Behavioural Economics: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Michelle Baddeley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019107117X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
Traditionally economists have based their economic predictions on the assumption that humans are super-rational creatures, using the information we are given efficiently and generally making selfish decisions that work well for us as individuals. Economists also assume that we're doing the very best we can possibly do - not only for today, but over our whole lifetimes too. But increasingly the study of behavioural economics is revealing that our lives are not that simple. Instead, our decisions are complicated by our own psychology. Each of us makes mistakes every day. We don't always know what's best for us and, even if we do, we might not have the self-control to deliver on our best intentions. We struggle to stay on diets, to get enough exercise and to manage our money. We misjudge risky situations. We are prone to herding: sometimes peer pressure leads us blindly to copy others around us; other times copying others helps us to learn quickly about new, unfamiliar situations. This Very Short Introduction explores the reasons why we make irrational decisions; how we decide quickly; why we make mistakes in risky situations; our tendency to procrastination; and how we are affected by social influences, personality, mood and emotions. The implications of understanding the rationale for our own financial behaviour are huge. Behavioural economics could help policy-makers to understand the people behind their policies, enabling them to design more effective policies, while at the same time we could find ourselves assaulted by increasingly savvy marketing. Michelle Baddeley concludes by looking forward, to see what the future of behavioural economics holds for us. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Behavioural Economics

Author: Michelle Baddeley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019875499X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
Economics and behaviour -- Motivation and incentives -- Social lives -- Quick thinking -- Risky choices -- Taking time -- Personalities, moods, and emotions -- Behaviour in the macroeconomy -- Economic behaviour and public policy

Economics: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Partha Dasgupta
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191518050
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
Economics has the capacity to offer us deep insights into some of the most formidable problems of life, and offer solutions to them too. Combining a global approach with examples from everyday life, Partha Dasgupta describes the lives of two children who live very different lives in different parts of the world: in the Mid-West USA and in Ethiopia. He compares the obstacles facing them, and the processes that shape their lives, their families, and their futures. He shows how economics uncovers these processes, finds explanations for them, and how it forms policies and solutions. Along the way, Dasgupta provides an intelligent and accessible introduction to key economic factors and concepts such as individual choices, national policies, efficiency, equity, development, sustainability, dynamic equilibrium, property rights, markets, and public goods. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Robert C. Allen
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019162053X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Book Description
Why are some countries rich and others poor? In 1500, the income differences were small, but they have grown dramatically since Columbus reached America. Since then, the interplay between geography, globalization, technological change, and economic policy has determined the wealth and poverty of nations. The industrial revolution was Britain's path breaking response to the challenge of globalization. Western Europe and North America joined Britain to form a club of rich nations by pursuing four polices-creating a national market by abolishing internal tariffs and investing in transportation, erecting an external tariff to protect their fledgling industries from British competition, banks to stabilize the currency and mobilize domestic savings for investment, and mass education to prepare people for industrial work. Together these countries pioneered new technologies that have made them ever richer. Before the Industrial Revolution, most of the world's manufacturing was done in Asia, but industries from Casablanca to Canton were destroyed by western competition in the nineteenth century, and Asia was transformed into 'underdeveloped countries' specializing in agriculture. The spread of economic development has been slow since modern technology was invented to fit the needs of rich countries and is ill adapted to the economic and geographical conditions of poor countries. A few countries - Japan, Soviet Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, and perhaps China - have, nonetheless, caught up with the West through creative responses to the technological challenge and with Big Push industrialization that has achieved rapid growth through investment coordination. Whether other countries can emulate the success of East Asia is a challenge for the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Microeconomics

Author: Avinash Dixit
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199689377
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
The issues of microeconomics - including individuals' financial choices and firms' decisions about hiring and firing - have a large impact on the economic world, arguably as much, if not more than, macroeconomics. In this Very Short Introduction Avinash Dixit clearly explains what microeconomics is by using examples from around the world.

An Introduction to Behavioral Economics

Author: Nick Wilkinson
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 540

Book Description
This book compares and contrasts the neo-classic standard economics model with the behavioural economics model and shows how the latter attempts to explain the anomalies found in empirical research.

Globalization: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Manfred B. Steger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192589326
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Behavioural Economics and Finance

Author: Michelle Baddeley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136250085
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Standard models in economics and finance usually assume that people are rational, self-interested maximisers, effectively co-ordinated via the invisible hand of the price mechanism. Whilst these approaches produce tractable, simple models, they cannot fully capture the uncertainties and instabilities that affect everyday choices in today’s complex world. Insights from the other social and behavioural sciences can help to fill the gap and behavioural economics is the subject which brings economics and finance together with psychology, neuroscience and sociology. Behavioural Economics and Finance introduces the reader to some of the key concepts and insights from this rich, inter-disciplinary approach to real-world decision-making.

Design: A Very Short Introduction

Author: John Heskett
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0192854461
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 169

Book Description
This book will transform the way you think about design by showing how integral it is to our daily lives, from the spoon we use to eat our breakfast cereal to the medical equipment used to save lives. John Heskett goes beyond style and taste to look at how different cultures and individuals personalise objects.

Rastafari: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Ennis Barrington Edmonds
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199584524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161

Book Description
Rastafari has grown into an international socio-religious movement, with adherents of Rastafari found in most of the major population centres and outposts of the world. This Very Short Introduction provides a brief account of this widespread but often poorly understood movement, looking at its history, central principles, and practices.