The Bluffer's Guides Home Page

The Bluffer's Guide to Economics
By Hilary Cooper

Extracts from the book
Balance of power
... understanding economics is no more than a game in which your aim, as economist Joan Robinson once so eloquently put it, is not so much to find "a set of ready-made answers to economic questions" as to "avoid being deceived by economists".

Counter balance
The beginning of good bluffing is to realize that economics is an abstract and often counter-intuitive subject. Any similarity it bears to real events, the real world or indeed to real people is therefore entirely co-incidental.

Rationally speaking
So important is rationality in economics that a dedicated sect (known as the Chicago School) has developed it into the idea of Rational Expectations. This theory holds not just that all behaviour is rational, but that all the rational players in the economy know exactly what is going to happen in the future because they know that everyone else is rational - rather like a game of chess where everyone is a Grand Master.

Silence of the Lambs
A key preoccupation of all Chancellors is to think up ever more innovative and imaginative taxes to spring on the increasingly sceptical public. The trick is to stick to ones that don't include the word tax in their title: call it excise duty or national insurance and people will pay up like lambs.

The Whether Forecast
Economics may claim to be a scientific, highly evolved subject with models to explain exactly what will happen in a specific set of circumstances. But bluffers will point out that with science things need to be infinitely replicable and nothing in economics ever is. From this it follows, as J.K. Galbraith remarked, that there are only two types of forecaster in economics: those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know.


Reviews
The Bluffer's Guides take a light-hearted look at the subject, yet there is a great deal of useful information.
*The Sunday Independent*





Table of Contents
Introduction Understanding how economists think Assumption The rationality principle Equilibrium Ceteris paribus The all time greats Adam Smit Thomas Malthus David Ricardo Karl Marx Alfred Marshall Leon Walras Francis Edgeworth Vilfredo Pareto John Maynard Keynes Joan Robinson Milton Friedman Amartya Sen Mastering the basics How markets work The macro economy Output Growth Savings Inflation Competition - survival of the fittest The labour market - how people fit in Trade - the final frontier Is it all a game? From theory to policy The multi-headed monster The Chancellor of the Exchequer The City The trade unions The advisers The pundits The others How (not) to manage the economy Santa's little helpers Choosing your style Hard-nosed business type Woolly liberal with a social conscience Earnest mathematician Renaissance man Radical Marxist Economics in the real world Globalisation Sustainability For richer for poorer Social capital What price health? Will you still feed me? Baffling laws and concepts Giffen goods Cobweb theorem Fallacy of the lump of labour Say's law Iron law of wages Nash equilibrium Shadow prices Some quotes Glossary



Author: Hilary Cooper
Format: 64 pages, pb
Published: October 2006
Updated:
Price: £4.99
ISBN-10 & ISBN-13: 1-903096-46-4 978-1-903096-46-8

	About the author
	Read the extracts
	Read the reviews
	Table of contents

	Available now from Amazon.co.uk
	Available soon from Amazon.com

This is no bluff! Bluffer's Guide®, Bluffer's Guides®, Bluffer's® |
Bluff Your Way®, and Xenophobe's® are Registered Trademarks |

PLEASE NOTE: Oval Books has new contact details which are as follows:
Oval Books, 5 St John's Buildings, Canterbury Crescent, London SW9 7QH, UK Tel: 020 7733 8585 Fax: 020 7733 8544 E-mail: info@ovalbooks.com