Saturday, February 17, 2007

"Trust Me, I'm an Economist"

Economists is rising in popularity! Enrollment numbers in economics have recovered from their early 1990s fall (news story here) and books like "Freakonomics" and (the lesser known) "The Undercover Econmist" are feeding those hungry for economic knowledge that is useful to them.

Freakonomics: it punched hard, hit a soft spot, and make no apoligies: "If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work". It screamed at real estate agents, explained why drug dealers live with their mom, claimed that public programs had nothing to do with lower crime rates, and even asked you to notice the ritzy headphones on the kid asking for your change. If this is too hardcore for your liking, I have an alternative.

Tim Harford has put three clips from "Trust Me, I'm an Economist" (airing on the BBC in August) on YouTube. Each of these less then 3 minute clips are worth seeing! Here is the link to all three clips: (my labels: Ask an Economist, The Used Car Market, Stock Tips and other Lies".

Another great line from Tim Harford: "If you pay 10 euros a day to protect yourself from a 900 euro excess, then that's fair if you crash into something every 90 days. Of course, if your driving is that bad or the roads are that dangerous, you should probably walk instead."

Questions, please. Trust me. I have no incentives to lie. I am not selling you anything (I don't have ads on my blog).

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you need help to post youtube and google videos onto your blog? Do you want your blog to be more interactive than EC? Well then surf over to xick.blogspot.com where a real geek (not a nerd like these economist) can answer your questions.

Canadian Economist said...

Ha ha ha - thanks Matt(you super nerd)!
I will have a look and improve my blog. I thought I was doing sooo well using the hyperlink. My public is so demanding.

Unknown said...

Well Now you can't say your blog doesn't have ads :-P

P.S I'm a geek you're a nerd

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