rationality and irrationality coexist.Drawing on psychology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and other fields, Adaptive Markets shows that the theory of market efficiency isn't wrong but merely incomplete. When markets are unstable, investors react instinctively, creating inefficiencies for others to exploit. Lo's new paradigm explains how financial evolution shapes behavior and markets at the speed of thought--a fact revealed by swings between stability and crisis, profit and loss, and innovation and regulation.A fascinating intellectual journey filled with compelling stories, Adaptive Markets starts with the origins of market efficiency and its failures, turns to the foundations of investor behavior, and concludes with practical implications--including how hedge funds have become the Galapagos Islands of finance, what really happened in the 2008 meltdown, and how we might avoid future crises.An ambitious new answer to fundamental questions in economics, Adaptive Markets is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how markets really work.

How We Decide is a must-read for those interested in using neuroscience to enhance decision-making. Lehrer's discussion of the proper blend of intuition and rationality, as well as how to recognize the balance, will be beneficial to policymakers and business executives alike.

Fascinating and provocative, Ariely's The Truth About Dishonesty is an insightful and brilliantly researched take on cheating, deception and willpower. Internationally bestselling author Ariely pulls no punches when it comes to home truths.

If you're someone who loves solving puzzles and exploring the hidden side of things, then "Freakonomics" is a perfect choice for you. With a blend of captivating storytelling and thought-provoking insights, Steven Levitt takes you on a journey into the fascinating world of incentives and human behavior. Get ready to have your mind blown as you discover the shocking connections between unexpected topics like guns and swimming pools or drug dealers and their moms. Prepare to challenge your conventional wisdom and view the world through a whole new lens. "Freakonomics" will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew and redefining the way you understand the complexities of the modern world.

Author Q&A with Tim Harford [image] So are you an economic missionary, or is this just something that you love to do? It began as something that I love to do--and I think I am now starting to get a sense of it being a mission. People can use economics and they can use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote The Undercover Economist, it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the books: they are always such fun to write. Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate? People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong. Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology? I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. The Undercover Economist was basically all the cool economics I could think of and The Logic of Life was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in The Logic of Life were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, Adapt, is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different way: I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it. What specific subjects do you tackle? To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they are being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are not being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error. Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees? I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar. The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success? I was working on a book before The Undercover Economist… it was going to be a sort of Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary-styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually funny. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you made a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did. That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK? I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in politics. What actually happens is politicians--and this is true of all political parties--have got some project and they’ll say, “Right, we are going to do this thing,” and it is quite likely that idea is a bad idea--because most ideas fail; the world is complicated and while I don’t have the numbers for this, most ideas are, as it turns out, not good ideas. But they never collect the data, or whatever it is they need to measure, to find out where their idea is failing. So they have this bad idea, roll this bad idea out and the bad idea sticks, costs the country hundreds, millions, or billions of pounds, and then the bad idea is finally reversed by the next party on purely ideological grounds and you never find out whether it really worked or not. So we have this very, very low willingness to collect the data that would be necessary to demonstrate failure, which is the bit we actually need. To give a brief example: Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, came along and introduced these long, bendy buses. Boris Johnson came along and said, “If you elect me, I am going to get rid of those big bendy buses and replace them with double-decker buses.” He was elected and he did it, so… which one of them is right? I don’t know. I mean, isn’t that crazy? I know democracy is a wonderful thing and we voted for Ken Livingstone and we voted for Boris Johnson, but it would be nice to actually have the data on passenger injury rates, how quickly people can get on and off these buses, whether disabled people are using these buses… the sort of basic evidence you would want to collect. Based on that, are you a supporter of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, which in a sense favours local experimentation over central government planning? Well, I have some sympathy for the idea of local experimentation, but what worries me is that we have to have some mechanism that is going to tell you what is working and what is not--and there is no proposal for that. Cameron’s Tories seem to have the view that ‘if it is local then it will work.’ In my book, I have all kinds of interesting case studies of situations where localism really would have worked incredibly well, as in, say, the US Army in Iraq. But I have also got examples of where localism did not work well at all--such as a corruption-fighting drive in Indonesia. Is the new book, Adapt, your movement away from economic rationalist to management guru? Are you going to cast your eye over bigger problems? The two changes in Adapt are that I have tried to start with the problem, rather than saying, “I have got a hammer--I’m going to look for a nail.” I started with a nail and said, “Ok, look, I need to get this hammered in.” So I have started with the problem and then looked anywhere for solutions. And the second thing is that I have tried to do is write with more of a narrative. This is not a Malcolm Gladwell book, but I really admire the way that people like Gladwell get quite complex ideas across because they get you interested in the story; that is something that I have tried to do more of here. I am not too worried about it, because I know that I am never going to turn into Malcolm Gladwell--I am always going to be Tim Harford--but it doesn’t hurt to nudge in a certain direction. On Amazon, we recommend new book ideas to people: “If you like Tim Harford you may like…”, but what does Tim Harford also like? I read a lot of books, mostly non-fiction and in two categories: people who I think write a lot better than I do, and people who think about economics more deeply than I do. In the first category I am reading people like Michael Lewis, Kathryn Schulz (I loved her first book, Being Wrong), Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton. In the second category, I read lots of technical economics books, but I enjoy Steven Landsburg, Edward Glaeser (who has a book out now which looks good), Bill Easterly… I don’t necessarily agree with all of these people! When I am not reading non-fiction, I am reading comic books or 1980s fantasy authors like Jack Vance.

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