Armchair Economist [Hardcover]

Steven Landsburg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 1993

Seat belts cause accidents because well-protected drivers take more risks. This widely documented fact comes as a surprise to most people, but not to economists, who have learned, perhaps better than most, to take seriously the proposition that people respond to incentives in complicated ways. In The Armchair Economist, Steven E. Landsburg shows how economic thinking illuminates the entire range of human behavior. But instead of focusing on the workings of financial markets, international trade, and other topics distant from the experience of most readers, Landsburg mines the details of daily life to reveal what the laws of economics tell us about ourselves. As Landsburg shows, some behavior that strikes most people as utterly unremarkable is quite extraordinary when seen through economists' eyes. Why, for example, does popcorn cost so much at the movie theater? The "obvious" answer is that the theater owner has a monopoly. But if that were the whole story then he would charge a monopoly price for use of the restrooms as well. When a sudden frost destroys much of the Florida orange crop and prices skyrocket, journalists often point to "obvious" evidence of monopoly power. Economists see just the opposite: If growers had monopoly power, they wouldn't have to wait for a frost to raise prices. Why do restaurants earn higher profits on liquor than on food? Why are some goods sold at auction and others at pre-announced prices? Why don't concert promoters raise ticket prices even when they sell out months in advance? Why do box seats at the ballpark sell out before bleachers do? Why do corporations confer huge pensions on failed executives? Landsburg wields the tools of the economist's tradeto solve these puzzles, often reaching conclusions that are at odds with our intuition. After revealing economic principles in readily apparent phenomena of everyday life, Landsburg applies these same principles to newspaper and media accounts of public issues. Contesting the wid

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Landsburg demystifies the economics of everyday behavior in these diverting if not always persuasive essays. Why don't promoters of sell-out rock concerts raise the advance ticket price? Because, suggests the author, promoters want the good will of teenage audiences who will buy lots of rock paraphernalia. Why are executives' salaries so high? One reason, opines Landsburg, is that stockholders expect managers to take risks, and well-heeled executives are more likely to do so. Associate professor of economics at the University of Rochester in New York, Landsburg applies his counter-intuitive analyses, with mixed results, to everything from taxes, auctions, baseball and the high price of movie theater popcorn to government inefficiency, the death penalty, environmentalism (which he attacks as a dogmatic, coercive ideology) and NAFTA.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Landsburg (economics, Univ. of Rochester) demonstrates the economist's way of thinking about everyday occurrences. The result is a compilation of questions ranging from why popcorn costs so much at movie theaters and why rock concerts sell out to why laws against polygamy are detrimental to women. Many of the issues raised are controversial and even somewhat humorous, but they are clearly explained only from an economic perspective as opposed to other dynamics of human behavior. There are also clear explanations of the misconceptions about unemployment rates, measures of inflation, and interest rates. The book is not a textbook but shows how one economist solves puzzling questions that occur in daily living. Recommended for general collections.
- Jane M. Kathman, Coll. of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minn.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 252 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1ST edition (September 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029177758
• ISBN-13: 978-0029177754
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #298,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven E. Landsburg is a Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester. He is the author of More Sex Is Safer Sex, The Armchair Economist, Fair Play, two textbooks on economics, and over thirty journal articles in mathematics, economics, and philosophy. He writes the popular "Everyday Economics" column in Slate magazine and has written for Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

89 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tour the mind of an economist, August 6, 2001

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life (Paperback)

If you're remotely interested in economics, you should read this book; it's a hoot.

Not too many books on economics could be described as a "hoot." But Steven Landsburg, an economics professor at the University of Chicago when he wrote this book (now he's at the University of Rochester), has a delightfully sharp sense of humor and a gift for clear, logical exposition. He also doesn't in the least mind naming names when it comes to egregious economic fallacies and the people who commit them: he keeps a "Sound and Fury file" consisting of economic gaffes from the op-ed pages and he devotes a chapter to exposing the culprits.

His theme is easily stated, and he states it on the first page: the substance of economic science is that people respond to incentives. "The rest," he writes in deliberate imitation of Rabbi Hillel, "is commentary."

