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The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas Paperback – April 8, 2008

by Robert H. Frank (Author)

49 customer reviews

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Why do the keypads on drive-up cash machines have Braille dots? Why are round-trip fares from Orlando to Kansas City higher than those from Kansas City to Orlando? For decades, Robert Frank has been asking his economics students to pose and answer questions like these as a way of learning how economic principles operate in the real world-which they do everywhere, all the time. Once you learn to think like an economist, all kinds of puzzling observations start to make sense. Drive-up ATM keypads have Braille dots because it's cheaper to make the same machine for both drive-up and walk-up locations. Travelers from Kansas City to Orlando pay less because they are usually price-sensitive tourists with many choices of destination, whereas travelers originating from Orlando typically choose Kansas City for specific family or business reasons. The Economic Naturalist employs basic economic principles to answer scores of intriguing questions from everyday life, and, along the way, introduces key ideas such as the cost-benefit principle, the “no cash on the table” principle, and the law of one price. This is as delightful and painless a way to learn fundamental economics as there is.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. His “Economic Scene” column appears monthly in the New York Times. His previous books include The Winner-Take-All Society (with Philip Cook), Luxury Fever, and Principles of Economics (with Ben Bernanke). Frank's many awards include the Apple Distinguished Teaching Award and the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. He lives in Ithaca, New York.

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (April 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465003575
ISBN-13: 978-0465003570
Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 49 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #436,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #783 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Theory
- #2570 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Pop Culture > General
- #27025 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences

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Stephen

A gem for economics teachers

February 26, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book is a gem for economics teachers. Though I like Freakanomics, I recommend The Economic Naturalist to the teachers I work with. Each page has bite-size little mysteries that show the power of economic thought for understanding the world around you, so it's great for helping students learn economic concepts, and for helping them see how econ is relevant to daily life. It's also great for teaching students to have curious minds--it trains you to think about all the little phenomena you see around you each day, and to apply some systematic thought to them.

By contrast, Freakanomics does not help the reader internalize and use economics concepts quite as well. (That is, except for the first two chapters on Sumo wrestlers, teachers, and real estate agents. Those are the chapters I like best in Freakanomics, and they're most like the approach of Econ Naturalist.) Freakanomics shows a few ways that the author (Levitt) solved some neat mysteries, but it doesn't do as good a job giving you the mental tools you need in order to do the same thing.

The Economic Naturalist, on the other hand, invites you to use your Econ 101 concepts to interpret the world around you. I find it more accessible. The sheer number of mysteries gives the reader a broad set of applications for using economics. This is truly a book by a teacher, for teachers.

3 people found this helpful

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David M. Chess

Fun speculation, but no more than that

January 21, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I'd hoped this book would be a collection of enlightening economic explanations of puzzling phenomena. That is in fact what it purports to be, and while reading it it sometimes feels like that, but mostly it's too shallow to be really satisfying.

The book is organized as a bunch of questions about Stuff in the Marketplace (Why does X cost more here than there? Why do Zs come in round containers while Ws come in hexagonal ones?), each with clever economically-based answers.

The problem is that the answers, while clever and facile, are pretty much entirely speculative, just-so stories without any real evaluation of whether or not they're the right explanation. "It might be because C!" Well, okay, but is it?

While it's fun to see smart people make up plausible economic explanations for puzzling things, I find it ultimately unsatisfying that the book stops there. It would of course take more work to try to verify the armchair guesses, but without that verification the whole thing ends up feeling sort of pointless. I'd much rather read about clever economic explanations that turned out to be *correct* than ones that are merely cute and/or plausible.

10 people found this helpful

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February 29, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

It lacks cohesion - I was hoping a for more systematic approach with interesting vignettes, but while some of the 'stories' or 'problems' are interesting they just
don't provide much help in understanding economics.

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xtw

Excellent but same than "The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explain Almost Everything (with blue cover)"

March 24, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent book.
Be aware it's exactly the same book than
The Economic Naturalist: Why Economics Explain Almost Everything (with blue cover)

I have bought the same content book but with different book name.

One person found this helpful

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Rafael C.

A good complement for any introductory economics course

May 5, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book, in contrast to Freakonomics, the Undercover Economist, or other book of that sort, actually explains all basic economics principles and tools that you use both implicitly and explicitly in economics, such as the cost-benefit principle, supply and demand, working with marginal terms, etc. So it really can be used as a good complement to any introductory course in economics, mainly because it helps connecting all the models, graphical and mathematical explanations with the effects they produce in real life.

2 people found this helpful

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July 12, 2007

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I could not put this easy-reading, fascinating book down. I learned more in an hour that I think I could have learned in a year of macro-economics. I recommend to ANYONE, regardless of background in economics or even aptitude at math/numbers. It is written so that anyone can read and enjoy it, and it really makes you look at commerce differently from that moment on. Plus it answers so many questions that so many of us already had (e.g., Why are there braille labels on drive-up ATMs), etc. Get this book!

6 people found this helpful

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BrianEF

Interesting Perspective

July 21, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is an enjoyable read. The author presents and answers unusual economics questions and as the book goes by you, perhaps inadvertently, learn to think a bit like an economist. That is the author's intention, i.e., the economics does not have to be all charts and equations.

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