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Poor mans freakanomics	Customer Rating:
What does a lecturer do when he has only a few original ideas? In Robert Frank's case publish his students assignments. Having read freakanomics and the undercover economist, both good reads to popularise economics this came as a major dissappointment. I would avoid this book for a variety of reasons, mainly as it is unoriginal and some concepts lack academic credibility.

Pointless

Customer Rating:

Although some of the reviewers studied economics I did not. I have an interest in economics in general. To put it simply this book is pointless and boring. I purchased this at the airport for my travels and soon became bored after the 1st couple of chapters, I continued on and it became even more boring, annoying and then frustration began. There is such a huge build up to the questions in each chapter discussing enconomic principles with a lot of economic jargon and then the majority of the questions are just pointless, eg why are hotel mini bars so expensive ? Thats plainly obvious. Why do 24hr shops have locks on them ? again obvious, why do women endure the discomfort of high heels ? I read through the questions hoping to find a different and alternative answer than the one I had in mind but this didn't happen. There is nothing wrong with the questions as such some of them could make for interesting discussions with family or friends but they shouldn't form the basis of a book on economics. Also a lot of the answers I disagreed with, not that Im an economist myself its just that he did not seem to back up his answers with any expertise, it seemed the answers came from his opinion or assumption and thats where the book becomes annoying. All in all this was a waste of money.

Some more ideas for interesting dinner table conversations... so don't expect to be dazzled

Customer Rating:

If you enjoyed Freakononics and Undercover Economist, then like myself either you have already bought this book ... or planning to buy it... expecting similar quirky questions answered with the aid of `layman' economics. The book didn't disappoint, but did not dazzle either. It definitely misses the quality of linked events and explanation of Tim Harford's Undercover Economist, but is not as bad as some of the reviews claim. Yes, it's not economist prose with complex explanations and statistics...with a unifying idea as an explanation for everything... which in my opinion frankly is a good thing. The layout is simple... each section has a series of questions with their `answers' below them... the Q&A layout makes it an easy read... which you can enjoy in chunks ...taking as much time as you like. Some questions do jog the brain, and you will definitely find a few which you yourself might have wondered from time to time. Please be aware though, that the `economic explanation' offered for the posed question MAY be one of the many right ones... it's a point of view ... with an economic angle... just like these reviews which have been posted... each with our individual opinion! A few fellow readers have been a bit generous with their criticism on for this book, but as already mentioned here a couple of times, due credit to the writer (R.H. Frank) that he confesses early in the book that the answers are a `point of view' and should be `critically' evaluated. Yes, it's not dazzling economic or literary genius... but still a good read... worth a try.

Not quite what I expected

Customer Rating:

I write this as a riposte to those reviewers who have recommended this book as good for beginners in Economics. Reminiscient of Mark Penn's "Microtrends", the content of the book consists of marginally different permutations of the same idea. Aside from the first two or three chapters, there's no real sense of continuity between the chapters or any sense of a development of concepts built upon previous chapters that you would get from a 'proper' reference book. While providing real world examples of economic concepts is a valid means of getting people interested or sufficiently energised to begin studying the subject, the book fails as a primer for the fundamental concepts (namely, what IS an economy? etc, etc.) - if anything, it assumes a certain amount of knowledge on the part of the reader. Thus, for a novice, it would be perfectly fine as a companion to a real reference book but not, alas as a standalone work, hence the 3 stars.

Does economics explain the existence of this book?

Customer Rating:

Unashamed and pointless cash-in on Freakonomics and the Undercover Economist, and not a patch on either though both have their weaknesses. This is a cobbled-together collection of oversimplistic answers to questions that in the main I wouldn't have asked. It makes some of the same faulty assumptions about logical choices and perfect markets that the other two do, but a number of the answers are so plainly wrong or miss out huge and obvious chunks that it becomes pretty annoying quite quickly. There are some interesting analyses in here but very little that a layman couldn't have figured out themselves, so the "economics" in the title could pretty much be replaced with "thinking about it". There is very little if any real innovative thinking or original insight in here. One gap that stuck in the memory was the failure to understand that in rating people in a relationship scenario, not everyone's rating of you will be the same, as people give different priority to various criteria, and may also make different assessments of the same criteria. Therefore while you may be a 9 to someone, you will only be a 6 to someone else. Without this recognition, the (surprise) market-driven answer is nonsense. This is fairly typical in that the human element seems to be removed from the answers wherever possible - this economist seems scared of the messiness of humanity spoiling his neat models of how the world should be. While he isn't unique in this, it makes a book which purports to explain how the world works of strictly limited value.