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Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist
Audiobook7 hours

Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist

Written by Tyler Cowen

Narrated by David Drummond

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

In Discover Your Inner Economist, one of America's most respected economists presents a quirky, incisive romp through everyday life that reveals how you can turn economic reasoning to your advantage-often when you least expect it to be relevant.

Like no other economist, Tyler Cowen shows how economic notions-such as incentives, signals, and markets-apply far more widely than merely to the decisions of social planners, governments, and big business. What does economic theory say about ordering from a menu? Or attracting the right mate? Or controlling people who talk too much in meetings? Or dealing with your dentist? With a wryly amusing voice, in such chapters as "How to Control the World: The Basics" and "How to Control the World: Knowing When to Stop," Cowen reveals the hidden economic patterns behind everyday situations so you can get more of what you really want.

Readers will also gain less selfish insights into how to be a good partner, neighbor, and even citizen of the world. For instance, what is the best way to give to charity? The chapter title "How to Save the World-More Christmas Presents Won't Help" makes a point that is every bit as personal as it is global.

Incentives are at the core of an economic approach to the world, but they don't just come in cash. In fact, money can be a disincentive. Cowen shows why, for example, it doesn't work to pay your kids to do the dishes. Other kinds of incentives-like making sure family members know they will be admired if they respect you-can work. Another nonmonetary incentive? Try having everyone stand up in your next meeting if you don't want anyone to drone on. Deeply felt incentives, like pride in one's work or a passing smile from a loved one, can be the most powerful of all, even while they operate alongside more mundane rewards, such as money and free food.

Discover Your Inner Economist is an introduction to the science of economics that shows it to be built on notions that are already within all of us. While the implications of those ideas lead to Cowen's often counterintuitive advice, their wisdom is presented in ordinary examples taken from home life, work life, and even vacation life. How, for example, do you get a good guide in a Moroccan bazaar?
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 1, 2007
ISBN9781400175376
Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist
Author

Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen (Ph.D.) holds the Holbert C. Harris chair in economics at George Mason University. He is the author of Discover Your Inner Economist (2007), Create Your Own Economy (2009), the New York Times bestseller The Great Stagnation (2011), An Economist Get Lunch (2012), Average is Over (2013), and a number of academic books. He writes the most read economics blog worldwide, marginalrevolution.com. He has written regularly for The New York Times and contributes to a wide number of newspapers and periodicals.

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Reviews for Discover Your Inner Economist

Rating: 3.362385420183486 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    An engaging exploration of how to understand the world and take correct decisions, and apply the right types of motivation and incentives to get people on your side and do what you want. Rendered with a touch of humor - I especially like his warning that you should hide your inner economist in a family setting! A slight concern is that the author sometimes sounds obsessive, especially when discussing eating out and optimal dining- you don't have to necessarily feel like agreeing with his views totally.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This is one of the few non-ebooks that I have left, which is sad because I would have liked to have had notes and highlights from this book saved in the Cloud for all posterity.

    Here is a recent profile on Tyler Cowen in BusinessWeek, which tells you what you need to know about him and this book. Cowen has what my family calls a "mature palate." He has been to over 70 countries and has sampled more food, books, art, and ideas than just about anyone alive. A "cultural billionaire," as he says. (I reviewed his most recent The Great Stagnation here). I jive with Cowen probably because I agree with him about food, so I use his views to confirm my own--which he writes about. (In a restaurant, always order the strangest thing on the menu as it's probably going to be the best-prepared item. And only cook/eat at home what you can't find by eating out-- also good advice). I admire his ability to read and discard books for up to 8 hours at a time, while writing his own books, blogging, traveling, teaching, and advising PhD students. Scott Sumner once asked, "How many Tyler Cowens are there?" as he must have cloned himself somehow.

    This book should probably be titled "Ignore your Inner Economist," because Cowen is often talking to people like myself-- urging us to resist what we know to be irrational and think of a greater good. Chapter 5, on signaling, seemed to be written directly to me (Pg 92):

    If you are the economically informed member of your family, or perhapes even an economist, don't flaunt it. Hide its universal nature or widespread applicability. Do not present economic wisdom as a matter of principle or as a general way of thinking about life. To look good at home, make all economic points in purely specific contexts. Don't prattle on about incentives or signaling as all-powerful means for understanding the entire world.

    He goes on to talk about how I should ignore the $4 billion in deadweight loss to society each Christmas from gift-giving, and just do it because it makes others happy and that's what matters. (And this can sometimes be modeled. Ex: If my receiving a gift causes various family members' utility to increase by 10 and mine to decrease by 2, then it's a net positive 8). This book is the antithesis of pop economics books.

    I liked his chapter on the Seven Deadly Sins. Many people engage in acts that may increase overall utility but be harmful for society in the long-run. Some people engage in arbitrage that doesn't make the market any more efficient-- people finding items on eBay that are low-priced because the seller spelled the name of the item wrong, for example.

    On the behavioral side, we all engage in the "dangerous and necessary art of self-deception." Pg. 115:

    "Many of us think... we are the best judges of political and religious truth in the entire world. If we knew some better judge of truth, we would accept that person's opinions all the time...Even the deferential think they are 'the best spotters of people to whom we should defer' in the world."

    I tend to fall into that last sentence. My last post linked to some scientific studies of self-deceptive behavior, how when some people are confronted with information contrary that seems to disprove what they believe, they simply reinforce their beliefs rather than change them. Reagan Mythology is similar to how many Muslims who refuse to believe Bin Laden was behind 9/11.

    Most useful is probably the last chapter, which is on charitable giving. Give to people who need money but aren't begging for it rather than the beggar on the corner. Become a loyal giver to a few charities and get your name off their "share" list and their costly mailing lists. Explore creative means like microcredit, where wealth can be created.

    I give this book 4 stars out of 5. Cowen is more verbose than he is on his blog or his Kindle Single. But the book definitely got better as I went, which he probably intended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very charming book illustrating with numerous well chosen examples what economics can do to help us analyze common problems we encounter in every day life. While the various topics may feel somehow disconnected and haphazard, some of them are really quirky and insightful and connect in unexpected ways with far from trivial issues of personal and cultural identity. All in all, Cowen comes across as a very insightful, nonjudgmental guy, with whom one would like to hang out for tips and relaxed cooking and music listening. Cowen keeps a very regular blog that constantly amazes me for the breadth of his interests and insights.