Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives... by Tyler Cowen

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Description

In Discover Your Inner Economist one of America’s most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage—often when you least expect it to be relevant. Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen... read more

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Summary

The greatest economics writer in the blogosphere switches medium to offer an extended treatise on the use of economic principles to improve the non-economic aspects of your life.

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Memorable Quotes

“Economics developed out of a recognition of the fact that many things worth having don’t just fall into our laps in the course of our everyday lives… The real purpose of economics is to get more of the good stuff in life.”
“The critical economic problem is scarcity. Money is scarce, but in most things the scarcity of time, attention, and caring is more important.”
““Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe… Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the… public.”
“In each room, ask yourself which picture you would take home – if you could take just one – and why? This forces you to keep thinking critically about the displays. If the alarm system was shut down and the guards went away, should I carry home the Cezanne, the Manet, or the Renois? In a room of Egyptian antiquities, which one caught my eye? And why? We should discuss the question with our companion. To put it crudely, we must force ourselves to keep on paying attention. Ranking the pictures focuses our attention on our favourites. It also focuses our attention on ourselves, which is in fact our favourite topic….”
“We must ignore the carping of the sophisticates. Well-educated critics may claim that pictures cannot be ranked, value is multidimensional or subjective, or that such talk, represents a totalising, colonising, possessive, post-capitalist, hegemonic Western imperialist approach. All of those missives are beside the point. When it comes to the arts, dealing with the scarcity of our attention is more important than anything, including respecting the artists.”