Oracle Book Club

The Undercover Economist- Tim Harford

‘Reading this book is like spending an ordinary day wearing X-ray goggles’ Davod Bodanis.

‘Only hitch being that with an ordinary mind you really wont be able to make much sense of what you would see through the X-ray goggles.’ Anuj

I loved Freakonomics and when I saw this book I was tempted to grab a copy as I expected it to be on the similar lines. I have always tried to read about economics whenever I have got a chance and ‘Required Reading’ right on top of the book by Levitt (Author of Freakonomics) himself was enough for me to grab a copy of it without even looking at the price Rs. 493.60 (Are you thinking its worth every paise that’s why I took pains to mention the price till the last decimal !!).

Incase you are thinking hated the book you are mistaken. Despite of how I sounded in the above paragraph I have to agree that the book was really good. Initially while reading the book it was tough to keep myself interested and I was loosing track of his logic and theories. I had to force myself at various places to continue reading it. I also left the book halfway in between and next time when I picked the book looked very different. I was loving it, I was able to follow it and it all made a lot more sense.

May be this happened because apart from this book I reading, Blink, and few other books all at the same time. May be I should have read only one book at a time.

He uses very nice examples and gives a lot of details on why the things are , the way we see them. In the first Chapter “Who pays for our coffee” it is interesting to see the pricing mechanism followed by them to make the most out of a wide spectrum of customers, those who can pay more and those who cant, without letting them know that the prices are targeted towards them.

He talks about the supermarkets and consumer behavior, which again is really interesting. How a simple thing like where an item is placed affects our buying pattern.

The one thing I did not like about the book was a lot of argument against “externalities” and how he argued about the suggested solutions to tackle problems like traffic congestion and global warming. He does make valid and interesting points but then the problem is so complex that after understanding the pros and cons of his approach you would think that even this is not going to work. May be he should have used some example for which he would have been able to give a convincing solution.

The most interesting part of the book is the later half. Here he talks about Globalization and gives some points in support and talks about why there are people who oppose it. He talks about Cameroon, and why the country is getting poor everyday instead of getting richer despite the “Political Stability” and why the people in Cameroon do not have an incentive to save at all.
And the book would have been incomplete without talking about India and China story, and he does talk about that. Though about China in much greater detail and I really did not know so much about China and history of its economic reforms so far. India gets a fleeting mention and he only explains how China benefited from its relationship with Taiwan, Hong Kong etc and how India did not have that advantage.

One of the really interesting arguments was about the “Sweat Shops” in the under developed and developing country. The author supports these sweat shops vehemently and argues that these working conditions and opportunities because of these sweat shops are much better than starving or not having any opportunities at all. He argues that in long term these sweat shops will make way for more opportunities, better health, higher salaries and a better future.

All in all if you are game for a little heavy reading grab a copy.

posted by Anuj @ 12:40 PM