Analysis Of Tim Harford s The Undercover Economist

Human beings have always sought after one goal: improving their lives. This naturally has to be done through learning more and making better decisions. Perhaps the most important field humanity has ever been a part of, economics provides us with the solutions and skills to increase the welfare and standard of living for all of us. From being able to determine whether a low income child gets an education to explaining why the washing machine was imperative to global development in the 20th century, economics has an unparalleled impact on the way every person runs their lives; it being such a powerful element of humanity makes it such an inviting prospect to study in the summer and later read at university. Having always questioned simple features and tendencies of everyday life that I suspected were largely deducible by economic theory I decided to read Tim Harford’s â€Å"The Undercover Economist†. I particularly enjoyed at how he was able to address and analyse human properties of systems and use that to demonstrate why some fail and some work. I agreed with Harford’s characterisation of scarcity power in which it is able to manipulate humanity’s desire for special products and their lackadaisical attitude to finding better prices as well as his reasoning for the failure of Nepal’s irrigation systems being due to lack of incentive for workers to collaborate thus heavily reducing effectiveness. This is one of the several manifestations of the ability of economics to provide us