Economic Facts and Fallacies

Economic Facts and Fallacies PDF Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465026303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
Thomas Sowell “both surprises and overturns received wisdom” in this indispensable examination of widespread economic fallacies (The Economist) Economic Facts and Fallacies exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues-and does so in a lively manner and without requiring any prior knowledge of economics by the reader. These include many beliefs widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as mistaken ideas about urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as economics fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries. One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power-and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important, as well as sometimes humorous. Written in the easy-to-follow style of the author's Basic Economics, this latest book is able to go into greater depth, with real world examples, on specific issues.

Economic Facts and Fallacies

Economic Facts and Fallacies PDF Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465026303
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book Here

Book Description
Thomas Sowell “both surprises and overturns received wisdom” in this indispensable examination of widespread economic fallacies (The Economist) Economic Facts and Fallacies exposes some of the most popular fallacies about economic issues-and does so in a lively manner and without requiring any prior knowledge of economics by the reader. These include many beliefs widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as mistaken ideas about urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as economics fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries. One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their staying power-and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and important, as well as sometimes humorous. Written in the easy-to-follow style of the author's Basic Economics, this latest book is able to go into greater depth, with real world examples, on specific issues.

20 Economics Fallacies

20 Economics Fallacies PDF Author: Tim Worstall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781907720963
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
"Tim Worstall, always clear thinking, nails the myths that grow up around economics in this useful book. A terrific compendium of fallacies and their refutations." Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist. This book is simply a discussion of those errors which I've had to repeatedly correct in this past decade of my writing about matters economic. It gets rather boring having to point out the same errors again and again: thus putting the explanations into one simple format handy for waving at people rather than having to trot out the same old explanation again. This book is an idiosyncratic look at a number of common economic fallacies and mistakes. It does not pretend to be be exhaustive, a thorough examination of all the mistakes that economics, both folk and formal, can become prey to. Rather, it's about those that I've come across and find that I have to continually point out the folly of. For example, the Labour Theory of Value has been around for a long time and forms the heart of the basic underpinnings of Marxism. Yet it was disproved at around the time that Marx was publishing Das Kapital: and it has remained wrong since then whatever the insistences of the ideologues. So there is a simple explanation of why that particular theory is wrong. On what is perhaps more my side of the fence, free market zealotry (and I confess to being a market zealot) it is also wrong to proclaim that free markets can and will solve every problem. This is not, sadly, so: there are times when interventions must be made, even times when something must be done and government is the only actor able to do that thing.

Economics in One Lesson

Economics in One Lesson PDF Author: Henry Hazlitt
Publisher: Crown Currency
ISBN: 0307760626
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
With over a million copies sold, Economics in One Lesson is an essential guide to the basics of economic theory. A fundamental influence on modern libertarianism, Hazlitt defends capitalism and the free market from economic myths that persist to this day. Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,” which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek, and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of The Freeman magazine, an influential libertarian publication. Hazlitt wrote Economics in One Lesson, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have almost become a new orthodoxy. Economic commentators across the political spectrum have credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of Economics in One Lesson. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and the dangers of government intervention make Economics in One Lesson every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.

Thirteen Persistent Economic Fallacies

Thirteen Persistent Economic Fallacies PDF Author: E. Mishan
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
E. J. Mishan, an iconoclastic economist who has taught at such schools as the London School of Economics and the New School for Social Research, is in this volume a provocateur, smashing staunchly held beliefs of the right (free trade and common markets are good for the economy), and the left (local jobs are always lost when factories close down, pay disparity between men and women signifies discrimination). He also pokes holes in the accepted wisdom held by all, arguing for example that economic growth does not necessarily improve lives. Those who believe the fallacies Mishan exposes to the light of reason in this book are, however, neither ignorant nor careless. The fallacies are all plausible, and intelligent people can be forgiven for believing them. Mishan simply wants readers to see these thirteen popular, persistent fallacies for what they are: Humbug. Mishan's scintillating text is apolitical. In arguing that immigration does not benefit a country's economy, for example, he is not arguing in favor of restricting immigration. Rather, his goal is to test the assumptions behind the dearly held positions of both the left and the right or to expose what he calls the breathtaking fatuity that counts as wisdom these days. Mishan wants to interject common sense and logic into today's debates over the economy and, especially, the political arguments that translate into legislation that has a negative impact on people. Mishan's ideas breathe new life into debates gone stale by ideology. As he notes, the fallacies in this volume travel in the highest circles, from debates in Congress to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Time, and The Economist. Most are things everybody knows. He hopes, therefore, to expose the concerned citizen to the shock-treatment of discovering that much of what passes for conventional economic wisdom is in fact fallacious. As the Economist pointed out in its glowing review of the first edition of this book, Dr. Mishan has written the perfect book for anyone wishing to start the study of economics.

The Failure of the "New Economics"

The Failure of the Author: Henry Hazlitt
Publisher: Ludwig von Mises Institute
ISBN: 1610164504
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description


Applied Economics

Applied Economics PDF Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
ISBN: 9780465081431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
A companion volume to Basic Economics discusses the application of economics to such world problems as medical care, discrimination, and the development of nations, examining economic policies in terms of their immediate and longer-term repercussions.

China

China PDF Author: Thomas Orlik
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190877405
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
A provocative perspective on the fragile fundamentals, and forces for resilience, in the Chinese economy, and a forecast for the future on alternate scenarios of collapse and ascendance.

Economic Fallacies

Economic Fallacies PDF Author: Frederic Bastiat
Publisher: Simon Publications
ISBN: 9781931541022
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book, written by the celebrated nineteenth century French economist propagating free trade, reads as it was written yesterday.

Basic Economics

Basic Economics PDF Author: Thomas Sowell
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465056849
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 990

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Book Description
The bestselling citizen's guide to economics Basic Economics is a citizen's guide to economics, written for those who want to understand how the economy works but have no interest in jargon or equations. Bestselling economist Thomas Sowell explains the general principles underlying different economic systems: capitalist, socialist, feudal, and so on. In readable language, he shows how to critique economic policies in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the goals they proclaim. With clear explanations of the entire field, from rent control and the rise and fall of businesses to the international balance of payments, this is the first book for anyone who wishes to understand how the economy functions. This fifth edition includes a new chapter explaining the reasons for large differences of wealth and income between nations. Drawing on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history, Sowell explains basic economic principles for the general public in plain English.

The Delusions of Economics

The Delusions of Economics PDF Author: Gilbert Rist
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 184813925X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
In The Delusions of Economics, Gilbert Rist presents a radical critique of neoclassical economics from a social and historical perspective. Rather than enter into existing debates between different orthodoxies, Rist instead explores the circumstances that prevailed when economics was 'invented', and the resultant biases that helped forge the construction of economics as a 'science'. In doing so, Rist demonstrates how these various presuppositions are either obsolete or just plain wrong, and that traditional economics is largely based on irrational convictions that are difficult to debunk due to their 'religious' nature. As a result, we are prevented from properly understanding the world around us and dealing with the financial, environmental, and climatic crises that lie ahead. Provocative and original, this essential book provides incontrovertible proof that the construction of a new economic paradigm - pluralistic, ecologically compatible, grounded in reality - has now become a necessity.