Essential Economics

by Matthew Bishop

Published 11 September 2000
Everything you need to know about economics in a strikingly attractive paperback format with flaps. Following an introduction entitled the "Joy of Economics", which explains what economics is about, its strengths and shortcomings and the challenges facing economists today, the bulk of the book is an expansive A-Z with several hundred entries that explain with the essentials of economics - as well as some of its more arcane aspects. Entries include: Absolute advantage, Adverse selection, Animal spirits, Asymmetric shock, Backwardation, Bounded rationality, Capital flight, Deflation, Development economics, Diminishing returns, Elasticity, Endogenous, Exogenous, Free rising, Giffen goods, Gini coefficient, Hysteresis, Invisible hand, Liquidity trap, Macroeconomics, Microeconomics, Opportunity cost, Pareto efficiency, Queuing, Random walk, Say's law, Transaction costs, Utility, Velocity of circulation, Weightless economy, Yield Gap and Zero sum game.

Economics is all around us, essential to every aspect of our lives.

But just how much does the average person understand about what Economics is for, how it underpins crucial decisions taken every day and how it has, and continues to, evolve?

Step forward The Economist's official guide to Economics, written with the clarity and wit for which the newspaper is renowned and featuring bite-sized overviews of the most important economic ideas, concepts and terms.

If you need to understand why a country's balance of payments is such a big deal , whether deflation is always a bad thing, or exactly why John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman were so influential, then dipping into this A-Z Guide will provide the answers.

Primer, glossary, dictionary and guide, Economics offers everything you always wanted to know about Economics, but perhaps were afraid to ask.