Landsburg fills the rest of the book with such commentary. His witty and occasionally sarcastic exposition deals neatly with such topics as why recycling paper doesn't really save trees; why certain statistics are not reliable measures of the "income gap" between rich and poor; why the GNP is not an especially accurate measure of national wealth; why unemployment isn't necessarily a bad thing; why taxes _are_ a bad thing; why real economists don't care about what's "good for the economy" or endorse the pursuit of monetary profit apart from personal happiness; and lots of other points that will no doubt be profoundly irritating to people who just _know_ he _can't possibly_ be right.

For example, Landsburg is delightfully allergic to the claims of the "environmental" movement and recognizes it quite clearly as a strongly moralistic religion. And contrary to the opinions of some not terribly careful readers, he does distinguish firmly between the actual harm caused by pollution and the psychic harm caused by (e.g.) the use of automobiles to people who object in principle to such technology.

Interestingly, Landsburg recognizes a problem here for his own cost-benefit approach: if economic efficiency with regard to utilitarian/consequentialist goods and bads were really the whole story, he notes, he should care about _both_ the physical harm and the psychic harm, and yet he doesn't.

Which leads neatly into the other notable feature of this volume: Landsburg is stunningly forthright about the nature -- and the limits -- of cost-benefit analysis. Unlike some economists who like to pretend such analysis is value-free and involves no commitment to any particular view of morality, Landsburg is clear that cost-benefit analysis is quite unambiguously committed to one particular moral outlook (which he characterizes and describes very neatly). And he is keenly aware of its limitations, though he is not at all confident about what should replace it.

The problem, roughly, is this (the following characterization is mine, not his). As Landsburg notes several times, cost-benefit analysis does not regard "theft" as a cost, since it merely transfers existing stuff from one person to another; society is no worse off on net after the theft than before it. (Of course theft entails _further_ costs that _do_ leave society worse off, but that's not the point here.) Economics, as Landsburg describes it, looks only at _outcomes_ and not at how we got to them. And even at that, it looks only at one abstract feature of such outcomes, namely, how much "good" there is in the aggregate.

And yet most of us would say that "society" _is_ somehow worse off after a theft -- that there is some sort of "moral cost" involved in the theft itself quite apart from its further consequences, and that it makes a difference whose "good" is rightfully achieved or acquired and whose is not. (Some of us might even say that there is something illegitimate in comparing the thief's gain to the victim's loss in the first place.) In ordinary moral discourse, it matters very much how we arrived at a given state of affairs.

If so, then economic science has two choices (this is still my opinion, not his). (1) It can throw those "moral costs" into the mix and deal with "rights and wrongs" in the same way it deals with "goods and bads." In that case, the total "good" will take account of the number and quality of right acts vs. wrong acts. (2) It can ignore those "moral costs" and continue as before.

In either case, economic science _as Landsburg presents it_ is simply insufficient as a guide to policy decisions. (Landsburg tends to acknowledge this, maintaining only that cost-benefit analysis is an important _part_ of whatever it is we need to make policy decisions.) And it is certainly not -- as Landsburg also recognizes in a wonderfully forthright chapter -- sufficient as a guide to personal conduct.

So this volume gets five stars even though Landsburg doesn't have much to say about what should supplement cost-benefit analysis. It's a terrific introduction to economic thinking genreally, and it's also a clear and frank recognition of the limitations of such thinking at least as practiced by many mainstream economists.

83 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars sometimes misses the point of opposing arguments, December 12, 2004

By 

James J. Lippard "skeptic" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life (Paperback)

Landsburg's book is entertaining and often witty, and written in a conversational, easy-to-read style. The book is very good at presenting often unintuitive and novel (to the non-economist) ways of looking at things. This is an invaluable book for pointing out common fallacies in arguments about deficits, inflation, unemployment, and other major political issues. At the same time, however, I can't help but think that Landsburg occasional misses significant relevant issues, most glaringly in the final chapter on environmentalism. For example, Landsburg describes a case where Jack wants a woodland at the expense of Jill's parking space and vice versa, and argues that the desires are exactly symmetrical. While environmentalists claim that the wilderness should take precedence "because a decision to pave is 'irrevocable'", Landsburg says "a decision _not_ to pave is _equally_ irrevocable" because "Unless we pave today, my opportunity to park tomorrow is lost as irretrievably as tomorrow itself will be lost" (p. 224). While this is correct, this misses the environmentalist's point that it is much easier to convert woodland to parking lot than to do the reverse. The environmentalist fears taking actions that are irrevocable in the sense that they cannot be undone in the future. Landsburg's perspective throughout the book seems to me to ignore the possibility of actions taken which may have consequences which may adversely effect the very existence of mankind (or economic institutions).

