| The Undercover Economist | |
| Title Orig: | The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor--and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car! |
| Author: | Tim Harford |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Non-fiction, economics |
| Publisher: | Little, Brown |
| Release Date: | 3 November 2005 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback) |
| Pages: | 288 pp (hardback) |
| Isbn: | 0-19-518977-9 |
| Isbn Note: | (hardback) |
| Dewey: | 330.9/0511 22 |
| Congress: | HC59.15 .H35 2006 |
| Oclc: | 59098699 |
The Undercover Economist is a book by Tim Harford published in 2005 by Little, Brown.[1]
The book provides an introduction to principles of economics, including demand-supply interactions, market failures, externalities, globalisation, international trade and comparative advantage. It explains in non-technical terms how Starbucks and other coffee providers price their products, why it is hard to buy a decent used car, why the health insurance system in the United States is failing, and why poor countries remain poor while the People's Republic of China has continuously grown rich in the last couple of decades.
Freakonomics author Steven Levitt called it "a rare specimen: a book on economics that will enthrall...Beautifully written and argued, it brings the power of economics to life."[2]