Product Description

David Friedman has never taken an economics class in his life. Sure, he's taught economics at UCLA. Chicago, Tulane, Cornell, and Santa Clara, but don't hold that against him. After all, everyone's an economist. We all make daily decisions that rely, consciously or not, on an acute understanding of economic theory--from picking the fastest checkout tine at the supermarket to voting or not voting, from negotiating the best job offer to finding the right person to marry.

Hidden Order is an essential guide to rational living, revealing all you need to know to get through each day without being eaten alive. Friedman's wise and immensely accessible book is perfect for amateur economists, struggling economics students, young parents and professionals--just about anyone who wants a clear-cut approach to why we make the choices we do and a sensible strategy for how to make the right ones.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184227 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 340 pages

From Amazon.com
To David Friedman (son of Milton Friedman), economics explains everything. In a way, that's an odd thing for him to say: Friedman Jr. has never taken an economics course in his life (by training he's a physicist). Yet he defines economics broadly and uses it as a tool to understand all aspects of human behavior, from selecting a mate to picking a grocery store line to switching lanes in rush-hour traffic jams. If you like the economics-for-everyman approach of such writers as Steven E. Landsburg, then Friedman is for you.

From Publishers Weekly
Friedman puts the passion back into economics with this unconventional, demanding primer. A professor at Santa Clara University (and son of Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman), he insists that economics is not primarily about money, but rather about needs, wants, choices, values?an imperfect science predicated on the assumption that people tend to rationally choose the best way to achieve their objectives. Using scores of everyday examples to steer the reader through complex concepts, he discusses consumer preferences, street crime, lotteries, plea bargains in trials, sharecropping, financial speculation, political campaign spending and much else. He demystifies international trade (e.g., there's nothing inherently bad about a trade deficit) and deconstructs the economy as an interacting system all of whose elements are interdependent. A rewarding text for serious readers. Translation and U.K. rights: Writer's Representatives.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Friedman (economics, Santa Clara Univ.) has written what he terms an unconventional presentation of the principles of economics. Using generally lively language, although there are also some dreary stretches of technical jargon, he tries to show how these principles determine the basic elements of the economy, such as prices and values, and how they are involved in explaining spending, saving, and investment behavior. Friedman is a strong supporter of the free-market system as the one that makes the economy work best. The framework of his analysis (not too clearly laid out in the text) is essentially that of the classical economists starting with Adam Smith (1776) as expanded and elaborated by his followers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Modern economic theories, particularly those of John Maynard Keynes, so influential in the post-World War II years, are given short shrift. An optional purchase for public libraries.?Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter Coll., New York
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.