Another example in the same chapter is when he suggests that the best way for environmentalists to support the existence of cattle is to eat beef: "If you want ranchers to keep a lot of cattle, you should eat a lot of beef" (p. 225). This presumes that environmentalists care about the number of cattle in existence, irrespective of their living conditions. Would Landsburg have told abolitionists during the Civil War to buy more cotton as a way of improving the plight of slaves?

Yet a third example in the same chapter is about preservation of the Amazon rain forest, because a new species of monkey was discovered there in October 1992. Landsburg writes that this gives him reason _not_ to preserve the rain forest, since he "lived a long time without knowing about this monkey and never missed it" (p. 226). Would he make the same argument if it was a tribe of people whose existence depended on the rain forest rather than a species of monkey? If not, then he's missing the point of those who argue that animals (or the environment) have inherent value. It is clear from his writing that he disagrees, yet his own position does assign inherent value to the interests of people and so is not neutral. He seems to admit at the end of this chapter--in the letter he wrote to his child's teacher--that his view on environmentalism amounts to a religious view that is not subject to discussion (just as he thinks environmentalism itself amounts to a religion being inappropriately taught to his child).

Despite my complaints, I found the book as a whole to be entertaining and informative, and would recommend it along with David Friedman's _Law's Order_ (I haven't read Friedman's _Hidden Order_) for insight into economic analysis of issues of the day.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Delightfully thought-provoking but uneven, April 23, 2002

By 

David P. Caldwell (Cleveland Heights, Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Armchair Economist: Economics & Everyday Life (Paperback)

"Why do rock concerts sell out in minutes -- couldn't the promoters raise the ticket prices?" "Why does movie popcorn cost so much?" "How much harm is caused by government debt?" "Why is it hard to measure inflation? Output? The rich/poor gap?"

This book is a series of loosely organized essays about "how economists think." The target audience appears to be people like myself, who are interested in economics, but are not highly trained in the field. It's a good companion to "The Economics of Public Issues," which focuses on real-world illustrations of basic economic concepts. This book focuses on how to approach analyzing the real world for yourself.

According to the Introduction, many of the essays have grown out of discussions Landsburg had with his regular lunch group ... and what lunches those must have been! Questions are raised, and explanations batted about and critiqued. Assuming that Landsburg is a typical economist, the book succeeds spectacularly in illustrating "how economists think." Many of the essays retain what must have been the original feel of the lunchtime debates (ideas are raised, then criticized, then rejected or refined) -- a form which sheds considerable light upon how economists approach problems. The essay about why economists are sometimes wrong is very enlightening. It describes why economists thought that unemployment and inflation were inversely related -- until government started acting on that assumption, which destroyed the relationship. While I'm not very good at macroeconomics, Landsburg's explanation of this is simple and persuasive, and creates more insights into how the study of economics works.

As a series of essays, some are better than others. Landsburg slips easily between making arguments about issues to making assertions about issues. Since the target audience is amateurs like myself, it's a little hard for an untrained reader to critically evaluate the assertions, but (after much head-scratching) I think some of them are flawed. Landsburg clearly feels strongly about some topics, and it's possible that when he gets worked up about an issue he loses some of his open-mindedness. The essay on environmentalism beats up on environmentalist excess but provides little in the way of alternatives. (I worked for an environmental group at one point; Landsburg's critiques are largely accurate but veer off-topic and illuminate little.) He ridicules several prominent public figures (Felix Rohaytn, extensively, and several US presidential candidates from 1984-1992) for making statements reflecting economic illiteracy, but fails to address the issue: the public's economic illiteracy would instantly render unelectable a candidate who said the things Landsburg says.

Still, distilling several years of what must have been stimulating lunchtime discussions into a book which can be read in a few hours is a valuable service. The reading is easy, the topics are accessible (for the most part), and the thinking is clear. Also, since these essays came from leisure time, they successfully communicate some of the joy of studying economic issues.

The book feels like one long lunch with a great group. The more standoffish, angrier essays were concentrated near the end, so they feel like one guest had had one too many martinis and should go home rather than back to work. But they'd still be worth eating with again.

(N.B. Landsburg has a monthly column for Slate, if you'd like to sample some of his writing or you liked this book and want more.)